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CARL SMITH
CHINESE PROTEST AT BEING KEPT OUT OF MEETING
Ho A-mei as a public figure participated in a number of important and interesting affairs which illustrate the strained relations between the foreign and Chinese portions of Hongkong's population during the closing decades of the 19th century.
The first such occasion was a public meeting held in October 1878.
For the Chinese it was the first such meeting they attended in numbers with the intention of active participation. The Chinese view of events at the meeting was set before the English reading public in a letter Ho A-mei addressed to the editor of the Daily Press. This letter marked his first appearance as a leader among the Chinese in Hongkong. His involvement in public issues affecting the Chinese continued for the next twenty years or until his retirement in 1898.
The meeting on which the letter comments had various tones and overtones, currents and sub-currents. Its stated purpose was to pass a resolution concerning the low state of security in Hongkong and the frequency of robbery and assault. Behind it was a large part of the European portion of the community who hoped the resolutions passed at the meeting would discredit the administration of the Governor, Sir John Pope Hennessy.
Governor Hennessy had introduced humane measures for the treatment of criminals, had abolished flogging and had improved conditions in jail. Many attributed the increase in crime to these reforms.
The complaints, however, were only a symptom of a deep dislike the foreign community had taken towards its Governor. Sir John had come to Hongkong with a record of favouring the local population in the colonies he had governed and of introducing measures to elevate them to a more equal status with the expatriate colonials, a policy not welcomed by the colonials. These principals, as they were applied in Hongkong, were labelled by the press as "Hennessy's pro-Chinese policy." He believed that the
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