2
Ng Choy (1842–1922), a British subject by birth, born in Singapore. Educated in England. Called to the Bar at Lincoln's Inn 1877, the first Chinese to be called. Appointed temporary stipendiary magistrate 1880, the first Chinese to hold a senior appointment, and member of the Legislative Council 1880-82. Joined the Chinese Imperial Service, under the name Wu T'ing-fang, became secretary to Li Hung-chang and rose to be Chinese Ambassador to the United States in 1896, 1897. He held high cabinet posts under the Republic.
Sir John Hennessy to Sir Michael Hicks Beach, 20 January 1880, No. 9, CO 129/187.
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the existing four unofficials, he suggested the addition of one, who was to be a Chinese. His proposal amounted to the addition of a Chinese unofficial member and a compensating increase of one in the official side. Since this proposal was made only nine days after the appointment of Ng Choy, clearly its object was to provide him with a permanent seat. Hennessy proposed that if Price, the Surveyor-General, who was sitting temporarily as an unofficial member became a full ex officio official member, the vacancy among the unofficials thus created should be given to E. R. Belilios,1 described by Hennessy as 'born in India but a leading member of the English community'.
The Secretary of State was unimpressed by Hennessy's argu- ments and replied that he saw no reason to make any changes. He allowed the appointment of Price not as an ex officio member but as an unofficial member, using the argument that though Price himself was excellent, if he were absent his deputy might not be equally acceptable. He rejected the nomination of Belilios and preferred instead that the Governor should nominate an English- man, a representative of one of the great English firms or banks would be preferable', he said. He accepted Ng Choy as a temporary member, since Gibb was absent on leave and had not resigned, but only for three years or until Gibb returned. In the Colonial Office minutes on Hennessy's dispatch, the arguments used against giving Ng Choy a permanent seat were, that if the Governor wanted to consult the Legislative Council secretly or if relations with China became strained, the presence of Ng Choy on the Council might be awkward; Hicks Beach also advanced the view that if a Chinese were appointed to the Legislative Council, it ought to be a Chinese merchant. The importance of the mercantile interest thus received explicit official recognition.
Ng Choy took his seat as the first Chinese member of the Legislative Council on 19 February 1880 and the occasion was marked by a deputation of the leading Chinese members of the Colony which called at Government House to congratulate the Governor and themselves on the appointment.
1
Emanuel Raphael Belilios, appointed to the Legislative Council temporarily scholarships at Queen's College, and at the Hong Kong Medical College for Chinese 1887, and helped to build Belilios School. Received the C.M.G. in 1893, the first local resident to be so honoured. He was one of the principal opium merchants.
CONSTITUTIONAL DEVELOPMENTS 1859-82
95
H. B. Gibb did not return to the Colony and when he resigned from the Council in July 1880, Hennessy proposed that Ng Choy be given a permanent seat. The Liberals had just taken office under Gladstone, but the new Secretary of State, the Earl of Kimberley (1880-82), was no more encouraging than his predecessor Hicks Beach had been. He replied1 that Lowcock was now back in the Colony and since he was a former member of the Council, he could not be overlooked, and should be provisionally appointed. If Lowcock were not remaining in the Colony then Ng Choy should continue to hold his seat on a temporary basis, but for not longer than the three years which had already been set as the limit. One Colonial Office official minuted on Hennessy's letter that Ng Choy was a cipher on the Legislative Council much as Whampoa had been on the Council at Singapore. Lord Kimberley's revealing comment reads 'Tell Hennessy's successor that it is desirable to have a Chinese on the Legislative Council'; this shows that in seeming to make difficulties, his distrust was of Hennessy rather than of the Chinese. In August 1881, Hennessy nominated Belilios to an unofficial seat on the Council in place of Price temporarily absent, but his suggestion that a paid official should not in future be nominated to one of the four unofficial seats was not accepted and Price on his return to the Colony in 1882 resumed his unofficial seat.
Hennessy had previously upset colonial opinion in the Bahamas and had had to be moved, and the Colonial Office in England distrusted him. Herbert noted in 1877, 'We must watch all his proceedings very narrowly. . . and when we see any tendency to bolt to the right or to the left from the path of established pro- cedure in Hong Kong (which is an intricate one surrounded with special dangers arising from the Chinese character which he does not understand) he should be firmly and as gently as possible led back to it'. R. Meade3 noted in this same year, 'Mr. Hennessy is showing signs of mischievous activity which will bring us into trouble unless civilly but promptly suppressed'. Hennessy was an impetuous man who took up causes in a way that showed little balance. In
Earl of Kimberley to Sir John Hennessy, 24 September 1880, No. 56, CO 129/189.
2 Sir Robert George Wyndham Herbert (1831-1905), Permanent Under- Secretary of State for the Colonies (1871-1892).
1 Richard James Meade, Parliamentary Under-Secretary.
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addition be proved himself a bad administrator. He hindered educational development by refusing to vote money for the new Central School, he delayed the rebuilding of the praya and the Civil Hospital which had been damaged by a typhoon, and by supporting Chinese ideas of night-soil sanitation, held up the most essential schemes of increasing the water supply. He encouraged the Chinese but did not anticipate the great boom in land values that this created or the distress caused when a recession followed his departure.
It was something of a tragedy that advocacy of Chinese interests in Hong Kong should have been associated with him, because he attached his own unpopularity to this cause. Yet he performed a signal service in appointing the first Chinese member to the Leg- islative Council on his own initiative and responsibility.
CHAPTER VI
THE RECONSTRUCTION OF THE LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL 1884
SIR John Pope Hennessy made his unregretted departure in March 1882, and was succeeded by Sir George Bowen' who arrived in the Colony in April 1883. During the interval, the Colony was administered by the Colonial Secretary, William Marsh.2
A reorganization of the Legislative Council was needed for many reasons. The permanent appointment of a Chinese member could not be shelved indefinitely, the practice of appointing govern- ment officials to seats on the Council as so-called unofficial members was unpopular, and there was also the standing challenge to self-government provided by the Shanghai Municipal Council, which was not unsuccessfully controlling a population equal to that of the Colony.
Ng Choy's term as a member of the Legislative Council was due to expire on 21 January 1883, and as he proposed to go on leave then, a decision about his successor had to be taken. In fact Ng Choy resigned at the expiry of the tenure of his seat; he had got into financial difficulty in 1882 on the collapse of the boom caused by land speculation and Marsh wrote that he had been saved from bankruptcy only by the intervention of a wealthy mother- in-law. He went to Tientsin, from which city he sent his resignation, and joined the Chinese Imperial Service as legal adviser and inter- preter to Li Hung-chang; in 1897 he was appointed Chinese
1 Sir George Ferguson Bowen (1821-1899). Born in County Donegal. Fellow of Brasenose College, 1844. President of the University of Corfu, 1847. Chief Secretary of the Government in the Ionian Islands, 1854. Governor successively of Queensland 1859, New Zealand 1867, Victoria 1872, Mauritius 1879 and Hong Kong 1883–85.
Sir William H. Marsh (1827-1906). Served in Mauritius, 1848-79 and became Auditor-General 1876. Colonial Secretary and Auditor-General of Hong Kong 1879-87. Administered the Government of Hong Kong 1882-83, September to October 1883 and 1885-87. Retired in 1887 after 39 years of service, and knighted K.C.M.G.
* Marsh to Earl of Kimberley (Confidential), 2 June 1882, CO 129/201.
Li Hung-chang (1822-1901). Came to the front in the fighting against the T'ai P'ing rebels. 1867 Viceroy of the Hu-kuang. 1870 Viceroy of Chili. Negotiated the Peace of Shimonoseki 1895 and the agreement with Russia of 1896. Viceroy at Canton during the Boxer troubles and called to be Viceroy of Chihli 1900.
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ambassador to the United States. He is better known in China under his official name Wu T'ing-fang. If he did not make any remarkable contribution as a member of the Legislative Council, at least he secured a first seat for the Chinese.
The Earl of Derby, Secretary of State for the Colonies (1882–85) had agreed that the Chinese community should be represented on the Council but he preferred to delay a decision on Ng Choy's successor until Bowen had arrived and had time to give his con- sidered recommendation. So Ng Choy was not immediately succeeded by another Chinese.
Bowen after due enquiry, supported the principle of Chinese membership of the Legislative Council. 'For many obvious reasons, I am strongly of opinion that the overwhelming Chinese majority of the population of Hong Kong. . . should be represented by at least one member of the Colonial Legislature', he told Lord Derby,' but he thought the choosing of such a member ‘a task of considerable difficulty and delicacy', because 'I am informed that most of the leading Chinese merchants resident here are not British subjects', and it 'will not be easy to find among those qualified as British subjects, a native gentleman combining in his own person the proper social position, independent means and education'. By independent means, Bowen presumably meant that a prospec- tive member should be independent of the Government, and not independent of any gainful occupation.
Bowen did not treat the question of a permanent Chinese member in isolation, but as part of a wider scheme of reform of the Legislative Council which he thought needed a general overhaul.2 The changes which he sought to introduce into Hong Kong were based on the practices then existing in the colonies of Mauritius and Ceylon. He considered that popular elections were impractic- able in a heterogeneous community circumstanced as Hong Kong; instead he suggested a change in the system of nomination by which members of the Council should be more representative of public opinion and more responsible to it, by entrusting public bodies such as the Chamber of Commerce and the bench of Justices of the Peace, with the power to make nominations. He urged that the practice of having paid government officials serving on the Council as unofficial members should be ended, remarking
1 Sir George Bowen to Earl of Derby, 4 April 1883, No. 4, CO 129/208. 2 Sir George Bowen to Earl of Derby, 14 May 1883, No. 62, CO 129/209.
RECONSTRUCTION OF LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL 1884 99
that at that time, May 1883, two of the four unofficial members were paid officials. As has already been explained, the distinction between official and unofficial members was a purely technical one, but the point is that it appeared to be an anomaly, and as Bowen pointed out, as such was a source of justifiable complaint. Sir George Bowen considered that the Senior Military Officer in Hong Kong should be a member of the Legislative Council, as was the case in Singapore, because his exclusion caused personal animosities.1 The Governor also criticized the presence in the Legislative Council of the Chief Justice on the principle that the judiciary should be completely independent of the rest of the administration as the guarantee of its impartiality.
Bowen proposed the addition of three official members to the Council, namely the Senior Military Officer, the Registrar-General and the Surveyor-General, and two unofficial members, thus bringing the total Council to eight official and six unofficial mem- bers besides the Governor with his ordinary and casting votes. To increase its representative character he suggested that the Chamber of Commerce should nominate two members and the Justices of the Peace one member; for he said, these two bodies 'represented the intelligence, education and property of the Community'. In his view one, if not two, of the six unofficials should be a Chinese, following a corresponding rule in New Zealand, the Straits Settlements and Ceylon. The nominations would in all cases be made by the Governor subject to the approval of the Crown.
Bowen suggested other changes. He thought that the unofficial members should hold office for six years and not for life. He complained that the Legislative Council had been 'summoned at rare and uncertain intervals', and proposed a regular annual session in November at which a review of the Colony should be given together with the Government's legislative programme, so as to allow the unofficials to debate policy.
He also proposed that the Executive Council should be increased in number from five to seven by the addition of the Treasurer and Registrar-General, and indeed urged the desirability of all the officials in the Legislative Council being members of the Executive
There had been a number of instances of quarrels between the Governor and the General, and a Colonial Office minute on one of Sir Arthur Kennedy's dispatches (6 September 1876, No. 173) reads "There is always a row between the Governor and the General at Hong Kong... and I conclude it is one of the local occupations'.100
GOVERNMENT AND PEOPLE 1841-1962
Council since they had to support the Executive's policy by their votes. In any case, what with absences due to leave and illness, five was too few.
2
The Earl of Derby accepted the scheme broadly, but with changes of detail. He rejected the argument that the Senior Military Officer should be a member of the Legislative Council on the ground that he could not be compelled to support the government measures and his possible opposition might create a difficulty; he also said that the Senior Military Officer had not been a member of the Legislative Council since Major General D'Aguilar in 1843 and Colonel Caine in 1855.1 He agreed that the Registrar- General and Surveyor-General should be additional official mem- bers, making the total six. With regard to officials being nominated to unofficial seats, Derby ruled that the practice was to designate only a few important officials to hold seats ex officio, and to select other officials best fitted for membership of the Council either because of personal qualities or in virtue of the duties performed, and that this practice would continue. He suggested that since he had reduced the number of official members the number of un- official members should be five only, 'at least one of whom shall be a member of the Chinese community'. He agreed to allow some unofficials to represent public opinion as expressed by some of the leading business institutions, but since there were only five unofficials instead of six, the Chamber of Commerce should nominate only one member. Lord Derby also reduced the proposed increase in the Executive Council by one making it six instead of seven, the Registrar-General being added but not the Colonial Treasurer. Thus amended, the new constitutional arrangements came into force, and the newly constituted Legislative Council sat for the first time on 28 February 1884.
