The Hong Kong Region
127
surprising that the Governor of Hong Kong wrote to London in April 1899, "The Tai Po district is well known in Canton to be turbulent, that to the northeast of Mirs Bay being noted for piracy, and so ill-disposed that I am informed no Customs Official dares to land there except with the support of a revenue cruiser". When making his farewell speech to the Legislative Council of the Colony four years later, he described its residents as 'a large agricultural population with a reputation for turbulence .... and with a rooted objection to any interference with their settled habits or customs'.2 Smuggling was common throughout the region, whether of salt or opium. The older villagers admit to their complicity in these varied activities: an old man born on Lamma Island in 1883 told me in 1960, with a twinkle in his eye, that he had been in all lines of business.
During all this time the situation in inland areas of the hsien was apparently no better than on the sea and coast. The situation in the late 1850s was described in eloquent terms by the German missionary Krone who had been in the area since his arrival in China in 1850. He spoke of the large bands of robbers which frequently pass to and from through the country pillaging the villages and parties of travellers ....3 He explained that 'when the Mandarins intend to levy taxes, they announce their intention to the gentry of the villages, one or two weeks, or sometimes a month, before their arrival. They then make a progress through the district, accompanied by a sufficient force to protect themselves against large bands of robbers, which sometimes have the audacity to attack the tax collectors if the escort be not strong'.4 He emphasised 'how troubled and insecure the normal condition of this district is, and for a very long time has been'.5
Krone then noted an additional, and in southeast China characteristic, source of insecurity. 'Not only are robbers and pirates to
1 SP, 1899, p. 528.
2 Hansard, 1903, p. 53.
3 Krone, p. 114.
4 Krone, p. 119.
5 Krone, p. 114. The wider area bore no better reputation. Writing of the Tan-shui district of neighbouring Kwei-shin hsien, the Hong Kong Daily Telegraph of 13th March 1879, quoting from the Catholic Register stated ".... now and then the Chinese authority has to send some military Mandarins with extraordinary powers to clear the place by taking up a good number of robbers: and only last year the great military Mandarin told one of our Missionaries that of one village he has dozens of names in view for the next execution".