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HENRY JAMES LETHBRIDGE
Registrar General's Department at that date was run by the Registrar-General and four clerks. Nevertheless, within five years of his return from Canton Lockhart had become the head of a key department, the Registrar-General's Department (renamed in 1911 more appropriately as the Secretariat for Chinese Affairs).
Dr. Ho Kai (later Sir Kai Ho Kai) in a farewell speech in 1902 on the eve of Lockhart's departure for Weihaiwei remarked that 'in 1882 Mr. Lockhart arrived here to find Hong Kong in a depressed condition, owing to the collapse of the great land speculation that occurred during the year previous; and he found also an embittered feeling between two important sections of the community. Young as Mr. Lockhart was then, and although occupying a minor position in the Government, he at once interested himself in the welfare of the Colony, and endeavoured to promote a better understanding between the Europeans and the Chinese. The leading Chinese citizens, who had hitherto been more or less apathetic towards public affairs, came forward in comparatively large numbers and took a keener and more active interest in civic welfare. They gave the Government their full co-operation and support and gave largely to the various local charitable institutions and took a more active part in their management'." Ho Kai was a very close friend of Lockhart's and, needless to say, farewell speeches are normally eulogistic—they are the expression of an understood social ritual in which white must predominate over black—but in truth Ho Kai had not exaggerated the part played by Lockhart over a number of years in drawing prominent Chinese into the orbit of Government.
There were several reasons for this: Lockhart always admired the Chinese; as an administrator he saw obvious advantages in securing Chinese support for government policies; he knew that Hong Kong was changing and that the style of governing had to change if only because a Chinese business and commercial elite had emerged, and because a segment of the population could be defined as permanently resident in the Colony; he knew, too, that the future prosperity of the Colony would come to depend more and more on a Chinese bourgeoisie. But the problems faced by Lockhart by the colonial government were not unique to Hong Kong of course; they were typical of some other colonial territories, notably in Africa.10 Hence, with the collaboration of a number of prominent