The Chamber of Commerce was fairly international in character; of its 34 members, 20 were British and one American, six Euro- peans and two Chinese, besides three Jews, one Parsee and one American. To qualify for membership the main requirements were a moderate fee and an election by its committee. At the meeting for the nomination of a member to the Legislative Council,
1 Caine in fact was not Senior Military Officer but Lieutenant-Governor.
The five ex officio members amounted only to four because the Auditor- General's office was held by the Colonial Secretary, and the two additional
appointees therefore made only six.
RECONSTRUCTION OF LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL 1884
ΙΟΙ
F. Bulkeley Johnson urged the granting of a greater degree of self- government. Thomas Jackson,1 chief manager of The Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation was unanimously elected.
In the time of Hennessy a Chinese Chamber of Commerce had been mooted, but did not last long and failed to establish itself as the voice of Chinese business opinion.
There were 60 unofficial Justices of the Peace all of British nationality as a condition of their appointment, of whom 62 were of British extraction, seven Chinese, three Jewish and seven Parsees and Armenians. It was agreed that the 19 official Justices of the Peace should take no part in the election, so that the elected member should be more representative of opinion in the community. This was a private arrangement, the official Justices merely abstaining of their own free will, as a gesture to the com- munity. The position was regularized in the following April (1884) when the Legislative Council resolved that the official Justices of the Peace should not be entitled to vote in future elections.
The election held by the unofficial Justices caused some excite- ment; three candidates were nominated and after some campaigning, their choice was Frederick Sassoon2 a British subject of an Indian- Jewish family who had been educated in England. The Justices felt that the British were adequately represented on the Council, and so they deliberately avoided using their English majority to elect one of their own number.3
As the Chinese member of the Council, the Governor nominated Wong Shing.1 Bowen complained to Lord Derby of the difficulty
1 Sir Thomas Jackson, BT. Appointed chief manager of The Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation in 1876. Retired in 1902, and served on the London Committee of the Bank until his death in 1915. Knighted 1899 and became a baronet in 1902. Resigned from the Legislative Council in 1887.
'Frederick David Sassoon. A member of the Sassoon family originally from Bombay which occupied the leading place in the opium trade.
* Sir George Bowen to Earl of Derby, 7 January 1884, No. 1, CO 129/215. Wong Shing (Huang Sheng). 1825-. Bowen described Wong Shing as a man of property, much travelled, speaking good English and willing to be naturalised'. He had served with the great Li Hung-chang in China, and had been a member of the Chinese legation staff in Washington and was 'fully qualified to look at Chinese affairs with English and at English affairs with Chinese eyes'. He was one of the first directors of the Tung Wah. He was born in 1825 near Macao and had been educated at the Morrison Institution in Hong Kong, and later entered Monson Academy at Monson, Massachusetts, in the United States. He was associated with the London Missionary Society for whom he directed its printing establishment under Dr James Legge.
Sir George Bowen to Earl of Derby, 28 December 1883, No. 355, CO
129/214.
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that most of the Chinese in Hong Kong retained their Chinese nationality and in addition were only temporarily resident, and that his choice was very limited. Bowen said he consulted Frederick Stewart the Registrar-General, and prominent Chinese who agreed with this nomination, and he added that Wong Shing was satis- factory to the British too. The five unofficial members were there- fore F. Bulkeley Johnson of Jardine, Matheson & Co., and Phineas Ryrie of Turner & Co. (the two existing unofficial members), Thomas Jackson, Frederick Sassoon and Wong Shing. They were all to hold office for a term of six years, and not for life.
In assembling the members of the Council for their first meeting in February 1884 there was an unfortunate hitch. Phineas Ryrie and F. Johnson being already unofficial members, were naturally re-appointed. Price the Surveyor-General and Stewart the Regis- trar-General, who had been sitting as unofficial members became official members. The Attorney-General, O'Malley, interpreted the wording of the Instructions of the Secretary of State to mean that the places of these two officials should be taken by the two members elected by the Chamber of Commerce and the Justices of the Peace respectively. This meant that Wong Shing therefore could not take his seat without the prior approval of the Colonial Office. The latter did not at first uphold this ruling, although later it admitted that O'Malley had been right. The awkward situation was met by Thomas Jackson who voluntarily stood down to allow Wong Shing to attend the first meeting of the reformed Council; his magnani- mity spared the Chinese from what might have been a grievous loss
of face.
With Bowen's reorganization, the Legislative Council assumed its modern shape and subsequent reforms have not radically altered its character. The principle of the representation of Chinese by Chinese was accepted, and since there had to be 'at least' one member of the Chinese community on the Council the way was automatically open to increasing their representation.
Indirect election was now definitely recognized as a permanent element in the Colony's constitutional machinery. Two public bodies were allowed to elect one nominee each, but the names had to be submitted to the Secretary of State by the Governor who could no doubt refuse to forward them if he had good reason; in any case the Home Government possessed a veto, but in practice, the nominations were always accepted and the system worked smoothly.
RECONSTRUCTION OF LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL 1884 103
Election by the Justices was no new thing, Bonham had introduced it tentatively in 1850 as an informal arrangement, and Bowring in the 1857 election had tried to make it definitive. Now the Justices, like the Chamber of Commerce, made their nomination as a matter of right. The system gave great influence to the relatively small group of important merchants who controlled the Chamber of Commerce and who were also Justices of the Peace.
The representatives elected by the Chamber of Commerce to serve on the Legislative Council were, up to the turn of the century:
1884-86
Thomas Jackson
1886-90
Alexander Palmer
MacEwen
1888-89
Bendyshe Layton
The Hongkong and
Shanghai Banking Corporation. Holiday, Wise & Co.
Gibb, Livingston & Co.
(temporarily acting for MacEwen, absent) 1890-1902 Thomas Henderson
1894-95
1900
Whitehead
Chartered Bank of India,
Australia & China.
Alexander MacConachie Gilman & Co.
(temporarily acting for Whitehead, absent) Herbert Smith
Butterfield & Swire.
(temporarily acting for Whitehead, absent)
For more than half this period 1884-1900, the Chamber of Commerce chose a banker, able to speak with a knowledge of commercial and financial conditions as a whole; the two bankers chosen, Jackson and Whitehead, were both men of outstanding personality.
The Justices chose as their nominees on the Council:
Frederick David Sassoon
Catchik Paul Chater1
1884-87 1887-1906
Both were successful and wealthy business men of Asian origin yet were very westernized. Chater became an influential public figure
1 Sir Catchik Paul Chater, C.M.G. (1846-1926). Of Armenian extraction from Calcutta, came to Hong Kong 1864 as assistant in the Bank of Hindustan, China and Japan. Resigned 1866 to be exchange and bullion broker, unanimously elected to the Legislative Council 1887, again 1893, and for a third term in 1899. Retired at the end of the third term in 1906. Member of the Executive Council 1896-1926. Initiated the Central Praya Reclamation, 1887. Founder of many enterprises, c.g. the Wharf Company, coal mines in Tonking, iron mines in New Territories. Knighted 1902.
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in Hong Kong, associated with the Executive and Legislative Councils for nearly forty years. Though their nominees were well able to represent the foreign community, nevertheless the Justices must be given credit for taking this liberal attitude in the exercise of their electoral privilege.
The remaining nominated unofficial members, except the Chinese, were again chosen from a very limited number of important commercial houses. The chief exception was E. R. Belilios in 1881 and again in 1892-1900. By his own business ability, and his generosity in subscribing to public causes he had won public esteem. Sassoon, Chater and Belilios were all Asian in origin but accepted socially and supported by the European community to which the majority of the Justices belonged. The Bowen reforms did not therefore impair the influence of the leading commercial houses and helped to continue the representation of property and commercial interests but not of the people or communities as such. The government was there to protect the individual; as Bowen put it, the 'governor as representative of the Queen, is bound to protect impartially the interests of all Her Majesty's subjects of every race'. The Chinese were protected not only by representation on the Council, but also by the Registrar-General, whose subsidiary title since 1858 had been 'Protector of the Chinese'. It was his function to deal directly with the Chinese on all matters concerning their relations with government, for example to receive all Chinese petitions and deputations, to see that Chinese interests received due consideration, that the government's views were made known to the local population, and that all government ordinances, notifications, etc. were accurately promulgated in the Chinese language. The importance of his office had grown with the growth of the Chinese community, and we have just seen that in 1884, he became an ex officio member of the Legislative Council. Hennessy had wanted to replaced this office by a Chinese secretaryship, with the same status in relation to the Chinese as the Colonial Secretary occupied in relation to government business transacted in English, and he temporarily abolished the Registrar-General's powers as 'Protector of the Chinese'. Hennessy handled the project badly, but his idea of attaching great importance to relations with the Chinese was adopted after he left by enhancing the prestige of the Registrar-General. His special responsibility was to see that Chinese customs and usages were respected and that the normal processes
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RECONSTRUCTION OF LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL 1884
105
of law were mitigated in this respect. These arrangements to protect Chinese reflected that humanitarian liberalism which characterized British colonial policy and to which all parties in England subs- cribed. Some Chinese, educated in the West, began to object to any difference of treatment between Chinese and foreigners, and wished to abolish the office of Registrar-General on the ground that there should be no official entrusted with the duty of dealing specifically with the Chinese, and that all people of Hong Kong regardless of race should deal with the government through the same channels.
The Chinese had an alternative means of safeguarding their interests through the Directors of the Tung Wah, signifying 'for Chinese of the Kwang-tung province'. This Chinese organization was founded in 1870 to tend the sick, care for the aged and home- less, and repatriate those wishing to return to China but unable to find the means. It was given recognition by ordinance and the most prominent and influential Chinese became its directors. In 1882 Marsh complained1 to the Secretary of State, Lord Kimberley, that the Tung Wah Hospital committee did not limit themselves to hospital affairs, but seem 'to be recognised by the Chinese as a kind of tribunal to which petitions for redress of grievances should be addressed, and in fact to have exercised the duties of which the Registrar-General was relieved, of Protector of the Chinese'; it summoned witnesses and communicated directly with Chinese imperial officials. All these responsibilities were assumed quite openly with no attempt at concealment, and Kimberley advised great caution in bringing the committee back to its true charitable function, because it was a society of great benefit to the Chinese.
Bowen wished to increase the powers of the Legislative Council as well as strengthen its personnel. In December 1883 he wrote to Lord Derby that the British in Hong Kong contrasted their position with that of the British merchants in Shanghai, who had self-governing powers by means of a council elected by the rate- payers. Both cities had approximately 2,000 Europeans and 150,000 Chinese, and many thought that Shanghai was better governed than Hong Kong where the Secretary of State controlled all administrative details. Bowen gave it as his opinion that the leading
1 Marsh to Earl of Kimberley (Confidential), 20 March 1882, CO 129/199. Sir George Bowen to Earl of Derby, 10 December 1883, No. 334, CO 129/213.
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residents of Hong Kong were much superior in personal character, property and essential qualifications of administrators to the average members of ministries in the self-governing Australian colonies. In December 1883, the Legislative Council resolved that it be allowed to exercise, under the Colonial Office, the same functions as the Shanghai Municipal Council, but Lord Derby rejected the plea 'having regard to the peculiar circumstances of the Colony and to the fact that a large proportion of local questions bear directly or indirectly on points of imperial interest'. Nevertheless Bowen strongly and repeatedly supported this demand. The Governor also thought that Hong Kong, as the 'Gibraltar of the East', should have the senior military officer as the governor: 'In fact neither Hong Kong nor Gibraltar is a colony in the proper sense of the the ordinary work of a civil governor at Hong Kong (with occasional exceptions when there arise grave questions concerning foreign relations and the resident Chinese Community) is not materially different from the ordinary work of the Mayor of Portsmouth or Plymouth or of any other large garrison town in England'1 was his verdict.
term
Bowen was also able to effect some reform in the machinery of the Legislative Council. At the Council meeting held on 29 December 1883, F. Bulkeley Johnson, moved 'that all votes of public money should be laid before the Finance Committee before being forwarded to the Secretary of State'. Bowen accepted the suggestion, and replied that 'except in emergency, all votes of public money should for the future, be considered in the first instance by the reconstituted Legislative Council'. Lord Derby assented to the change. A substantial gain in the status of the unofficial members resulted because they could now make their views heard before decisions were finally approved by Whitehall. Also by his institution of an annual review outlining the Govern- ment's policy, corresponding to the Speech from the Throne in British parliamentary practice, to which the members had an opportunity to reply, Bowen provided them with 'a constitutional opportunity of expressing their opinion of the conduct and pro- posals of the Government'.2
Arising out of Bulkeley Johnson's question, Bowen added in his reply, that he considered that Legislative Council Standing
1 Sir George Bowen to Earl of Derby, 23 May 1883, No. 82, CO 129/209.
* Sir George Bowen to Earl of Derby, 1 March 1884, No. 63, CO 129/215.
