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Rh Committee of 1847, was satisfactorily completed in October, 1864, under the sanction which the Privy Council had given (February 20, 1864) to the introduction in the Colony of the criminal law of England with such adaptations as circumstances might render advisable.

Owing to the above-mentioned disturbances in the Canton Province, the population of Hongkong made great strides in the first few years of this period. In 1860 the population increased by 8,003 persons. In 1861, when the cession of Kowloon also contributed to swell the population, the increase amounted to 24,404 persons, having risen from 94,917 people in 1860 to 119,321 in 1861. After that year, however, the population increased but slightly in 1862, retrograded in 1863 and stood in 1864 at 121,498 people.

The finances of the Colony, though severely strained by liberal expenditure on public works, constitute one of the brightest features of this administration. The revenue of the year 1860 exceeded that of 1859 by £28,958. The expenditure of the same period, however, increased by £6,281. In consequence of the transfer of the Hongkong Post Office to the local Government (May 1, 1860), the Post Office receipts appeared for the first time in the accounts for the year 1860. But the largest increase of the revenue of that year was under the head of land revenue, which exceeded that of 1859 by nearly £17,000 in consequence of the great rise in the value of land. The revenue of 1860 was thus the largest ever raised, up to that time, in Hongkong, and four times greater than that of the year 1851. The Colony had now at last become fully self-supporting and commenced the year 1861 with an excess of assets (over liabilities) amounting to nearly £4,300. The revenue of the year 1861 (£33,058) was nearly double of the revenue of 1859, but owing to the large public works now taken in hand and to the augmentation of the establishment, the expenditure rose to £37,241. The returns for 1861 shewed an increase under almost every head of revenue but particularly so the items of land rents and licences, the rapid increase of the population, and the extensive purchases of land