The Future
Hong Kong’s immediate future is obscure. It is understood to be the opinion of the British Government that some months will elapse before a beginning can be made with the re-establishment of the Colony’s great entrepot trade – the distribution to the world of the exports of South China, and the passing into China of the exports from the outside world. Shipping will be scarce and banking facilities for international trade not immediately available. Therefore, it is argued, business men who have suffered in internment may safely go to their homelands to recover, the British Government promising to convey them thither and to bring them back again – not in luxury, but in such ships as are available.
It may well prove, however, that the recovery of Hong Kong trade will begin sooner than expected. The resident Chinese business community will not go away to be rehabilitated in health; its energetic and resourceful personnel will remain on the spot and they are people accustomed to carrying on a huge barter trade, in which balances are struck once a year. The ubiquitous Chinese junks – which before the days of steam followed the coast to India, and even as far as the eastern shores of Africa – will creep out of the remote inlets, where they have been hidden from the Japanese, in order to enjoy an Indian summer of prosperity. In so doing they will help towards the revival of trade, until steam vessels are available again in adequate numbers. A very large percentage of Hong Kong’s trade is done with nearby countries – the Philippine Islands, French Indo China, Thailand, Malay, Netherlands East Indies, in cargoes in which foreign merchants have very little interest, but which are none the less important in respect of reviving the flow of world trade. To the British Empire, however, it is of the utmost importance that one of the great markets for export trade, on which so much now depends, should be in full operation as soon as possible.
The End - M. F. Key