}
}
RECONSTRUCTION OF LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL 1884 107
Orders 'as in other Colonies' should be introduced into Hong Kong. The result was the drawing up of new standing orders, dated 10 April 18841 by which the committee system was further developed. Section 43 provided that 'At the opening of every session the President shall appoint the following standing com- mittees: (a) A Finance Committee consisting of the Colonial Secretary (chairman) and other Members of the Council except the Governor; (b) A Law Committee consisting of the Attorney- General (chairman) and four other members; (c) A Public Works Committee consisting of the Surveyor-General (chairman) and
four other members'.
This brought into existence two more standing committees, besides the Finance Committee established earlier in 1872.o On 10 December 1884, it was moved by the Colonial Secretary that the Law Committee should consist of the Attorney-General, Colonial Treasurer and three unofficial members (Phineas Ryrie, F. D. Sassoon and Wong Shing), and the Public Works Committee of the Surveyor-General, Colonial Secretary, Registrar-General and two unofficial members (William Keswick and T. Jackson).
Bowen helped to give the reorganized Council additional status by printing its minutes together with annual Departmental Reports and other papers laid before the Council; thus began in 1884, the annual series of Hong Kong Sessional Papers.
Bowen was eager to set up an elective municipality, having set up many in Australia and New Zealand in the course of his long career as governor, but he concluded that it would be impossible in Hong Kong as the English ratepayers were so few in number that it was extremely unlikely that any would be elected;3 he gave the number of ratepayers as 83 British, 647 Chinese and 98 others, chiefly Portuguese. He explained that though he admired the Chinese and had always shaped his course so as not to run counter to their national feelings, yet 'Chinese views, habits and customs respecting water-supply, sanitation, police, harbour regulations and most other political and social questions are widely different
1 Government Gazette, 12 April 1884.
At the Legislative Council meeting held on 27 August 1886, one of the Unofficials, A. P. MacEwen, asked how many times these committees had met, and referred to them as having been set up in 1883. But as the Government Gazette of that year make no reference to them, his memory was probably at
fault.
3 Sir George Bowen to Lord Stanley, 5 September 1885, No. 348, CO 129/222.
:
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from those . . . in Europe' and this made it impossible to have an elective municipality in charge of the health of a garrison town and a harbour with 53 million tons of shipping, if the Chinese predominated. He salved his conscience by saying that the Legislative Council was really a municipal council and represented the community, now, he emphasized, i.e. after his reforms.
He noted that the imposition of rates was vested in the Executive Council and he altered this to secure that rating should come under the control of Legislative Council, in the same way as ordinary taxation. In the same letter Bowen enunciated the constitutional doctrine that the official majority 'should not be used to control an absolutely united unofficial minority especially in financial ques- tions'. This issue was to come up in an acute form a few years later. Bowen's advocacy of greater representation of the community and greater power for the Legislative Council arose partly out of his irritation at the amount of control which the Colonial Office exercised over the colonial administration especially since the coming of the telegraph. He particularly wanted a military adjutant for the police and was annoyed when the proposal was rejected. He had been a governor for twenty years and adopted the tone of an elder statesman. His claim to have done more, in the short period of less than three years that he had been in Hong Kong, than had been done in any three years before, led an irreverent Downing Street official to remark, 'Sir George Bowen blows his own trumpet rather loudly'. Bowen in his dispatches used to criticize 'some permanent gentlemen of the colonial department' and brought upon himself a magisterial reproof from Lord Derby, who referred to 'the very unusual language in which you have referred to the you are not justified in criticizing the conduct of the Colonial Office as independent of the Secretary of State... I am alone responsible for what is written to you'.1
Colonial Office
•
Bowen became extraordinarily egotistical, and claimed an oracular quality for his pronouncements; Hong Kong society enjoyed the fun of this display of pretentiousness, but there was general relief that he did not return in 1887 as had been intended. He was a keen advocate of imperial federation and wanted all colonies represented in the Parliament at Westminster. No one took him too seriously, and yet perhaps despite himself, he made an important contribution
to the constitutional development of Hong Kong.
* Earl of Derby to Sir George Bowen, 8 September 1884, CO 129/216
CHAPTER VII
THE PETITION OF 1894
FOR REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT
2
Financial Strains
SIR George Bowen left for England on leave in December 1885 and was allowed to retire without the formality of returning to his post. Nearly two years elapsed before his successor, Sir George William Des Voeux1 arrived in Hong Kong. In the interval, W. H. Marsh again administered the government from December 1885 to April 1887, and Major General W. G. Cameron for the remain- ing few months before Des Voeux's arrival in the following October. Des Vœux was Governor 1887 to May 1891 and was followed, after an interval of six months, May-December 1891, during which time Major General Digby Barker administered the government, by Sir William Robinson, who was Governor from 1891 to 1898. After the reorganization of the Legislative Council by Sir George Bowen, the five unofficial members became extremely active in examining and criticizing government measures, particu- larly those concerning finance and public works, and some were debated with great acrimony. From these heated debates arose the demand for representative government, that is for a majority of elected members in the Legislative Council, which was made in a widely signed Petition by the ratepayers in 1894. Dissatisfaction was also partly financial; as in 1847, 1850 and 1864, the demand for a greater measure of self-government originated in resistance to increased taxation, actual or threatened. Before dealing with this Petition, a brief review of conditions in the Colony during the ten years 1884-94 will be helpful.
The Bowen reforms worked smoothly. Wong Shing was content to adopt a co-operative attitude which at least had the merit of
1 Sir George William Des Voeux (1834-1909), of a Huguenot family. Balliol College; migrated to Canada, 1856; took law. Stipendiary Magistrate, British Guiana, 1863; Administrator of St. Lucia in 1869; Governor of Fiji, 1878-1885; Governor of Newfoundland, 1886; Governor of Hong Kong, 1887-91; then
retired.
2 Sir William Robinson (1836-1912). In 1854 joined the Colonial Office as a clerk. 1874 became Lieutenant-Governor of the Bahamas, and Governor, 1875; Governor of the Windward Islands, 1880; Governor of Trinidad, 1885; Governor of Hong Kong, 1891-98. Knighted, 1883.
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demonstrating that no hazard was likely to result from having a Chinese representative permanently on the Legislative Council; when his six-year term was up in 1890, he asked not to be re- appointed. His place was taken by Dr Ho Kai2 who had been educated in England where he had been called to the Bar and also had qualified in medicine. He had been considered for a seat on the Council by Bowen in 1884, but had been rejected because he was young and too westernized,3 He dressed as a European, was married to an English woman, and on that account was not at first acceptable to the Chinese as their representative on the Council. He proved himself a stronger character than his two Chinese predecessors and identified himself fully with the other unofficial members in a policy of opposition to the government. In August 1886, Marsh recommended John Bell-Irving of Jardine, Matheson & Co. for a seat on the Legislative Council in place of William Keswick of the same merchant house who went on leave, and in making it, he naïvely remarked to the Secretary of State, 'It seems to have been the custom since Hong Kong was a Colony for the senior partner in this, the largest mercantile firm in China, to have a seat in the Legislative Council and I have followed tradition'; the Jardine member used jokingly to be referred to outside the council chamber as 'the member for East Point', the latter being the site of the firm's wharves and godowns.
5
In August 1886, the unofficial members secured the publication of the proceedings of the Finance Committee of the Council. Alexan- der Palmer MacEwen, the Chamber of Commerce representative, moved 'that in future all matters of public interest, and more particularly the voting of public funds, be discussed openly in Council and not as heretofore at private meetings of the Finance Committee'. The acting Attorney-General in reply proposed that 1 F. Fleming to Lord Knutsford, 4 March 1890, No. 53, CO 129/244. 2 Sir Kai Ho Kai (1859-1914). Born in Hong Kong, son of Rev. Ho Tsun Shin of the London Missionary Society. Educated at the Government Central School and in England. Qualified as a doctor at Aberdeen University and St. Thomas Medical and Surgical College. Called to the Bar at Lincoln's Inn, 1881. Returned to Hong Kong, practised medicine, then in 1882 turned to the Bar Founded the Alice Memorial Hospital in memory of his English wife and was one of the founders of the Hong Kong Medical College 1887. Served on many boards and committees. C.M.G., 1892. Member of Legislative Council, 1890- 1914. Knighted, 1912.
Sir George Bowen to Earl of Derby, 28 December 1883, No. 355, CO
129/213.
W. H. Marsh to Secretary of State, 20 August 1886, No. 271, CO 129/228. Hong Kong Sessional Papers, 1886-87, p. 2.
THE PETITION of 1894
III
it is unnecessary to interfere with existing practice which had been laid down as recently as 10 April 1884; this motion was carried by the official votes with assistance from Wong Shing, against the four remaining unofficials. However, it was decided to lay the minutes of that committee before the Council with any relevant minutes from the Governor, and from 7 January 1887, the minutes of the Finance Committee were printed with those of the Council. Though they contained little more than the bare record of decisions, this proceeding automatically ensured some publicity and indirectly strengthened the position of the unofficial members. In November 1887 Des Vœux went further and ruled that all meetings of the Finance Committee should be open to public unless a member moved that there be a closed session. The Public Works Committee and the Law Committee continued to meet in private until June 1891 and November 1897 respectively. By the Council's new standing orders which came into effect in July 1890, the Finance Committee was to consist of all the Council except the Governor, the Public Works Committee of the Surveyor-General, Colonial Secretary and three named unofficial members, and the Law Committee of the Attorney-General and four unofficials. Otherwise the revised standing orders of 1890 contained only minor changes, for example, the quorum was reduced to five, and, in voting resolu- tions, a bare majority instead of the former three-quarters was deemed sufficient. From 1890 the printed proceedings of the Finance Committee contained a fuller record of divisions and questions. An account of the proceedings of the Council and of its committees was also given in the Hong Kong Hansard; it is not known when this was first published but copies exist from 1890 onwards and are noted on the title page as being 'Reprinted from the Hong Kong Daily Press, revised by Members'; this continued until 1928 when it apparently became an official publication.
The annual session of the Council introduced and keenly sup- ported by Bowen was dropped by Des Voeux. Bowen, now in retirement, wrote to Des Voeux privately in 18881 and induced Lord Knutsford the Secretary of State (1887-92) to raise the matter. Des Vœux explained that there was no need for any annual session and recess, since all members lived in such close proximity, that
1 Des Voeux, My Colonial Service, Vol. II, p. 275.
Sir William Des Voeux to Lord Knutsford, 21 January 1889, No. 28, CO 129/241.
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the formal opening and closing of the session tended to excite ridicule in such a small community, and that in presenting the annual estimates, the Governor had ample opportunity to make any review of government policy that might be necessary. Similarly, Des Voeux said he had given up the weekly meeting of the Execu- tive Council and summoned it only when business warranted. The practice of having an annual session of the Legislative Council was revived by Sir William Robinson in 1893 and continued until 1901, each session opening in November with a speech by the Governor, and the introduction of the Appropriation Bill for the following year. The session usually closed in June but extra meetings were sometimes held later to transact urgent business. By 1902 these extra meetings had become so numerous that the idea of sessions was apparently dropped, and the Council met throughout the year.
In 1890 Des Vœux suggested that the Council should be increased by four members, two official and two unofficial. The proposal was made haphazardly and for no more compelling reason than his desire to promote to membership a young official, N. G. Mitchell-Innes, Registrar-General, and he naturally felt it was preferable to recommend an increase of two officials and a corresponding increase of two unofficials. For the second official he suggested the Police Magistrate. Lord Knutsford declined to entertain any increase, and Mitchell-Innes became a provisional member only, deputizing for a permanent member.
The financial stress which marked the years preceding the Petition of 1894 sprang from three sources, a particularly extensive programme of public works, the heavy demands upon the Colony for defence, and the fall in the value of silver causing a depreciation of the currency which was based on silver.
