HONGKONG INDUSTRIES.
OON after the cession of Hongkong to the British, Sir H. Pottinger told a committee of British merchants who were interested in the China trade that "Hongkong was merely to be looked upon as a sort of bonded warehouse in which merchants could deposit their goods in safety until it should suit their purposes to sell them to native Chinese dealers, or to send them to a port or place in China for sale." For many years this description of the Colony's place in the scheme of things Far Eastern held good, and it is probable that even to-day numbers of people still regard Hongkong solely in this light. Within recent years, however, the Colony has given promise of becoming a manufacturing centre of great and increasing importance.
As might naturally be expected in a port which is second to none in the world in the magnitude of its shipping, shipbuilding, docking, and marine engineering take first place among local industrial enterprises. The Hongkong and Whampoa Dock Company have three extensive establishments—one at Hunghom, Kowloon, another at Tai Kok Tsui, and the third at Aberdeen, on the island of Hongkong itself. The Admiralty have recently constructed a dock large enough to accommodate any battleship afloat, whilst Messrs. Butterfield & Swire have built an immense dry dock, 750 feet on the keel-blocks, at Quarry Bay, which is, perhaps, the largest of its kind in the Far East. There are three sugar refineries, one of them—that at Taikoo, managed by Messrs. Butterfield & Swire—being the largest refinery under one roof in the world. The China Sugar Refining Company has establishments at East Point and at Bowrington. and, in connection with the former, operates a large distillery, where quantities of rum are manufactured. At Causeway Bay there is an immense cotton-spinning factory, with 55,000 spindles, and quarters for seven hundred workpeople, under the management of the well-known firm of Messrs. Jardine, Matheson & Co., Ltd. One of the oldest industries in the Colony is that carried on by the Hongkong Ice Company, who, starling as importers of ice, have since become manufacturers, with modern plant and an extensive range of insulated cold stores. In the Junk Bay Flour Mills, Hongkong has not only a growing industry, but a valuable asset in the shape of a guaranteed food supply for a period of four months, in any eventuality such as war or scarcity. The mills are capable of producing 8,000 sacks of flour per day. The enormous activity of builders in the Colony has created a demand for Portland cement, and this the Green Island Cement Company have for many years supplied. They have an annual out-turn of something like 120,000 tons, and their cement is acknowledged to be equal to that of the best English and Continental manufacture. Brick and tile making is also carried on under the same auspices, but the demand at present is far in excess of the supply. Messrs. Shewan, Tomes & Co., the general managers, have control, also, of the Hongkong Rope Manufacturing Company, at whose works, in Kennedy Town, Manila rope is made to meet both a local and a growing export demand. Electricity for light and power is supplied to the Colony by the Hongkong Electric Light Company and by the China Light and Power Company, which has a branch at Kowloon. The electric light has by no means displaced gas, however, the older form of illuminant being supplied by the Hongkong and China Gas Company, Ltd., who produce about 130,000,000 cubic feet a year, and undertake practically the whole of the public lighting. Well-equipped saw-mills at Yaumati, operated by the China Borneo Company, Ltd., have a producing capacity of 1,000 cubic feet of sawn timber a day; and there are innumerable small mills and saw-pits owned and worked entirely by the Chinese. Several factories are engaged in the preserving and export of that toothsome delicacy, ginger. The fienst stem-ginger from the Canton district is selected, and the produce finds its way to all parts of the world. Soap boiling is another industry to which attention has been turned. Like dyeing, tanning, the manufacture of vermilion, and tin smelting, the industry is chiefly in the hands of Chinese. In dyeing, the Chinese are experts; and there are numbers of tanneries, the produce of which is used locally and on the mainland. There are four native tin refineries, in which most of the ore from the Yunnan district is treated. The largest has an output of eight tons a day. Vermilion is obtained by subliming the black sulphide obtained from the heating of sulphur with quicksilver. After the red sulphide which results has been ground with water in stone mills, the vermilion is collected and dried ready for the market. Among other local industries which may be mentioned are those of paper making, match making, feather cleaning and packing, opium boiling, cigar making, glass blowing, brewing, dairy farming, and soda water manufacturing. Of these the most recent is brewing, introduced by the Imperial Brewery Company, who have a modern and up-to-date plant at their new premises in Happy Valley.
It will thus be seen that Hongkong may justly claim to be regarded as something more than a vast godown, or as a clearing house for the south of China.
THE CHINA SUGAR REFINING COMPANY.
For thirty years the China Sugar Refining Company, of which Messrs. Jardine, Matheson & Co., Ltd., are the general agents, have carried on an extensive industry at East Point, where their works cover an area of several acres, and their proximity to the harbour gives them unrivalled facilities for shipping. The buildings are numerous, the principal structure being six storeys in height. At the Company's wharf raw sugar is received from Java, the Philippines, the Straits Settlements, and various Chinese ports. The raw sugar is of various shades of brown, and, though apparently clean, contains many impurities which it is the business of the Company to remove. The sugar is tipped into shutes communicating with the melting pans, in which as much as possible of the various substances admixed with it is removed. The pans are made of cast iron, and are fitted with a perforated false bottom. The sugar is mixed with hot water and boiled, the heat being maintained by means of steam pipes. It is kept stirred by mechanical arms, and the impurities which are thrown to the surface are removed by constant skimming. Then the sugar is filtered through long cotton bags of close texture, enclosed in hemp sheaths, and a large amount of clay and dirt, the presence
