- 139
No. 1938
HONG KONG.
REPORT ON THE POSSIBILITIES OF A CO-OPERATIVE SYSTEM IN HONG KONG.
Various aspects of the economic life of this Colony have come under review in recent years. In 1930 there was a committee on currency, in 1934 on marketing, again in 1934 on the limited question of pigs and poultry and in 1935 the committee on the trade depression; all this I have studied, but the limited time at my disposal has not allowed me to consult officials and non-officials as freely as I should have wished. I was invited, while I was on a visit to China, to make suggestions to this Colony on the particular question of pigs and poultry, but since, in any case, a fully trained officer is necessary before any co-operative system, however limited, can be started, I am extending my proposals to the whole co-operative field. It will be open to Government in practice to limit their own activities as they think best. Though I have been in Hong Kong during the whole month of June, it has only been possible to devote a few days to the subject on which I was invited to advise.
A co-operative system should be (i) both urban and rural, (ii) concerned with both direct and indirect economic benefits and (iii) supported by unofficial interest as well as official strength. It is for this reason that I am discussing a number of other subjects in addition to pigs and poultry.
Four main considerations should be borne in mind.
1. The co-operative idea, even in its modern sense, is not new to the Chinese. I am not referring to the old clan system, which may nevertheless provide a back- ground of sympathy for co-operative societies, nor to the old-established Wui or money club, whereby a number of persons contribute in successive months a sum of money which is taken by each of them in turn. It has even been recommended that co-operative societies should be based on a reformed Wui. I believe this to be impossible and the Wui to be incapable of reform. I can only hope for its gradual extinction as new forms of simple credit are made available to the people. It is rather of the new co-operative system in China that I am thinking, where at the end of 1934 about 15,000 societies of different types, chiefly for the purpose of credit and chiefly rural, were already in existence. The movement was started by the central and provincial governments of China, and receives financial aid from the Chinese commercial banks. The attitude of the Chinese farmer and the Chinese townsman towards co-operative societies shows that he is one of the most highly qualified persons, for co-operative work whom I have ever seen. There need be no anxiety in Hong Kong as to the success of a rural and an urban co-operative move- ment under the right guidance. On the assumption that over 80% of the Hong Kong population is urban and even though a large portion of this consists of floating individuals, there is still a large permanent population in the towns to which help in various forms of social organization should be given. The Chinese of British Malaya have joined in the Urban Thrift and Loan Societies. Jewish residents in Palestine are creating societies for industrial production. Co-operative housing societies in Bombay and Madras are flourishing and multiplying, while the Chinese towns are full of consumers' co-operative stores, good and bad, all of which tend to show the capacity of the Chinese to grasp the co-operative idea.