The need for and cost of, public works was quite exceptional. For nearly twenty years before Bowen, these had been much delayed. Sir Richard MacDonnell had to contend with a severe economic depression, a great financial set-back caused by the Hong Kong Mint fiasco,1 and with trouble brought on himself by his legalization of gambling. Under his successor, the easy-going Kennedy, little was achieved, while Sir John Pope Hennessy caused
1 A Hong Kong mint, proposed by Sir Hercules Robinson, began operations in May 1866 and closed in April 1868 having made a loss of almost $440,000.
THE PETITION of 1894
113
further delay by his administrative ineptitude and unwillingness to take any action that might give offence to the Chinese.
By 1883 therefore, the provision of needed public works of all kinds was much in arrear and it was one of Bowen's first tasks to put in hand an exceptionally heavy programme of public works the most important of which were the Tai Tam waterworks estimated at $600,000, a new gaol at $400,000, a new Central School building at $100,000, five other schools at $24,000, the Observatory at $19,000, a lunatic asylum at $9,500, Police barracks and stations at $135,000, and a sea-wall and Water Police station at $35,000— in all $1,323,500. The water scheme though essential, was costly as it involved constructing a tunnel through the hills from reser- voirs on the south side of the island. The Home Government, following the prison reform legislation in England of 1885, had pressed for some years for a new gaol to relieve the overcrowding that was reported each year. The unofficials all opposed the vote for a new gaol, and the Chinese member, Dr Ho Kai, particularly argued against the separate cell system as being unsuited to the Chinese temperament and, in 1893, influential members of the Chinese community signed a memorial against the gaol extension. The opposition was so strong that the most that Robinson could secure was $96,000 for extensions to the existing gaol and even this limited sum was not voted until the autumn of 1893. The prolonged dispute over the gaol and the Imperial Government's insistence on more humane standards of gaol accommodation did much to annoy the unofficials, who were less tender towards the Chinese criminal class and more familiar with the primitive conditions in which so many Chinese lived.
There was yet another serious difficulty. The increase in the Chinese population and their spilling over into the European areas brought problems of sanitation. As a result of complaints from the military, Osbert Chadwick, a civil engineer formerly in the army, was sent out in 1882, and produced Hong Kong's first report on public health. He recommended an extensive public works programme to implement the sanitary measures which he consider- ed urgent, without, as he put it, 'waiting for the necessity to be demonstrated by the irresistible logic of a fever epidemic'. Chad-
118 July 1882 Mr Chadwick's Report on the sanitary condition of Hong Kong with appendices and plans, Colonial Office, November 1882, Eastern No.
38.
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wick's words were prophetic and little enough was done until the outbreak of bubonic plague in 1894. The chief sanitary works were, the Tai Tam waterworks which has already been referred to, and which had been shelved by Hennessy; a new central market for the more hygienic handling of food, estimated to cost $150,000, the Causeway Bay reclamation, $300,000, the reclama- tion of a pestilent and foetid swamp at Yaumati', provision of dust-bins, carts, latrines, $43,158, and a new and improved sewage scheme for the City of Victoria, $46,550. Additional expenses were incurred with the appointment of sanitary inspectors and other supervisory staff, and the compensation payments in rebuilding old insanitary properties. Opinions differed as to the need of all this expenditure on sanitary improvement. Osbert Chadwick had written in his report that the Government in Hong Kong... has allowed to grow up in a new city . . . a Chinese quarter, more overcrowded, more filthy, more deficient in all the primary elements of health and decency than any quarter of Canton... Yet Dr Ho Kai, the Chinese member of the Sanitary Board (see p. 148), declared in 1887 'Hong Kong as it now stands is a paradise, a model of cleanliness
', compared to Canton or Kowloon City. In 1890 a scheme for a complete reconstruction of the sewage arrangements in Victoria to cost $282,500 was voted, over the protests of the unofficial members of the Legislative Council, who did not think that the expenditure of this enormous sum was desirable. Chadwick returned to the Colony in 1889 to draw up plans and supervise their execution, and he was appointed a special member of the Executive Council for this purpose. In 1890, public works were voted in two sections, extraordinary and recurrent, and this division continued for some years because of the unprecedented programme of capital expenditure.
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Another source of financial dissatisfaction were the heavy demands made upon the Colony for defence. The old pax britannica in the Far East which had been a concomitant of British mercantile, financial, and naval dominance was beginning to function less effectively, for other European powers now wished to play a more influential role. France, after her gains in Tonking following her hostilities with China of 1884-5, aimed at extending her influence in Yünnan and the southern provinces of China; Russia in alliance with France after 1893, had ambitions in Korea, Manchuria and Mongolia and in 1891 started to build the Trans-Siberian Railway.
THE PETITION OF 1894
115
Imperial Germany, born in the triumphs of the France-Prussian War of 1870 and, after 1890, free from the moderating influence of Bismarck, was expanding her trade and influence in the Far East. Japan's turn was to come after her victory over China in the war of 1894-95.
To strengthen imperial defence, Great Britain set up an Imperial Defence Committee to plan defence measures. Its leisurely enquiries extended over many years, and one of its demands was for greater contributions from the colonies. They were asked to undertake and pay for local defence works and to contribute to imperial defence as a whole. In the case of Hong Kong plans were drawn up for the construction of fortifications, ear-marking of defence sites and the raising of a locally recruited force, the Hong Kong Regiment, composed mainly of local Indians under regular British officers. In September 1884, the Colony was asked to pay £56,000 for defence works in addition to the normal annual military contribution of £20,000. The outbreak of Sino-French hostilities in 1884, with the fear that Russia might join, made defence preparations in that year a matter of urgency. Bowen panicked during the hostilities and made so many demands for improved defence, that he brought upon himself a rebuke from the Earl of Derby that the Home Government 'was thoroughly aware of what is necessary for the defence of the Colony'.
A special sum of £56,000 ($280,000) was voted by the Legislative Council in December 1884, but only on the understanding that the latest type weapons would be supplied.1 Next year, 1885, more military works were proposed which would cost the Colony further £54,000. Bowen rightly complained that a fixed local defence plan determined by a local defence committee, was a necessity, since each Commander Royal Engineers had different ideas on the subject of fortifications. Even this sum was increased to £60,375 and after much protest was voted by the Legislative Council in March 1886 and only on condition that it was the final sum for defence; with the £56,000 previously voted, it made a total of £116,000 ($580,000). As these sums could not be met out of revenue, a loan was inevitable. This was a source of further trouble since the Home Government refused the proposal of the unofficial members to raise the loan locally through The Hongkong and
1 Sir George Bowen to Earl of Derby, 2 May 1885, No. 206, CO 129/221 and reply.
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Shanghai Banking Corporation at 6% when it could be floated in London at 4 or 44%. On 12 March 1886 the Loan Ordinance was passed raising £200,000 in debentures at 41% on the London market.
Then in 1889, the Home Government decided to double the annual military contribution from £20,000 to £40,000 on the ground that the increased defence works needed an increased garrison.1 The defence burden was now regarded as excessive and there was an immediate protest, the reply to which made it clear that the increase was demanded because the Colony could afford it and not because of the increased garrison as local opinion had been led to suppose. The doubled military contribution was voted unanimously on 26 March 1890, but after the vote certain resolu- tions were passed by the Council that, (i) the vote had been passed in the belief that the increased garrison would comprise 3,018 men of whom 2,525 would be Europeans; (ii) no demand for payment should be made until the garrison had been in fact strengthened; and (iii) the military held 337 acres of land in the Colony, valued at 3 million dollars, which in itself was a valuable contribution to the cost of defence. European troops of the line' had been promised, but they turned out to be a Madras regiment and the Colony, by an oversight, had not been informed of the change. This led the Officer Administering the Government remark to Lord Knutsford that the Imperial Government should submit the necessary measures 'in a frank and open manner'.* On December 1890, the unofficial members again protested against imposing the increased military contribution until the increased garrison had been sent. Knutsford3 rejected the protest on the ground that the increased contribution had been fixed in January 1890 at 17% of the revenue of the year 1888, and that the sum now demanded was only 11% of the current revenue; he observed that the original military contribution of £20,000 first imposed in 1863 constituted 16% of the revenue of that year. There was a further sharp protest in May 1891 when a half of the military contribution which had been held over from 1890 was voted by the Legislative Council, though it transpired that in fact 1 Lord Knutsford to Sir William Des Vaux, 21 October 1889, No. 207, CO 129/242.
2 F. Fleming to Lord Knutsford, 10 September 1890, No. 327, CO 129/246. 3 Lord Knutsford to Sir William Des Voeux, 7 March 1891, No. 47, CO
129/249.
THE PETITION OF 1894
117
it had already been paid by Des Voeux on his own authority. As late as March 1894, Sir William Robinson was still urging a reduction in the military contribution.
This greatly increased bill for defence came at a particularly inopportune time when the silver dollar was subject to serious depreciation following the fall in the world price of silver. It declined in value from 4/1 in 1876 to 2/1 in 1896 and to 1/11 in 1899, and Hong Kong, China and all countries with a currency based on silver, were the victims. The effects of this depreciation were serious. Payments and remittances overseas except to those countries with a similar silver standard, were made more onerous; imports from the West and from the United States cost more and raised the cost of living; and retirement pensions payable in dollars were reduced in value in Britain. To meet a demand for increased salaries for the government officials, a committee con- sisting of the unofficial members of the Legislative Council re- commended in December 1889 that the salaries of the British officials should be placed on a sterling basis and that other officials should get a 20% rise, except coolies and labourers whose wages were considered to be already in excess of those they would receive in China. Lord Knutsford would not accept a sterling basis for the government salaries, but agreed to a 35% increase for staff recruited from Britain and a 20% increase for those locally recruited. These increases were duly voted by the Legislative Council in 1890 to take effect in 1891. In April 1891 Thomas Whitehead, the manager of The Chartered Bank, and the most active unofficial member of the Council,1 proposed that the salary increases should be withdrawn because the Colony could no longer afford them. When Des Voeux refused on the ground that the increases had already been voted, Whitehead urged the Secretary of State to withhold his sanction. In November 1892 the appropriations embodying the salary increases were carried by the official majority against the unanimous votes of the unofficial mem- bers. At the next meeting of the Council in December the un- official members protested that the vote was unconstitutional and that the Appropriations Ordinance for 1893 was illegal because
1 Thomas Henderson Whitehead (1851-1933). Entered the service of The Chartered Bank; Manager of the Hong Kong Branch, 1883. Superintendent of its Far Eastern branches, 1893. London Manager, 1902. Member of the Hong Kong Legislative Council 1890-1902. Member of the Hong Kong Executive Council 1902.
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the officials had a personal interest in voting their own salary increases. The Marquis of Ripon, Secretary of State for the Colonies, 1892-95, did not uphold this protest because it would have given the unofficials control of all business by refusing to vote salaries. Since the appropriations were being carried against the wishes of the unofficials, the latter in January 1893 embodied in a memorial to Lord Ripon their protest against the Appropriations Ordinance and asked for a commission of enquiry into the Colony's finances. Lord Ripon in rejecting these representations, replied1 that the revenue had shown a rise of 76% between 1884 and 1892, whereas the cost of the salaries of the establishment had increased in that period by only 37%, and pointed out that the increase recommended in 1889 had been unanimously recommended by the unofficials themselves. He admitted that the unofficials 'may be regarded as in some degree the special guardians of the public purse', and to soften the blow of his refusal he suggested a Re- trenchment Committee, consisting of the unofficial members 'and one or two other government officers'.
Robinson appointed in August 1893 a Retrenchment Committee of three officials and three unofficial members of the Legislative Council with the Chief Justice as chairman. Whitehead objected to its composition as contrary to the Secretary of State's instruc- tions and demanded a majority of unofficials. The Governor reluctantly agreed, but then found that the Chief Justice refused to preside over such a committee. Robinson thought it essential to have Whitehead on the Committee, but Whitehead refused to serve except on his own terms. The Retrenchment Committee of three members, none of whom were officials and only two of whom were unofficial members of the Legislative Council, was eventually constituted in 1894 and suggested economies by amalgamating
posts.
The demand for representative government must be seen and judged against this background of heavy expenditure, all of which came in a period of declining value of the silver dollar and much of which was controversial and imposed on the Colony from with- out. This situation drove the unofficial members more easily into the role of a constitutional opposition.
They had fallen foul of successive Secretaries of State on many important issues, for example, the doubling of the defence con- 1 Lord Ripon to Sir William Robinson, 21 April 1893, No. 71, CO 129/258.
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THE PETITION of 1894
119
tribution in 1889, raising a public loan on the local money market, the increased government officials' salaries, the Retrenchment Committee and better gaol accommodation, with the result that liberation from control by the Secretary of State was sought by means of constitutional reform.
