Cantonese, while only four out of 16 compradors from Russell & Co between the 1830s and 1870s were non-Cantonese. Jardine, Matheson & Co. employed 18 Cantonese from its total 32 Chinese compradors between the 1850s and the 1900s, however only three out of the rest were non-Cantonese and 11 were from uncertain native places. Dent & Co. totally had twenty-one compradors in the period of the 1830s to the 1860s. Non-Cantonese were not recorded but nine were reported as of uncertain native places. Moreover, as Hao pointed out, Cantonese had a supremacy amongst Chinese compradors not only in China but also in Southeast Asia and Japan. They were regarded to have talent in tea trade, whereas Zhejiang compradors were especially skilled in silk trade and banking business. Zhejiang compradors overshadowed their Cantonese counterparts in Shanghai by the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth century. It is of interest that Western merchants always went to explore business in Asia with their Cantonese compradors, particularly in Yokohama and Nagasaki. Perhaps this might be linked to the local influence of Cantonese merchants in the above places.
The comprador system was soon imported to Hong Kong when British firms flocked to open their business there. It lasted until the Second World War; longer than at any other Chinese coastal city. During the growth of early colonial society in Hong Kong, by the 1850s the Chinese community was beginning to develop leaders and most of them were successful compradors, merchants, and contractors. Typical of this emerging Chinese middle class were Cantonese compradors like Wei Yuk (Wei Yu), Robert Ho Tung (He Dong), and Law Pak Sheung (Luo Bochang). They formed the core of leadership in the local Chinese community.
Wei succeeded his father Wei Kwong who came from Choy Mei village near Macau as the comprador of the Chartered Mercantile Bank of India, London, and China in Hong Kong in 1879. In 1896, he was appointed an unofficial member of the Hong Kong Legislative Council, being the fourth Chinese to this post (the first was Ng Choy [Wu Tingfang]). Wei held a lot of appointments in public and private organizations and represented Chinese interests in the government.
He Dong acted as Jardine's Hong Kong comprador from 1883 to 1900. He was among the richest of the Chinese compradors in the treaty