In private business and professional activities, as in government staff positions, about one-third of the colony’s career women are Chinese, and both groups of women have achieved much greater prestige and success than any previous generation of the colony’s women. Among the Tanka fishing people of Hong Kong, women own most of the fishing junks. On Po Toi, a small island southeast of Hong Kong Island, a Chinese woman, who died in 1957, held the rank of village elder; as such, she was the arbiter of all local disputes, having an authority rarely given to women. Many women in the colony hope that the lady from Po Toi will become a trend-setter instead of a legend. What are the prospects for Hong Kong industry and trade? Among the many persons who have weighed these prospects are three of the most influential men in the commercial life of the colony: Hugh Barton, chairman and managing director of Jardine, Matheson & Co.; Sir Michael Turner, chairman, general manager and a director of the Hongkong & Shanghai Banking Corp.; and John L. Marden, chairman of Wheelock, Marden & Co. A listing of their combined directorships would fill two closely printed pages, and it would be only a mild exaggeration to say that they and the companies they head are in everything of a business nature in the colony. Each man also holds an important position in the colony government; Sir Michael as an unofficial member of the Executive Council, Mr. Barton as an unofficial member of the Legislative Council, and Mr. Marden with unofficial membership in the Urban Council. Mr. Barton heads one of the oldest and most respected business houses in Hong Kong, with financial or operational control of companies in such diverse lines as real estate, shipping, wharves, warehousing, insurance, utilities, textiles, transport, engineering, airlines and trading. Jardine’s, as it is commonly called, was deeply engaged in the opium trade during the colony’s early years, but has long since turned to other interests. One of its recent investments, the Jardine Dyeing & Finishing Co., was established two years ago and now produces two million yards of high-quality cloth per month. Barton believes that if the United States drops the 8½-cents-a-pound cotton export differential, most of the cloth produced in Hong Kong will not be able to compete in the world market. Of the 500 million yards of cloth produced annually by Hong Kong, a relatively small amount is exported to the United States. However, Barton feels, removal of the 8½-cent differential would cripple the local industry’s efforts to produce its cloth cheaply enough to compete in the markets of Southeast Asia and elsewhere.