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HISTORY

18-19 and after a week of stubborn resistance on the island the defenders, who included the local Volunteer Corps, were over- whelmed and the Colony surrendered on Christmas Day. The Japanese occupation lasted three years and seven months.

British civilians were interned at Stanley while the Chinese population and neutrals had to suffer steadily deteriorating con- ditions. Trade virtually disappeared, the currency lost its value, food supply was disrupted and government services and public utilities were seriously impaired. Many moved to Macau, the Portuguese Colony hospitably opening its doors to them. Towards the later part of the occupation the Japanese sought to ease the food problem by organizing mass deportations. In the face of increasing oppression the bulk of the community remained loyal to the allied cause; Chinese guerillas operated in the New Terri- tories and allied personnel escaping were assisted by the rural population.

Soon after the news of the Japanese surrender was received a provisional government was set up by the Colonial Secretary, Mr (later Sir) F. Gimson, until Rear Admiral Sir Cecil Harcourt arrived with units of the British Pacific Fleet to establish a temporary military government. Civil government was formally restored on May 1, 1946, when Sir Mark Young resumed his interrupted governorship.

THE POST-WAR YEARS

From the moment of liberation Hong Kong began a spectacular recovery. The Chinese returned at a rate approaching 100,000 a month and the population, which by August 1945 had been reduced to about 600,000, rose by the end of 1947 to an estimated 1,800,000. Then in the period 1948-9, as the forces of the Chinese Nationalist Government began to face defeat in civil war at the hands of the communists, the Colony received an influx of people unparalleled in its history. About three quarters of a million, mainly from Kwangtung province, Shanghai and other commercial centres, entered the Colony during 1949 and the spring of 1950. By the end of 1950 the population was estimated to be 2,360,000. Since then it has continued to rise. A by census taken in 1966 showed a population figure of 3,716,400.