The Petition of 1894
Matters came to a head in 1892 over the officials' salaries and in December of that year, Sir William Robinson wrote home1 giving his view that the real reason for the unofficials wanting to reduce the officials' salaries was not lack of finance but 'soreness over the increased military contribution', and resentment over the Secretary of State insisting on a new gaol with better accommodation. He said a small knot of English residents wanted constitutional change and hoped to secure it by persistent opposition. They did not want elections but hoped to have power through an unofficial majority of nominated members, and, led by T. H. Whitehead, tried to get their own way by threatening to resign as a body; for example, they all threatened to resign over the question of a new gaol. Robinson observed that Hong Kong could not cease to be Crown Colony as it was important to the British Empire from every point of view and there was 'the possibility, remote perhaps, of China attempting to regain it'. The non-Chinese were a mere handful, who did not settle in the Colony and with interests often antagonis- tic to the Chinese. He thought that the existing system of govern- ment 'governs in the interest of the whole community and especially safeguards the rights of the indigenous population', and that there could be no change without transferring power to the people. He alleged that Whitehead did not want representative government, but rather that 'a very small alien minority should rule the indi- genous majority'; and to achieve this he was endeavouring to reduce the present form of government to an absurdity. Robinson ended by saying he proposed to let things take their course and if the unofficials resigned, to fill their places, or if he could not find suitable candidates, to leave them vacant.
On this dispatch appears an interesting minute from the Colonial Office, which noted that Jamaica, Honduras and Mauritius all had
Sir William Robinson to Lord Ripon (Confidential), 6 December 1892, CO 129/256.
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representative institutions in which voting rights were exercised irrespective of colour; this assumed that the negro was capable of participating in representative institutions 'whereas it is common ground between us and Mr Whitehead that an ordinary Chinaman
is not'.
In June 1894 Whitehead, supported by Paul Chater and Ho Kai but not by J. J. Keswick or E. R. Belilios among the unofficial members of the Legislative Council, organized a petition widely signed by the Hong Kong ratepayers to the Secretary of State asking for constitutional reform. The petitioners pointed to the prosperity of Hong Kong, with its population of a quarter of a million, its public revenue of two million dollars and its annual trade estimated at £40 millions. They affirmed that though this thriving community had been created by British merchants, traders, and shipowners, these men had only a small share in the government of the Colony because the Legislative Council was controlled by the official majority and that despite the fact, as they pointed out, that the senior officials often were men with only a short period of residence in the Colony and so unable to judge its needs.
They pleaded that many Crown Colonies were given more liberal treatment by having unofficial members in the Executive Council and an unofficial majority in the Legislative Council and they asked for similar treatment in Hong Kong. They agreed that they must be subject to the Imperial Parliament and to the Queen in Council, but argued that it was the 'common right of Englishmen to manage their local affairs and control the expenditure of the Colony where imperial considerations were not involved'. The petitioners made two specific demands; they asked for 'free election of representa- tives of British nationality in the Legislative Council', and 'a majority of such representatives in the Legislative Council'. They asked also for freedom of debate for the official members.
Sir William Robinson sent a copy of the petition to Lord Ripon together with his comments.1 He agreed there was much prosperity in Hong Kong but questioned the assumption that this had been achieved despite the system of Crown Colony government. He thought that the formation of a municipal council would improve the administration of local affairs, but doubted if enough gentlemen were available in Hong Kong to form such a Council. He advised
1 Sir William Robinson to Lord Ripon, 5 June 1894, No. 133, CO 129/263-
THE PETITION of 1894
121
as a concession that the unofficial element in the Legislative Council should be slightly increased and that unofficial members should be added to the Executive Council, and suggested J. J. Keswick or Thomas Jackson as the first unofficial member of the Executive Council 'in the absence of a suitable Chinese'; but he added that unofficial members on the Executive Council might be an anomaly because they could not be controlled.
Lord Ripon treated the Petition with respect in his lengthy and detailed reply, in which he made some important comments on the problem of government in Hong Kong at that time. He referred to the population figures of the 1891 census which showed 211,000 Chinese out of a total of 221,400 and observed that 'under the protection of the British Government, Hong Kong has become a Chinese rather than a British community', and that Chinese settlement 'has been one main element in its prosperity'. The Europeans and Americans numbered 8,500, but only 4,200 were civilians, and of these only 1,450 were British, of whom only 800 were male adults. The tendency was for the Colony's trade to pass more and more into Chinese hands and clearly the mass of the population, the Chinese, had prospered under the existing form of government and in any scheme of change, their interests had to be carefully watched. He argued Hong Kong had 'prospered as a British Colony, but in great measure because it has been British Colony', though it owed much to its geographical position and to British protection, and to its harbour. There was plenty of evidence that the Hong Kong government possessed strength and justice, but Hong Kong, he said, differed from other Crown Colonies like Cyprus, Malta and Mauritius, in that it possessed no traditions, no history, and no record of political usages or constitutional rights, and it has few life-long residents, whether British or Chinese'.
He criticized the petitioners' demands as lacking in clarity. They asked for the free election of representatives of British nationality, but made no reference to the qualifications of the voters. If the petitioners intended that only those from the British Islands should vote and be elegible for election, this would exclude nine-tenths of the entire population, and the military would in any case swamp the civilian portion. He dismissed the claim to have a majority of elected representatives as merely a corollary to elections. Free debate by officials was impossible because paid servants could not
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be allowed to oppose the government, but like all supporters of an administration, must support government measures or resign.
With regard to the demand for greater local control, Lord Ripon said this pointed to municipal government as in the Straits and Ceylon, but the difficulty in Hong Kong was to distinguish between colonial and municipal affairs, and he was not sure whether a municipality was what the petitioners wanted. He affirmed that the policy of the Colonial Office was always that 'the claims and interests and even the prejudices of each colony' should be 'clearly set out and fully considered'. He thought that Hong Kong was not suited to any form of self-government because it was an imperial station with imperial interests, on the borders of a foreign land. The petitioners wanted control by a small oligarchy of some 800 persons, but, he went on, 'I consider that the well-being of the large majority of the inhabitants is more likely to be safeguarded by the Crown Colony system under which as far as possible no distinction is made of rank or race, than by a representation which would leave the bulk of the population wholly unrepresented'.
Ripon outlined three possible courses. First, there could be additions to the Legislative Council, but if the unofficial element was increased, the official side must be proportionately increased. He thought that, on this point, a second Chinese representative appeared to be the most equitable course, but the petitioners did not want this, neither did J. J. Keswick who had suggested that one European unofficial member of the Executive Council might be appointed. He said he was willing to sanction this, but the petitioners must remember that a Chinese might be appointed since 'it would be invidious and inequitable to lay down that Chinese subjects of the Queen shall be debarred from appointment to the Executive Council'. None of the other eastern colonies had unofficial members of the Executive Council, and Ripon suggested, as a second possibility, that as the unofficial members of the Legislative Council were already consulted, they might be invited to take part in the Executive Council discussions, but not to have seats. Thirdly, he said 'with regard to the institution of a municipal council, I frankly say that I should like to see one established at Hong Kong', and he suggested that the Sanitary Board might develop into a satisfactory municipal council. In any case, he said, because of the present crisis in the Far East, there could be no constitutional change until the future was tolerably clear.
THE PETITION OF 1894
123
Lord Ripon had the better of this exchange largely because the petitioners were not arguing for representative government as such, for they certainly did not want Chinese representation; their main object was to prevent excessive taxation at the bidding of the Secretary of State and, to a less extent, of the local govern- ment. That was why their petition was carefully vague; they did not and could not argue for full representative government which would have handed the Colony over to the Chinese. They wanted an oligarchy of some 800 voters and defended this illiberal proposal by appealing to liberal arguments which lost their force by its racial exclusiveness. They still hankered after a Council similar to the Shanghai Municipal Council, which at that time denied the Chinese any representation.
The solution of a municipal council commended by Lord Ripon and the Governor did not find favour with the petitioners for the reason just given. Their object was self-government, not as a principle, but as a means of checking what were held to be in- equitable financial demands. A municipal council would not have given them the substance of control. Whitehead went on leave in 1894 and saw Lord Ripon at the Colonial Office but failed to induce him to alter his view that Hong Kong must remain a Crown Colony. There was talk of replacing the Sanitary Board by a municipal council, but it came to nothing.
Lord Ripon in a confidential letter to Sir William Robinson1 agreed that if the unofficial members of the Legislative Council would not accept a municipal council, then as an alternative, there should be two unofficial members nominated to the Executive Council and, considering the extent of the Chinese contribution to Hong Kong, and the undesirability of making any distinctions of race, and because, too, of the great importance of sanitary ques- tions, that one of them ought to be a Chinese. He also thought there should be an addition to the Legislative Council of one official and two unofficial members, to make a total of eight officials and seven unofficials, exclusive of the Governor. The General should have the new official seat, and since the Chinese element was clearly under-represented, one of the two additional unofficial members should be a Chinese. The second unofficial seat should go to a class or interest unrepresented or inadequately represented, Lord Ripon to Sir William Robinson (Confidential), 28 June 1895, CO
129/266.
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for example 'some European representative of retail trade or skilled labour'. The Governor in reply doubted1 if the proposed increase in the Legislative Council would add to its efficiency. He also opposed having a Chinese on the Executive Council as he 'could not and would not be an independent member', and an Anglo- Chinese representative like Ho Kai, would not have the confidence of the Chinese. He thought the Chinese did not understand representative government. He considered everybody would be satisfied if the senior unofficial member of the Legislative Council became a member of the Executive Council-as long as it was not Whitehead or Francis, he cautiously added, for they were his principal opponents. Robinson reported in the previous May that he could not find any real desire among the inhabitants of the Colony for any change in its constitution, and he said there was no interest in elections, and instanced the election for the unofficial members of the Sanitary Board held in June 1894, when only 25 people voted out of a total electorate of 500. This was a misleading deduction because that election was uncontested (see page 153).
2
Robinson was guilty of inconsistency because he himself held a plebiscite of the British community in June 1896 on the subject of whether the reconstituted Sanitary Board should have an official or an unofficial majority.
In 1895 the Unionist Party returned to power in Britain with Joseph Chamberlain as Secretary of State for the Colonies, so the final decision regarding the Hong Kong Ratepayers' Petition rested with him. On 29 May 1896 Chamberlain gave his views, which were very similar to those of Lord Ripon. He wrote
purpose
'As Hong Kong is to remain a Crown Colony, no useful would be served but, on the contrary, a considerable amount of need- less irritation would be caused, by balancing even the unofficial members and the officials. But, having regard to the fact that, in the absence of the Governor, the Officer Commanding the troops will in future administer the government, I consider that it would be of advantage that he should be a member of the Legislative Council; and, if he is added to it, I am willing to add one unofficial member to the unofficial bench. Who the latter should be, and what special
1 Sir William Robinson to Joseph Chamberlain (Confidential), 16 August
1895, CO 129/268.
2
* J. J. Francis (?-1901). Acting Puisne Judge, 1879. Q.C., 1886. In 1894 was presented by the Hong Kong Government with a silver inkstand for his services on the special plague committee of the Sanitary Board, but he returned it to Sir William Robinson as 'ludicrously inadequate'.
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interest, if any, he should represent, I leave to the Governor to de- termine. I may observe, however, that the Chinese community is the element which is least represented, while it is also by far the most numerous, and that I should regard as valuable any step which tend- ed to attach them more closely to the British connexion and to increase their practical interest in public affairs'. On the question of appoint- ing unofficial members to the Executive Council, his judgment was .. in view of the fact that the Colonial Government was dis- charging municipal duties, representatives of the citizens might fairly be given a place on the Executive'. He proposed that . . . the Executive Council shall in future include two unofficial members to be selected at the discretion of the Governor. It is obviously desirable that they should, as a rule, be chosen from among the unofficial members of the Legislative Council, and the choice should, and no doubt will be, inspired by consideration of personal merit, and have no reference to the particular class or race to which the persons chosen belong'.
The final upshot was that the Legislative Council was increased by two members, one official member, the General Officer Com- manding, and one unofficial member. The latter, appointed in July 1896, was Wei Yuk.1 Two first unofficial members of the Executive Council were J. Bell-Irving of Jardine, Matheson & Co., and C. P. Chater, and they took their seats, on 22 October 1896. In spite of all the trouble he had given, Whitehead was recommended by Robinson in September 1896 for a further term of six years as member of the Legislative Council, and this was confirmed by the Colonial Office with the ironic comment 'H.M. opposition must be confirmed'.
