“ Hong Kong residents, as they saw 1955 out, called it an ordinary year. Hong Kong's definition of the word "ordinary", however, needs examination. The last decade has conditioned the Colony to spectacular events. Development and change, on a scale which visitors usually consider remarkable, tend to be regarded in the Colony itself as commonplace. ”

“ Almost bereft of its entrepôt trade, the Colony has switched over its energies to manufacturing. The change has happened with such rapidity that there are still many countries in which people find it hard to believe that goods marked "Made in Hong Kong" really are made in the Colony. On many occasions, and in many countries, Hong Kong has been falsely accused of putting its trade mark on goods manufactured elsewhere and which, the Colony's detractors have said, were merely being re-exported. ”

“ To complete the impression, it should be added that the building programme for the resettlement of refugees and other squatters, one of the largest and most swiftly executed poor man's housing schemes in the world, continued without interruption, while beneath the multifarious activity which has always been characteristic of the Colony, the very basis of its livelihood was all the time changing. ”