174
NG LUN NGAL-HA
demonstrated on his occasional visits to his native village while he was a student in Hawaii and in Hong Kong.
As to the promotion of commerce, Sun's ideas were very much inspired by Ho and Cheng, both of whom were of the comprador merchant class preoccupied with commercial interests. Yet, as an eye-witness of the economic prosperity of Hong Kong, a free port under the Western and British commercial system, Sun's ideas were much more than echoes of the above thinkers. His exposition on this aspect went much deeper than the section on industrial development, which was then not a main feature of the Hong Kong economy, and which he knew about merely from his reading. The three important measures prescribed by Sun for the promotion or free flow of commerce were not original. They were the abolition of internal customs barriers, protection of merchants by government against extortion and the building of railways and ships to ensure facilities for transportation. Yet the examples he cited as being carried out by Western nations, especially Britain, were evidently learnt in Hong Kong. He pointed out that the merchant class in Western countries had long been actively involved in government policies and their overseas commercial expansion had received military support from their governments. In return, it was the financial support of the merchants which enabled Britain to conquer India, territories in Southeast Asia and Africa, and also to annex Australia. Sun wanted to prove that commercialism was the road to the nation's wealth and power and that merchants were a very influential class in the nation. The privileged position and influence of merchants and the mercantile houses were in fact evident in Hong Kong since the first day of its founding. Very often, the Governor and even the home government had to yield to their requests and demands, and all the unofficial seats in the Hong Kong Legislative and the Executive Councils were taken by prominent merchants and members of the General Chamber of Commerce.18 To show that Chinese merchants, if given chance and encouragement, would also be able to help in building up a modern China, Sun pointed out that a great part of the railway network in Southeast Asia was built by overseas Chinese investment. "If government would give assurance for proper interest and profit, these merchants would certainly be willing to invest in their native country", Sun remarked.
Since Sun had received a major part of his formal education in Hong Kong, he was able to experience personally the advantage of a Western education, especially the professional training at the medical