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Q.-First as to the cause, have you any suggestions?
A.—The same causes have affected not only Hongkong, but the neighbouring parts of China, and it is not only affecting provisions for Europeans, but food and material used by Chinese. There is no doubt about that.
Q.-Well, what has been the reason of the general rise in the cost of food for Euro- pean and Chinese? Increased demand or short supply or both combined?
A. Yes, but that hardly seems enough.
Q. What do you think has been the principal cause?
A.-I should like to find out whether the price of copper and silver had anything to do with it.
Q.-You mean cash?
A. Yes.
Q. Do you know whether there has been any considerable rise in the price of copper cash within the last two or three years?
A.--I don't know the figures but I feel sure there has been a rise.
Mr. Fung Wa Chün.-Twenty years ago for 10 cents you got 140 cash, ten years ago you got 120, and now you get no more than 96.
The Chairman. Has there been any decrease within the last two or three years ? Mr. Fung Wa Chün.-Three years ago you got 105 or 106 but now 96 or 97.
Question by Mr. Fung Wa Chün.-Don't you, Mr. Brewin, think the high rents of houses in Hongkong has got something to do with the price of food?
A.-It must of course affect the price of food to a certain extent.
Q.-The Market people have got to live outside?
A. Yes.
Q. And they pay more rent?
A. Yes.
Q.-So that they must charge people higher prices for the food they supply in order to meet their house rent?
A. Yes, they will have to do that.
The Chairman.We have got to consider that the laying down prices of the dif ferent things here is higher than it was.-Is that not one of the causes of the increase ?
A.-That is one of the causes.
Q.-There are causes outside Hongkong, cattle for instance, which have caused the prices to rise?
A.-There are. When the price of rice rises the price of everything in China
goes up.
There is then less poultry and less pork in the country.
Q. Do you think the cost of rice affects the keeping of pigs and chickens in country places where they live practically on other things than rice?
A.—I am sure of it. It is a sort of extra tax on the people if they have got to pay more for their rice and they won't keep the animals if they have got to buy rice for them.
The Chairman.-I thought chickens in the country were fed without it. Pigs, for instance, are not troubled with much rice at the best of times.
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