The demand for greater representation was possibly stimulated by the activities of the China Association which was founded in London in April 1889 by old China hands such as William Keswick, Sir Alfred Dent and retired officials like Sir Thomas Wade and Sir George Bowen. By 1895 it had a membership of 400. Committees of the Association were set up in Shanghai and Hong Kong in 1892 because the Chambers of Commerce at those two centres were too cosmopolitan to be a satisfactory reflection of purely British interests. For long the China Association had the ear of the Foreign Office."
Wei Yuk (1849-1921). Born in Hong Kong, son of compradore of the Chartered Mercantile Bank of India, London and China. First Chinese to be educated in Britain (Dollar Academy). J.P., 1883. Member of Legislative Council, 1896-1914. Married the daughter of Wong Shing. C.M.G., 1918.
Knighted, 1919.
* See N. A. Pelcovits, Old China Hands and the Foreign Office, passim.
,1
CHAPTER VIII
CONSTITUTIONAL DEVELOPMENTS IN THE 20TH CENTURY TO THE OUTBREAK OF THE WAR IN THE PACIFIC, 1898-1941
The New Territories
IN 1898 an area of 3651 square miles, consisting of a portion of the Chinese mainland lying immediately to the north of the Colony, and some 235 adjacent islands to the east, south and west, was leased to Great Britain for 99 years; first referred to as the New Territory, it soon acquired and has since retained the designa-
tion New Territories.
Its acquisition was part of that scramble for concessions which characterized European relations with China following the Sino- Japanese War of 1894-95, which revealed China's military weak- ness. The threatened anarchy could be solved by restriction of claims by agreement or by carving out spheres of influence at the expense of China. Great Britain was faced with the dilemma of attempting to maintain her traditional open door policy or of joining in the scramble. The acquisition of the New Territories must therefore be seen in the light of these conditions, as part of what was essentially a European diplomatic struggle. Russia secured Port Arthur, and railway concessions in Manchuria; Germany, Kiaochow and concessions in Shantung; France, a rectification of the Tonking frontier and Kwangchowan; and Britain secured the lease of Weihaiwei as long as Russia remained in Port Arthur, the lease of the New Territories and the opening of the West River to navigation. The Powers also secured from China certain declarations of non-alienation regarding areas in which they were particularly interested.
The reason assigned for the extension of the Colony in the preamble of the 'Convention between Great Britain and China respecting an Extension of Hong Kong Territory signed at Peking, 9 June 1898' was: 'whereas it has for many years past been re- cognised that an extension of Hong Kong territory is necessary for the proper defence and protection of the Colony.... By the 1 The Convention is printed in Hertslet's China Treaties, Vol. 1, p. 120; also
Parliamentary Papers, Treaty Series, No. 16 (1898).
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Convention the boundaries of the extension were only 'indicated generally' on an annexed map, and provision was made for their more exact determination after 'proper surveys had been made by officials appointed by the two governments'. It was agreed that within Kowloon City 'the Chinese officials now stationed there shall continue to exercise jurisdiction except so far as may be inconsistent with the military requirements for the defence of Hong Kong', and to assist this retention of Chinese jurisdiction in Kowloon City, Chinese officials and people were allowed to use the road from Kowloon to Hsinan,1 and Chinese warships and merchant vessels were allowed to use the landing place near the city. There was to be no expulsion of the Chinese or expropriation of their land within the leased territory and land required for public use or military fortification was to be paid for, and Chinese warships had navigation rights in Deep Bay and Mirs Bay. Subject to these stipulations Britain had sole jurisdiction over the leased territory. It is clear from these clauses which allowed a Chinese garrison to continue at Kowloon City, and Chinese warships to use the landing place there, and to use the two large bays the waters of which were included within the boundary of the leased territory, that defence of the Colony was envisaged not against China, but against attack by one or more European powers. This is further borne out by the instruction given to the Governor not to obstruct
the
passage of Chinese Imperial troops through the leased territory for the purpose of conducting operations against the revolutionary reformers at Canton. The boundary commission, composed of J. H. S. Lockhart, the Colonial Secretary, and Wang Tsin-hsien3 representing China, fixed the boundary along a line joining the heads of Deep Bay and Mirs Bay, following the Shum Chun river for much of its course, and to include the islands of Lantao, Cheung Chau, Lamma and many smaller ones. The local Britishauthorities claimed Shum Chun, on the Chinese side of the river, and also Shataukok on Mirs Bay; these two disputed points were referred to the respective national authorities at Peking, where it was agreed that Shum Chun be excluded from the leased area and the bound- ary at Shataukok should run along the middle of its main street.
San On, in Cantonese.
Telegram, Joseph Chamberlain to Sir Henry Blake, 17 October 1900, CO 129/301.
'Wong Tsin Shin in Cantonese,
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The assumption of British authority in the New Territories met with opposition. The Chinese villagers with their traditional peasant life evinced a natural hostility to outsiders. Rumours that the British would seize all the land were spread by Hong Kong Chinese with the object of bringing down the price and enabling them to buy it up cheaply. The continued functioning of Chinese customs stations set up by agreement with the British in 18861 to combat opium smuggling also caused difficulties. The take-over was arranged for 17 April 1899 but the British advance parties were fired on and confronted with other evidence of preparations for resistance, with the result that troops were sent and the British flag was raised on the 16th. The sporadic opposition ceased ten days later.
Taking over the New Territories posed not a military but an administrative problem. An Order in Council of 20 October 1898* declared the Territories to be 'part and parcel of Her Majesty's Colony of Hong Kong in like manner and for all intents and purposes as if they had originally formed part of the said Colony', and the Governor and Legislative Council were to make laws for the peace, order, and good government there; all laws and ordin- ances in force in Hong Kong were also after a declared date to apply to the New Territories. The British Government soon decided that the defence requirements of the Colony were in- compatible with maintenance of Chinese control of Kowloon City and the city was taken over in 1899. This was done by the Order in Council of 27 December 1899,3 where it was stated that
The exercise of jurisdiction by the Chinese officials in the city of Kowloon having been found to be inconsistent with the military re- quirements for the defence of Hong Kong... The city of Kowloon shall be... part and parcel of H.M.'s Colony of Hong Kong... as if it had originally formed part of the said Colony. This unilateral declaration, though in accordance with the terms of the 1898 Convention, has never been accepted by the Cantonese.
The extension of British territory once more brought to the fore the problem of government in Hong Kong. The British tradition
1 The Agreement of 1886. See the author's A History of Hong Kong, Oxford
University Press, London 1958, p. 213.
Hertslet, China Treaties, Vol. 2, p. 728.
* Ibid, p. 749.
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was not to interfere with local custom and usage as far as these were compatible with peace, order and good government. The undertaking that had been held out in 1842 when the Island was taken over, and repeated in 1860 when part of Kowloon peninsula was ceded by the Convention of Peking, that Chinese law would continue to apply, was again given. Yet Chinese law was quite inadequate to deal with the mass of disputed claims to ownership of land, inaccurate or even spurious title deeds, and holdings with no recognizable boundaries.
These traditional problems of Chinese land tenure re-appeared on a larger scale in 1899 in connection with the administration of the New Territories. Major General Wilsone Black, the Officer Administering the Government, suggested in August 1898 that the new area should be administered separately from the Colony and placed under a Resident on the ground that the Chinese there needed a more personal form of government. The decision devolv- ed on Sir Henry Blake1 who assumed office as Governor of Hong Kong in November 1898. His first suggestion was to appoint F. H. May, the Captain Superintendent of Police, as the resident magistrate, but Chamberlain would not sanction the appointment without further examination of what was needed. Some decision had to be taken because of crime, insecurity, extortion, disease, fever especially malaria and clan fights which were frequently resorted to in the settlement of village disputes. Blake felt that it was impossible to govern the New Territories' Chinese on exactly the same lines as the more urbanized Chinese in the City of Victoria, especially as Chinese officials had in the past exercised little control beyond exacting annual payments.
Sir Henry Blake's policy was to interfere as little as possible, to recognize the traditional way of life in the New Territories and adopt the Chinese customary methods of administration for the maintenance of order and the collection of Crown revenue. He hoped to govern the leased area through the village elders and reduce the number of British officials to a minimum.
Blake divided the New Territories into districts and sub-districts each under a committee composed of village elders who were to regulate the affairs of the village and maintain order. He visited
Sir Henry Arthur Blake, 1840-1918. Born in Limerick, Governor of Bahamas, 1884-87; Governor of Newfoundland, 1887-88; of Jamaica, 1889-97; Governor of Hong Kong, 1898-1903; Governor of Ceylon, 1903-07. Knighted, 1888.
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each district, met the elders and explained at length his adminis- trative plans and the function of the committees. He promised to work for economic improvement, and warned against the collection of money except the authorized rates and taxes. He promised that there would be no interference with Chinese custom, except that all punishment must be in accordance with the law as laid down, and the elders would be held responsible for all rioting. He admitted that there was much crime but promised that normally all residents would be protected. Land rent would con- tinue as Crown rent, but all other customary and monopolistic dues were abolished. To implement his promises Blake was forced to spend much more on policing than he anticipated, and piratical attacks from the sea forced him to double the water police. The Committees were organized under a Local Communities Ordinance, No. 11 of 18 April 1899, and identified as closely as possible with the geographical divisions long recognized by the Chinese inhabi- tants themselves. A sub-district usually comprised a single valley with its self-contained group of villages and hamlets, or a single island; Lantao Island which is larger than Hong Kong Island was divided into three sub-districts. An exception was also made in respect of that part of the leased territory generally called New Kowloon, which was adjacent to British Kowloon ceded in 1860, and with it formed a well-defined peninsula lying to the south of a range of hills marking it off from the rest of the New Territories; it was thought best that New Kowloon should not be treated differently from the rest of the Colony 'especially as the inhabitants are well acquainted with the laws and customs of Hong Kong proper'.1 The island of Lamma, on account of its proximity to Aberdeen was similarly excluded from the operations of the Local Communities Ordinance. In all, there were 8 districts and 48 sub- districts with 597 villages and an estimated population of 100,000.
The villagers were asked to recommend the names of those whom they wished to act as sub-district committee-men; these were allocated on the basis of one committee member for each hundred of the population, except that each village with a population of from 50 to 100 persons was allowed one committee-man, and similarly groups of smaller hamlets with a combined population of 50 to 100 persons were allowed one committee-man.
Report on the New Territory by J. H. S. Lockhart, 7 February 1900, submitted to the Governor. Hong Kong Sessional Papers 1900, p. 252.
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The committee-men as a rule are those who possess influence in their own immediate neighbourhood, whose advice is listened to, and whose lead is generally followed. The wisdom of affecting with responsibility those to whom the people have been accustomed to look for leadership and of using them to elucidate the objects of government, is evident.1
The appointment of chairmen of these committees was delayed pending more experience. The Local Communities Ordinance also provided for local tribunals composed of elders to deal with petty cases but they never functioned satisfactorily because of the reluctance of the elders to co-operate. In the annual report on the New Territories for 1902,2 Blake had an illuminating comment on the working of the system of indirect rule. He said that though the village elders had been appointed district elders and had been given some judicial power to deal with petty cases in their own districts, he had to confess his surprise that the elders' courts were not appreciated or used by the people, and that
as a matter of fact the Elders displayed no anxiety to take the duties upon themselves, and from the beginning the community showed perfect confidence in Mr. Lockhart and subsequently in Mr. Hallifax who is now acting as police magistrate . . . but whose practical work is more often that of an arbitrator, whose decision is accepted without
demur.
The fact that there was a European magistrate with concurrent jurisdiction and to whom appeal could be made may well have convinced the elders that to attempt any judicial work on their own was futile, especially in a voluntary capacity.
All occupiers of land had to register their holdings, but the settlement of land claims proved so thorny a task that it was placed in the hands of a specially created land court set up by Ordinance No. 8 of 28 March 1900. On this matter the Secretary of State ruled that the enquiry into land ownership should not be too technical and that due regard should be paid to long occupation and evidence of improvement. To assist in deciding claims, a new survey of the New Territories was carried out and the existing property boundaries were found to be hopelessly inaccurate. The western boundry of the New Territories too had to be slightly adjusted because the existing Admiralty chart was also found to be incorrect, and the 113° 59' 29.7" meridian which formed that boundary did
1 Ibid.
* Hong Kong Sessional Papers 1902, p. 348.
