The colony had a few assets worth noting, however. Its government was stable and orderly, and had attracted a heavy influx of capital from pre-Communist China and the shaky regimes of Southeast Asia. Its banking, shipping and insurance services were the most efficient on the mainland of Asia, and its merchant community had well-cultivated connections with the world market. Its sheltered deep-water harbor was one of the best in Asia. The colony’s possibilities as a future industrial power were further enhanced by an unlimited supply of cheap labor and the immigration of skilled workers and experienced industrialists from Red China. Its labor unions numbered in the hundreds, but were so weakened by factional fights and political objectives that they were unable to drive a hard bargain in wage negotiations. Under Imperial Preference and the Ottawa Agreements of 1932, colonial products paid a lower tariff rate within the British Commonwealth than their foreign competitors. Finally, any industry in Hong Kong could rely on one intangible asset of unique value; the character of the average Chinese workman. In most cases he was a refugee, uneducated and penniless but determined to reestablish himself with any job he could find. Having landed a job, he worked at it with a diligence, energy and skill that astounded Western observers. Although industry had accounted for a very minor part in the colony’s economy before 1951, its beginnings go back to the earliest years. Its first recorded product was the eighty-ton vessel, _Celestial_, built and launched by Captain John Lamont at East Point, on Hong Kong Island, on February 7, 1843. The California gold rush of 1849 and the Australian gold strike two years later caused a shipping boom in Hong Kong as scores of sailing ships carried Chinese labor to work in the goldfields. Shipbuilding expanded rapidly, a dry dock was constructed on the island and a whole new industry of refitting and supplying ships came into being. A foundry for the casting of ship cannon was established in the same era when cannon were the only valid insurance against South China’s coastal pirates. A group of ship-repair yards was consolidated in 1863 as the Hong Kong & Whampoa Dock Co., which subsequently sold its Chinese facilities and established its headquarters at Hung Hom, on Kowloon Bay. The Taikoo Dockyard & Engineering Co. began operations at Quarry Bay, on the north shore of Hong Kong island, in 1908. Between them, the two yards have completed nearly 1,400 ships, ranging from large cargo and passenger vessels to light harbor craft. Each company employs about 4,000 men, which is still the largest number employed by any Hong Kong industrialist.