4
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particular was expected to make in increasing contact between the city and the eastern New Territories: "The railway will bring the Territory into closer contact with Hong Kong and western ideas ... Country folk who used to require a full day to reach Hongkong can now go in and out and do their shopping in the day." It is, however, clear that the district officer considered that this development had not yet begun in any significant way at the date when he was writing.
In these circumstances, it is not surprising that the district officer felt that the broader picture in 1912 was of a generally unchanged traditional life: "A visitor to the Territory of 1899, upon returning in 1912, would find changes to remark in the outward appearance of the country, but he would not find the life or character of its inhabitants greatly altered... The domestic life of the villager does not differ much from that of Chinese in other parts of China, nor has it altered much during the few years of British occupation: if anything, it falls rather behind the general standard of freedom and enlightenment in the Canton Province.. even now the customs and habits of the people are probably little changed from what they were a hundred years ago.” The district officer feared that modernisation, when it came, would cause the inhabitants "to lose their simple old-fashioned virtues," But clearly he felt that this unwelcome development had yet to begin.
In summary, therefore, the district officer's view was that the New Territories in 1912 were ripe for modernisation, but that this process had only just begun."
By 1921 it is interesting to note that another well-informed European - the Census Officer - could still make very similar remarks: "The opening of the railway seems, contrary to expectations, to have produced little change", and the effect of the Government schools “is just becoming apparent
*12
Thus, by 1911, the village society of the New Territories, while more prosperous than a decade or two earlier, and aware of, and at least partially receptive to, modern ideas, was still (other than for New Kowloon, the southern strip immediately around Kowloon City and Sham Shui Po) almost entirely traditional. The 1911 Census, therefore, took place in one of the last years in which the old, traditional society survived more or less unchanged. By 1921 that society was beginning