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PRESIDENT'S REPORT: 1985 — 86
Tonight I have pleasure in reporting on the Society's activities during the year. I shall also give an account of problems carried over from last year which have continued to engage the Council's continued attention. I am happy to report that these are being solved one by one, with prospects of a more cheerful outlook than in the past two years.
Lectures and Tours
Despite occasional difficulties in finding speakers and subjects, our programme has been a varied and interesting one, generally well supported by good attendances. It comprised six lectures and six tours and visits to institutions and local places of interest. Details are as follows:
On 12 June, 1985 Dr. Norman Miners, Senior Lecturer of Political Science at the University of Hong Kong gave a talk entitled "State regulation of prostitution in Hong Kong 1857-1940”. This provided a useful follow-up to Dr. Kerrie Macpherson's talk earlier in the year (12 March 1985) on prostitution in Shanghai.
On 8 July, Dr. David Faure spoke on "Brotherhood in South China: the triads in the 19th century”. Dr. Faure, Lecturer in History at the Chinese University of Hong Kong is a Councillor and Hon Editor of the Journal.
We took up our programme again in the autumn after the usual midsummer break.
On 28 September 1985, a small group of members visited the new Kowloon Central Library and was shown round the premises, including the reference department which includes our own library collection, mentioned elsewhere in this report.
On 9 November 1985, I led a large group to the north west New Territories with the purpose of walking across the Tin Shui
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