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£5 orders; these will presumably have been sent into town by the bank to be cashed through a city post office and, along with orders actually presented at city post offices, fail to appear in New Territories figures. The indications from the travel agencies in the last month or so of my stay in Hong Kong were of few men going to Britain; the main agency has almost stopped any new business; and it seems unlikely therefore that remittances will increase further. On the contrary, the probability is that after a while they will fall as men remain away longer, their ties with the New Territories being reduced and their commitments abroad increased. And the question will arise whether hardship will result for the New Territories. It is not simply a matter of people being deprived of extra money; if there is any resemblance between the New Territories and the emigrant areas of Fukien and Kwangtung in respect of their economic response to overseas migration, then we should be prepared to find that economic standards and activities have become so adjusted to external income that its falling away occasions disruption and distress.
81. It is of course artificial to treat the matter of overseas migration apart from the movement between the New Territories and the urban areas of the Colony. The city has always attracted New Territories people to it and provided the countryside with an income. It would be extremely interesting to have material showing where absent members of a village are at a given time and what they are doing for a living. I discovered that on one of the islands a local committee was keeping records on emigration and I was able to obtain the data which are presented below. They can have no general value for the study of the problem as a whole, but they suggest the possibility that some Rural Committees have gathered information of this sort and that others might be encouraged to do so. The total number of emigrants involved in this case is 183. Of these 62 are overseas and the remainder in the urban area of the Colony. Of the 62 overseas, 33 are seamen, 23 are in the United Kingdom, 5 in the U.S.A. and 1 in Borneo. All these are men, but 22 of the 99 people in the urban areas are women. Of the 23 men in Britain 5 are in their twenties, 7 in their thirties, 9 in their forties, 1 in his fifties, and 1 in his seventies. Of the 5 in the U.S.A. 2 are in their forties, 2 in their fifties, and 1 in his sixties. The sole man in Borneo is in his thirties. Over a dozen communities are involved in these figures. The distribution of overseas migrants and seamen
SOCIAL RESEARCH IN THE N.T. OF HONG KONG, 1963
243
£5 orders; these will presumably have been sent into town by the bank to be cashed through a city post office and, along with orders actually presented at city post offices, fail to appear in New Terri- tories figures. The indications from the travel agencies in the last month or so of my stay in Hong Kong were of few men going to Britain; the main agency has almost stopped any new business; and it seems unlikely therefore that remittances will increase further. On the contrary, the probability is that after a while they will fall as men remain away longer, their ties with the New Territories being reduced and their commitments abroad increased. And the question will arise whether hardship will result for the New Terri- tories. It is not simply a matter of people being deprived of extra money; if there is any resemblance between the New Territories and the emigrant areas of Fukien and Kwangtung in respect of their economic response to overseas migration, then we should be pre- pared to find that economic standards and activities have become so adjusted to external income that its falling away occasions dis- ruption and distress.
81. It is of course artificial to treat the matter of overseas migra- tion apart from the movement between the New Territories and the urban areas of the Colony. The city has always attracted New Territories people to it and provided the countryside with an in- come. It would be extremely interesting to have material showing where absent members of a village are at a given time and what they are doing for a living. I discovered that on one of the islands a local committee was keeping records on emigration and I was able to obtain the data which are presented below. They can have no general value for the study of the problem as a whole, but they suggest the possibility that some Rural Committees have gathered information of this sort and that others might be encouraged to do so. The total number of emigrants involved in this case is 183. Of these 62 are overseas and the remainder in the urban area of the Colony. Of the 62 overseas, 33 are seamen, 23 are in the United Kingdom, 5 in the U.S.A. and 1 in Borneo. All these are men, but 22 of the 99 people in the urban areas are women. Of the 23 men in Britain 5 are in their twenties, 7 in their thirties, 9 in their forties, 1 in his fifties, and 1 in his seventies. Of the 5 in the U.S.A. 2 are in their forties, 2 in their fifties, and I in his sixties. The sole man in Borneo is in his thirties. Over a dozen communities are involved in these figures. The distribution of overseas migrants and seamen
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