ENG-1946 — Page 21

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PART II.

Chapter I.

POPULATION.

When the last official census was held in 1931 the total population was found to be 864,117; it is impossible to give an accurate figure for the population during 1946. In 1941 an unofficial census was carried out by the Air Raid Precau- tions wardens and the population was then estimated to be 1,600,000 of whom 150,000 were fisher-people living on junks. This very considerable increase over the 1931 figure had been due partly to a gradual and normal rise in population but mainly to the influx of refugees which followed the Japanese landings in South China at the end of 1938.

During the Japanese occupation of the Colony from 1941 to 1945 there was a heavy reduction of population; numbers made their unobtrusive way to Free China in 1942 and in 1943-1944 the Japanese instituted drastic forms of com- pulsory deportation in an effort to bring down the population to the number they could feed. At the time of the Japanese surrender the population was estimated to be less than three quarters of a million.

During the first two months of the Military Administra- tion it became clear that another great influx of people from South China was taking place. Although no accurate figures are available it is certain that the population increased steadily and rapidly through the year under review. Estimates based on rations issued, on water consumed, and on extrapo- lation methods based on births and deaths recorded give varying results but it is considered that at the end of 1945 the total population was most probably in the neighbourhood of 1,600,000. The great majority are of course of Chinese race but other residents too hurried back to the Colony after the war. At the end of the year there were in the Colony, excluding Services personnel, about 6,000-7.000 British sub- jects from the United Kingdom and the Dominions, and about 2,500 Indians, the next largest community; 870 Portuguese citizens were registered and to that number must be added some 3,000 British subjects of Portuguese race, many of whom had spent the war years in the uneasy security of the neutral Portuguese colony of Macao, 40 miles away across the Pearl River estuary. There were 250 Americans, about 250 state- less persons and a sprinkling of almost every nation and race in the world.

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