BOOK REVIEWS
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of conflict and contradiction, between different strands of the population which would have had comparative value, whether explicit or implicit has been missed. Had it been taken, it would have provided a justification for publishing these papers in one volume. As it is, the papers are uneven in content and in quality, and there is little here that might not have been more suitably published in separate journals (this, and Far Eastern Economic Review, for example.).
That said, the volume does contain papers which provide major contributions to the study of Hong Kong as a total society. The best of these is, without question, Henry J. Lethbridge's study of the changes brought about by the Japanese Occupation in the relationship between Government and the Chinese and the British business communities; research into the Japanese Occupation from the point of view of the Chinese population is in any event long overdue. The feeling of release, and the outburst of racial antagonism, which immediately followed the Japanese takeover, revealed the extent of the grievances felt by the Chinese community — grievances arising from years of remote, paternalistic, and sometimes racially discriminatory government. The Japanese successfully exploited these feelings until it became evident that their regime was to be no less imperialistic, and considerably less benevolent and efficient than that of the British had been. But they did draft larger numbers of Chinese into the administration than the British had ever done; and it is significant that at the end of the war, the Chinese appeared to have forgotten all about their former rulers. British authority was reestablished but in a chastened, placatory, and more cooperative form: there was little recrimination for the events of the Occupation, and the move towards greater Chinese participation in government was continued. Lethbridge points out most significantly, however, that there was very little internal change in the personalities at the head of the Chinese business community during or after the Occupation, or in the procedures by which individuals rose to prominence: what changed was the Government. In the event, relations between Government and the business community, Chinese and British, were considerably improved by the experience of the Japanese Occupation. Far from being destroyed, the pre-war social and economic order was strengthened by the elimination of conflicts of interest which had previously existed, and by