Hongkong and exhibited (February 28, 1864) a wall map illustrating his scheme of connecting Calcutta, Hongkong and Peking by a railway. The question whether such a railway would benefit or injure the interests of the Colony was much debated. Sir M. Stephenson's scheme was, however, entirely premature and met with no encouragement on the part of the Chinese Government. At the close of the year 1861 arrangements were made to get the commerce of the Colony worthily represented at the Crystal Palace Exhibition of 1862. A Committee (Dr. Ivor Murray, J. J. Mackenzie, J. D. Gibb, W. Walkinshaw, and Dr. W. Kane) was officially appointed and forwarded to London a considerable number of articles fairly illustrating the principal features of local trade. The starting of the French Messageries Maritimes line of mail steamers (January 1, 1863) caused a material increase in the facility and rapidity of communication with Europe. The monopoly which the Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company had held as mail carriers was now ended and the competition benefitted the public in a variety of ways. Communication with Canton was also improved, during this period, by the enterprise of two local American firms (Russell & Co. and Augustin Heard & Co.) which vied with each other, since 1859, in providing for the Hongkong and Canton trade roomy palatial river-steamers which ran both night and day (White Cloud and Kinshan). Since December, 1863, Hongkong was also placed in regular steam communication with North-Borneo and some business was done by importing coal from Labuan. In the tea trade a new departure was made in 1864 by forwarding, as an experiment, 5,000 pounds of tea by the overland route to England.
The problem involved in the sanitation of the Colony was left by Sir H. Robinson in the hopeless condition in which he found it. The outbreak, in Hongkong, of several epidemics and the fear of cholera invading the Colony from abroad necessitated some action. But it led to nothing further than the appointment, in 1862, of a health officer of the port (Dr. L. Richardson), the allotment of Green Island as a