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not strike the Chinese and Lantao coasts as expected. A team of surveyors from India undertook the survey, which occupied them until May 1904. The Land Court which could hardly function without the survey also completed its work by the end of 1904. The magnitude of the task is shown by its demarcation of 354,277 lots1 in addition to settling innumerable disputed claims. New rent rolls were prepared but the report says that many villagers protested against them, and the proclamation fixing the Crown rents was delayed until July 1966, and an undertaking was given that the rents would not be raised. Leases were fixed at 75 years from 1 July 1898, renewable for a further 24 years.
The district committees were unco-operative at first; they treated the government with suspicion and frequently ignored its request for information. The result was the Summoning of the Chinese Ordinance, No. 40 of 30 December 1899, by which the Chinese could be summoned to appear before the Registrar-General in Hong Kong to answer questions and give information. The main object was to gain information about land, but the Ordinance gave more far-reaching powers and drew a strong protest from Thomas Whitehead, addressed to the Colonial Secretary, which, however, was not supported by his two Chinese unofficial colleagues on the Council, and though this protest was not upheld, Chamberlain Sir accepted the Ordinance only if it were limited to two years. Henry Blake also found it advisable to give an assurance that the Ordinance would not be used for the purpose of police enquiries. Until the system of committees of elders was tried out, the administrative arrangements for governing the New Territories remained fluid, and much experiment was necessary before a solution of the problem of its administration could be found. Though the Secretary of State, Joseph Chamberlain, had ruled that there was to be no separate administration and that the leased area was to form part of the Colony, in fact it differed in character from the rest of the Colony and therefore required different treatment. That many Hong Kong Ordinances were not applicable there was realized, and an Ordinance for the Better Regulation of the New Territories, No. 10 of 18 April 1899, exempted the New Territories from the operation of certain ordinances, for example,
1 Hong Kong Sessional Papers 1905. Report on the Blue Book, p. 441.
Hong Kong Sessional Papers 1900, p. 107, and Hong Kong Hansard 1899- 1900, p. 51 (15 February 1900).
CONSTITUTIONAL DEVELOPMENTS 1898-1941
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those dealing with public health, slaughter-houses, markets, opium, licensing, and registration. The argument used was that British laws should be applied only gradually and that the Chinese cus- tomary system of taxation should be adhered to. The Ordinance in effect established the principle of a separate administration and though it was intended to be only temporary, the arrangements it made proved to be enduring. Blake wanted to use traditional methods of Chinese administration, just as Elliot had wanted to do for the whole colony in its early days, since the New Territories Chinese were living in their traditional way. G. N. Orme, the District Officer in his report on the New Territories of June 9, said,1
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. He ascribed this to its remoteness from Canton so that it was, before its cession, little touched by external influence. He said
A Chinese community like that of the New Territories is by its structure and its long habit of decentralised government very easy to administer. But its old-established customs and institutions must not be lightly changed or affronted, and necessary innovations have to be introduced with the greatest delicacy. The Chinese villager does not set great store by cleanliness or better housing; he finds himself entirely unable to understand our aims and ideas, and our dismal condition of unrest: he frankly dislikes our iconoclastic spirit, our want of imagination and our blindness to all the forces of nature At first British officials were limited in principle to two, dealing with police and land. In 1899 a police magistrate was appointed and also an assistant land officer to deal with land cases, and the police were placed under the Captain Superintendent in Hong Kong. At the close of 1899 it was decided to make the police magistrate also an assistant superintendent of police. In 1907 the police magistrate had his various offices amalgamated under the title of District Officer, and in 1909, the Assistant Land Officer was made subordinate to him with the title Assistant District Officer. The latter post was abolished in 1913 and replaced by a police superintendent confined to purely police duties. The islands, and later, an outlying part of the mainland, were organized
1 Hong Kong Sessional Papers for 1912, P. 43.
....
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separately as the Southern District, with an assistant land officer appointed on 1 January 1905; he became an Assistant District Officer in 1910. The Northern and Southern Districts were administratively separated in 1909 each officer making his separate report.
By 1913, after much experiment an administrative pattern was evolved. The New Territories were divided into Northern and Southern Districts under a District Officer and Assistant District Officer respectively, acting as magistrates, but not as police officers, and having civil jurisdiction in debt cases for sums not exceeding $200. In addition, by a New Territories Land Ordinance, embodied in the New Territories Consolidation Ordinance of 1910, the District Officer Northern District, and Assistant District Officer Southern District, were given very wide powers in connection with land disputes, the appointment of trustees, and property holding, and in their courts no lawyer was allowed to appear in land cases without their permission. It was not until 1920 that the Assistant District Officer, Southern District, secured equality of status with his colleague in the Northern District, each being called District Officer.
In 1926 a number of tsz-yż or 'head-boroughs' were appointed to assist the District Officer in matters of local interest or dispute; the appointments were intended to be for one year and to give recognition to elders with long and faithful service. They developed into a senior advisory council, known as the Heung Yee Kuk
and became something of a closed body, appointing other elders at their discretion to vacancies as they arose.
This division of the New Territories into two districts, northern and southern, each under a District Officer remained the pattern of the administration until after the World War of 1939-45. The principle of separate administration remained, though gradually some Hong Kong ordinances were applied, e.g. by a series of New Territories Regulation Amendment Ordinances of 1923, 1938 and 1940, power was given to apply certain clauses of Hong Kong Ordinances regarding sanitation and the abatement of nuisances.
3. Hong Kong Police in their uniform from about 1880 to the First World War
Facing page 134
4. The Governor, Sir Frederick Lugard (Lord Lugard), arriving on 28 July 1907. By courtesy of the Hong Kong Government Information Services.
Facing page 135
1 Administration Reports for 1926, Appendix J, p. 3. They are not mentioned
in the report for that year for the Southern District.
CONSTITUTIONAL DEVELOPMENTS 1898-1941
Constitutional Developments
135
Though the attempt in 1894 to pass beyond the stage of Crown Colony government by the introduction into the Legislative Council of an elected majority of unofficial members had miscar- ried, an undercurrent of desire for constitutional change remained. It was almost exclusively European and regarded the constitutional problem in Hong Kong from the European standpoint; it failed because it assumed that the modes of constitutional advance applicable to colonies of English settlers, were equally appropriate in Hong Kong. Lord Ripon's reply to the 1894 petitioners was conclusive, and its subsequent support by Joseph Chamberlain in 1896 proved that the two main British political parties agreed that the conferring of greater political autonomy on the British residents was incompatible with the moral obligation to protect the interests of the Chinese inhabitants. The principles of Crown Colony government were therefore even more firmly entrenched in Hong Kong as a result of the 1894 Petition.
The main argument was that the interests of the Chinese were likely to be better safeguarded by the Colonial Office than by a small local European oligarchy, however democratically elected amongst themselves. At the same time, it was held that the Chinese majority were not ready to assume political control, particularly in view of the Colony's economic importance and magnitude of the imperial interests involved. In a shifting society in which Chinese and European alike came to Hong Kong from choice, generally in pursuance of self-interest, the existing government answered essential needs, and provided the necessary minimum framework of control within which the different Hong Kong communities could work and live together.
It was not until the Great War of 1914-18 that the demand for reform was again seriously raised. The important contribution of colonial peoples to the War was acknowledged, and strengthened their claim to a greater degree of self-government within the Empire. The self-governing dominions achieved virtual nation- hood in the War when the Imperial Conference of 1917 passed a resolution giving ‘a full recognition of the dominions as autonomous nations of an Imperial Commonwealth'. In India, the promise of association of Indians with every branch of the administration and the development of self-governing institutions, made in 1858, was
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GOVERNMENT AND PEOPLE 1841-1962
renewed in the Montague-Chelmsford report of 1917. In Africa, Lugard enunciated the principle of the dual mandate, that colonial territories were held in trust to make their products available to the world, and for the benefit of the inhabitants themselves. In the darkest days of the War, Lloyd George's insistence upon fuller consultation with the colonies gave promise of greater freedom to colonial peoples, and this idea gained additional impetus from its concrete embodiment in President Wilson's Fourteen Points.
Hong Kong could not remain untouched by the prevailing ideas and impulses aroused by the War and the agitation for reform revived. Led by H. E. Pollock,1 an influential lawyer and member of the Legislative Council representing the Justices of the Peace, its demands were broadly similar to those made in 1894 and invited a corresponding fate. It took the form of a Petition dated 19 January 1916, but not sent until the following March, addressed to the Secretary of State, A. Bonar Law (1914-16), from the British residents in Hong Kong. Possibly there was an element of personal pique on the part of Pollock who considered himself unjustifiably passed over for membership of the Executive Council when a vacancy occurred in that body in November 1915. On 23 December 1915, Pollock in the Legislative Council asked what steps had been taken to fill the vacancy and drew attention to his own claims by pointing out that he had been a temporary member of the Executive Council at various times amounting to nearly three years. On that same occasion, he asked two additional questions dealing with reform of the Executive and Legislative Councils; they were:
Question 5. Will the Government recommend to the Rt. Hon. the Secretary of State for the Colonies that the two unofficial members of the Executive Council shall be elected members instead of being nominated by the Government?
Question 6. Will the Government recommend to the... Secretary of State for the Colonies that all the Unofficial Members of the Legislative Council shall be elected instead of two-thirds of them being nominated by the Government, and also that the number of Unofficial Members in that Council be increased?
Henry Edward Pollock (Sir) 1864-1953. Prominent Hong Kong Barrister, Called to the Bar, 1887; acting Police Magistrate Hong Kong, 1888-89; acting Puisne Judge, 1892; acting Attorney-General at various times, 1896-1901 Q.C. 1900. Attorney-General in Fiji Islands, 1902; Member of Legislative Council, Hong Kong, elected by the Chamber of Commerce, 1903-04, and elected by the unofficial Justices of the Peace for 36 years 1905-1941. Member
of the Executive Council, 1921–1941. Knighted, 1924.
2 Hong Kong Hansard for 23 December 1915.
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Pollock was undoubtedly underlining his own claim to member- ship of the Executive Council by implying that if the vacancy were an elective one, he would be elected, a claim which derived substance from his election to the Legislative Council at different times by both the electing bodies, the Chamber of Commerce and the Justices. The Governor, Sir Henry May,1 answered that the Governor was alone responsible for making recommendations for appointment to the Executive Council and ruled out discussion by saying 'I am not therefore prepared to permit myself to be cate- chised as to what action at the present juncture I have taken or shall take to acquit myself of my heavy responsibility'. He assured Pollock that his services had not been and would not be lost sight of. In answer to the two questions relating to alterations in the Constitution of the Colony, May replied,
The suggestions made do not commend themselves to my judg- ment, and the season in my opinion is strangely out of joint for even the discussion of such questions, since the energies of both the Colonial and Imperial Governments are at present concentrated on the inter- necine struggle in which well nigh the whole world is now engaged.2 Pollock was not on good terms with the Governor, and in fact he had to wait until May had retired from the governorship before he secured a seat on the Executive Council in 1921.
Pollock did not accept the Governor's verdict and organized the Petition3 of 19 January 1916, in an appeal to the Secretary of State over the head of the Governor. The Petitioners declared that 'it is fitting and proper that the number of Un-official members on the Executive and Legislative Councils should be increased, and that the principle of election should be extended'. They proposed that two additional unofficial members should be added to the Executive Council, one to be elected by the Chamber of Commerce and one by the non-official Justices of the Peace, these two bodies having 'long been recognized as representatives of the Public for electoral purposes. Regarding the Legislative Council, the petitioners proposed:
Sir Francis Henry May (1860–1922). Born in Dublin; Cadet officer, Hong Kong, in 1881, and Colonial Secretary, 1902-10; appointed Governor of Fiji and High Commissioner Western Pacific, 1910; Governor of Hong Kong,
1912-1919.
A
2 Hong Kong Hansard, 23 December 1915.
Hong Kong Sessional Papers 1916, p. 70.
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(1) That, as regards all the Un-official Members of this Council (other than the Chinese Members who stand on a somewhat special footing), the principle of election instead of Government nomination ought to be applied, and they would humbly submit that it is some- what inconsistent, whilst trusting the Chamber of Commerce and non-official Justices to elect some of the European members of this Council, to deny the right of election to them in the case of the other European Un-official Members' and '(2) That the number of Un- official Members be increased to 10 by the addition of 4 Un-official members, so as to create an Un-official Majority in the Legislative Council, as in the case of Cyprus and British Honduras'.
They pointed out that the Un-official Members were in a per- manent and hopeless minority' and that the Legislative Council 'as at present constituted, though consisting numerically of 14 Members, simply carries into effect the individual will and judgment of the Governor or other Presiding Officer'.
