REVIEW
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to any large extent moved into the New Territories. The moulds already set for the two cities made it inevitable that, in subsequent years, all major developments, in commerce, administration and industry, would converge upon them. The main occupations of the New Territories, today as in past centuries, are farming and fishing. Its towns are mainly markets, serving an agricultural community, but, as a result of decisions made very recently, this picture is now likely to change industry, already established in the south, will be allowed under control to spread to other centres. The aim is to reclaim the sea, the swamps and the sterile land for industrial sites and new towns and not- to encroach on the agricultural acreage.
Hong Kong's first industrial centres (as distinct from domestic industries which are widely scattered) were the great dockyards established in the nineteenth century. On the Island, the Taikoo Dockyard and Sugar Refinery formed an old and important industrial complex; on the mainland, the nucleus of the factory zones was the Kowloon Docks, established in the 1870's. In 1903 an electric power station gave a further stimulus to industry. More encouragement was given by the construction of a railway line from Kowloon to Canton. Quite certainly, however, the decisive factor that made Kowloon predominantly industrial was the space avail- able for factory building.
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New systems of communication helped to link the cities together and enabled both of them to extend their frontiers. Regular steam ferry services between Kowloon and Victoria developed from about 1890. Victoria city expanded length- wise along the coast. A tramway to East Point and Shau Kei Wan was constructed in 1904 and had the desired effect of creating 'working class suburbs' at the extremity of the city. At the same time the urban coastline was extended seaward by the central and eastern reclamations which gained a total of 150 acres for the heart of the city.
In Kowloon many new roads were formed and old ones
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