ENG-1954 — Page 36

HONG KONG ANNUAL REPORT, 1954

especially from Shanghai. There are approximately 15,000 non-Chinese permanently resident in the Colony, including about 9,500 British subjects from the United Kingdom and Commonwealth but excluding Services personnel and their dependants. The Portuguese, excluding those of British nationality, number about 850, the Americans, the next largest community, 300, and the Dutch about 80. In all, about 50 different nationalities are represented in the non-Chinese com- munity.

The indigenous population of the New Territories is composed of Cantonese and Hakka, with a sprinkling of Hoklo. The farmers comprise Cantonese, mainly settled, some families for several hundred years, in the comparatively fertile western plains, and Hakka, who are at present found mainly in the more difficult hilly land on the eastern side of the peninsula, and are generally believed to have occupied these areas for less than two hundred years. If it is correct that the Hakka are the later arrivals, then they would appear to have occupied any potentially arable land disregarded by the Cantonese, and to have penetrated in long fingers from the eastern side of the New Territories down into the south-west of the mainland and out on to the islands. The two sections maintain excellent relations, and the old custom barring intermarriages between Cantonese and Hakka is no longer observed. It is now not rare to find Hakka wives in Cantonese families and vice versa, and there are few Hakka youths who cannot speak Cantonese.

Certain occupations are predominantly Cantonese or Hakka; for instance, the oyster fisheries are entirely Cantonese, while the manufacture of bean-curd and

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