In a covering letter1 dated 9 March 1916, Pollock made some additional points, by way of explanation and 'partly of argument'. He said the Petition had been signed by 566 persons, all British except for 'about one dozen . . . Portuguese and British Indians who.
were not intended to sign', and the first 28 signatures were those of representatives of the most important shipping, commercial, and financial institutions in the Colony. He explained why some of the influential people including the two non-Chinese nominated members of the Legislative Council, D. Landale of Jardine, Matheson & Co. and E. Shellim of David Sassoon & Co., Ltd., had not signed the petition. Landale, he said, favoured an unofficial majority, but did not sign because it would be an ungracious act since the head of Jardine, Matheson & Co. had always been nominated to a seat on the Legislative Council. E. Shellim, he said, had agreed generally with the petition but thought the time inopportune for any change, a point also made by Sir Paul Chater. He admitted that it is fully and clearly recognized, that under war conditions at present prevailing, no definite answer can be expected to this Petition until after the lapse of some months', but urged that a government 'more representative of the wishes of the business men of this Colony, should be established for the
1 Hong Kong Sessional Papers 1916, p. 64.
* Landale afterwards claimed that Pollock had misrepresented him, and that he 'made use of my name in a manner which was not warranted by any con- versation I had with him signature therefrom', Hong Kong Sessional Papers 1916, p. 78.
with a view to explaining the absence of my
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purpose of dealing with any trade and shipping problems which may arise at the close of the War'.
Pollock enclosed articles appearing in the press on the subject of the Petition, particularly some comments on documents concern- ing the 1894 Petition 'which documents were sent by the Hong Kong Government to the Press for publication, on the 25th January 1916, apparently in the hope that they would adversely affect the signing of the petition'. As a result of some criticisms of the Petition arising from this press publicity, Pollock stated that 'in consequence of suggestions made to me, I promised that I would bring to your notice... the desire expressed for a more comprehensive electoral body than the Chamber of Commerce or the non-official Justices of the Peace'. The demands contained in the Petition were thus modified in the accompanying letter. He also explained that it had been deemed advisable to limit the signatories of the Petition to those of British race, though a few Portuguese and Indians did actually sign.
In regard to Chinese representation, Pollock suggested that if two more Chinese members were added to the total of ten un- official members of the Legislative Council suggested in the Petition, the present proportion of Chinese members to the rest of the unofficial members would be preserved. Pollock pointed out the significant differences between his proposals and those of 1894.
The present Petition does not as did the 1894 Petition, ask for a British Un-official majority, and consequently whether the number of Un-officials be 10, or be increased to 12 by the addition of two Chinese members, it would be impossible to get an Un-official majority otherwise than by the combined European and Chinese vote. There would, therefore, be no risk whatever (as there might have been if the Prayer of the 1894 Petition had been granted) of the wishes of the important Chinese community in this colony being over-ruled by the vote of the British non-official members outweighing the combined votes both of the Official and the Chinese Members. of the Governor to suspend legislation and of the Secretary of State to veto it are additional safeguards to the rights of the native population.
The
power
Pollock also claimed that this Petition was signed by 556 persons, practically all British, whereas the 1894 Petition for greater representation was signed by 363 of whom only 284 were British. Finally Pollock gave instances of the way in which the official majority in the Legislative Council was used to vote down the
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unofficial members, and he referred to one of his speeches in the Legislative Council in which he accused the Government of treat- ing the unofficial members in an adverse and hostile spirit instead of taking them into their counsel and co-operation.1
Sir Henry May criticized the Petition on the ground that no adequate reasons had been given for constitutional change, that popular opinion was not disregarded, and the mercantile com- munity already possessed ample means of making their views known. Bonar Law rejected the Petition without any argument, merely saying:
I have carefully considered the Petition in question, but I am of opinion that the reasons which led my predecessors, Lord Ripon, in his dispatch No. 135 of 23rd August 1894, and Mr. Chamberlain, in his dispatch No. 119 of the 29th May 1896, to formulate their decisions upon petitions for the amendment of the constitution of Hong Kong are equally applicable at the present time: it is not therefore possible to meet the wishes of the Petitioners as regards the Legislative Council. . . . As regards the Executive Council, I cannot see any sufficient reason for increasing the number, or changing the method of appointment, of the unofficial members who arc selected to advise the Governor in Council.3
So the Petition failed in its immediate object. Pollock argued ably, yet the case was weak, because it was aimed almost exclusively at giving the British element greater influence in the government. The appeal to the example of Cyprus and British Honduras showed that reform was not sought in the context of the special circums- tances of Hong Kong. Pollock's argument, used in his covering letter but not appearing in the Petition, that the interests of the Chinese were safeguarded because the unofficial European votes in the Legislative Council would not outnumber the combined votes of the officials and the Chinese members, merely strengthened the case for continued Crown Colony government which rested on the necessity to protect Chinese interests. Even the British were not happy that political power was vested in the hands of two small and exclusive bodies, the Chamber of Commerce and the unofficial Justices of the Peace, and Pollock undermined the force of the
1 Hong Kong Hansard 1914, p. 44.
2 Sir Henry May to Andrew Bonar Law, 26 May 1916, No. 209, Hong Kong Sessional Papers 1916, p. 59.
2 Bonar Law to Sir Henry May, 15 August 1916, No. 203, Hong Kong Sessional Papers 1916, p. 91.
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Petition by admitting in his letter that many would like to see the franchise extended to those on the jury lists.
Meanwhile the Home Government had already decided on a revision of the Letters Patent and Royal Instructions in order to bring these constitutional instruments up to date. This decision was taken on its own initiative and was not influenced by the 1916 Petition which arrived at the Colonial Office after the draft revised Letters Patent and Royal Instructions had been sent to Hong Kong for local comment. They were finally issued on 14 February 1917.
The Letters Patent of 1917 'Constituting the Office of Governor and Commander-in-Chief of the Colony of Hong Kong and its Dependencies' and the accompanying Royal Instructions made no change of principle and few changes of detail. The Executive Council still consisted of the Senior Military Officer, Colonial Secretary, Attorney-General, and Colonial Treasurer (the last named was replaced by the Financial Secretary when that office was constituted in 1938) as ex officio members,1 and such other persons as were appointed by Royal Instructions or instructions from the Secretary of State. These latter remained unchanged in number at three, one official and two unofficial, until 1921. The Governor alone determined the Council's business, but a member had the right to have recorded on the minutes his request to submit a question to the Council if it were refused by the Governor, and to have a further record of his opinion if the Governor acted against the advice of the Council. The composition of the Legislative Council remained as it had been fixed by Lord Ripon after the 1894 Petition, that is eight officials including the Governor and six unofficial members, of whom two were elected by the Chamber of Commerce and unofficial Justices of the Peace respectively, and the remaining four, two being Chinese, were nominated by the
Governor.
The policy of giving political power to the few British residents in Hong Kong was thus again decisively rejected, but the demand for constitutional change remained. The China Mail, in an editorial, admitted that it had anticipated that the Petition would not meet with much success, but it criticized Bonar Law's curt dismissal of the Petition, and urged that there was a case that the
1 The Secretary for Chinese Affairs (up to 1913 known as The Registrar- General) became an ex officio member in 1929.
925 September 1916.
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unofficial members of the Council, other than the Chinese, should be elected on a limited franchise, and not be government nominees. The continued pressure brought into existence a Constitutional Reform Association of Hong Kong which was launched at a well- attended meeting held in the Theatre Royal on 3 May 1917. Its declared objects were, the promotion of greater representation of the public on the Executive and Legislative Councils, the pressing upon the Home Authorities of the claims of Hong Kong to be represented on any imperial council or association to be formed and the expression of its views on post-war trade policy, and generally the active support or promotion or criticism of all reforms and all matters of public interest and importance to Hong Kong.
1
All British subjects were to be eligible for membership of the Association. The two elected members of the Legislative Council, P. H. Holyoak and Pollock were appropriately elected president and vice-president respectively, assisted by a committee of ten. Holyoak who presided at the meeting declared that the franchise for the election of members of the Legislative Council should be based on the Jury list and not as demanded in the 1916 Petition. The Association did not show much life until the war was over. In December 1918, it announced a scheme of reform3 based on the Petition but revised in certain particulars. This proposed that the principle of election instead of nomination by the Governor should, except for the two Chinese members, be applied to the filling of unofficial seats on the Councils, that the number of unofficial members of the Legislative Council should be increased from six to eight; the number of official members reduced from eight to seven, and that all six elected members of the Legislative Council should be British subjects. The revised electoral arrangements provided that the six elected members should be elected, two by the Chamber of Commerce, one by the unofficial Justices of the Peace, and three (one of whom should be Portuguese) by those liable to serve on juries or exempted.
These proposals were discussed at a public meeting held on
1 China Mail, 2 May 1917.
Percy Hobson Holyoak (?-1926) of Reiss & Co., afterwards of Holyoak, Massey & Co., Ltd. Member of the Legislative Council, 1915-1926 as represent- ative of the Chamber of Commerce; Member of the Executive Council, 1924- 1926. Chairman of the Chamber of Commerce, 1917-18, 1920-21 and 1925. Died, 25 May 1926.
• China Mail, 19 December 1918.
9 January 1919, at which Holyoak announced that further amend- ments were considered desirable because the Chinese had shown enthusiasm for reform and were asking for more Chinese represen- tation, and the Association thought it advisable to make concessions to their wishes. This third revision of the original reform proposals suggested an increase of the number of unofficial members of the Legislative Council to nine, of whom seven should be elected, all being British subjects. Of the seven, two should be elected by the Chamber of Commerce, one by the unofficial Justices of the Peace, three (two of British and one of Portuguese extraction) by British subjects who were liable to or exempt from jury service, and one by the Chinese Chamber of Commerce or other body similarly representative of the Chinese community.
Some criticism was voiced at the meeting, and a motion that, of the seven elected members of the Legislative Council, one Chinese and one Portuguese should be elected by their own communities and the remaining five by British subjects of pure European descent upon a franchise similar to that used for elections to the House of Commons, was defeated, but gave the mover an opportunity to protest against the restriction of voting in Hong Kong to a narrow propertied class. A further motion
that of the seven elected unofficial members (all of whom shall be British subjects) one shall be elected by the Hong Kong Chamber of Commerce, one by the Justices of the Peace, four (three of whom shall be of British race and one of Portuguese race) by British sub- jects who are jurymen, or are qualified for but exempt from jury service, and one by the Chinese General Chamber of Commerce or some other body representative of the Chinese community. was carried by a very large majority. One member of the Portuguese community vainly urged that that community should elect the Portuguese member just as the Chinese member was to be elected by the Chinese; he agreed that some of the Portuguese were not technically British subjects, but he argued some of the members of the Chamber of Commerce were aliens too and yet were allowed to vote in the election of the member representing the Chamber. of these resolutions was sent to the Governor for trans- mission to the Secretary of State, who replied that the new Governor, Sir Edward Stubbs, 1 would consider them and make recommenda-
A
copy
Sir Reginald Edward Stubbs (1876-1947), clerk at Colonial Office. Colonial Secretary, Ceylon, 1913-19; Governor of Hong Kong, 1919-26; afterwards Governor of Jamaica, 1926-32; Cyprus, 1932-33 and Ceylon, 1933-37
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tions. On 9 December 1920, Pollock, in the Legislative Council,1 complained of the delay and requested the Governor to ask for a decision in view of the fact that the Secretary of State had raised the question of greater representation in the legislative councils in colonies generally. The Home Government decided against the Constitutional Reform Society's reform proposals, the decision being conveyed to the Society and announced in Parliament on the same day, 22 February 1921. Pollock attempted to keep the issue alive and at a meeting of the Legislative Council on 3 March 1921,2 asked that all correspondence between the Governor and the Secretary of State on the constitutional reform proposals passed at the public meeting on 9 January 1919, should be published. The request was refused as the correspondence was confidential. Pollock repeated his request which was again refused in a series of written replies dated 22 March 1921.3 At the next meeting of the Council on 7 April 1921, the Colonial Secretary replied, in answer to a further question by Pollock, that the Secretary of State had given no reason for his view that constitutional change in Hong Kong was regarded as undesirable. The incident was not closed until 7 June 1921 when a new Secretary of State reviewed the question of these reforms in the House of Commons and confirmed his predecessor's decision against making any change.
Meanwhile, another organization with partly political aims, the Kowloon Residents' Association was formed in January 1921. Its object was 'to form a body of residents whose collective and intimate knowledge of this district's requirements would constitute a source upon which such representation as they possess or may possess, on the Legislature, may depend for detailed advice and support'. It criticized the Government because it relied on inade- quate sources as to the requirements of the Kowloon people, such as Government officials, or unofficial members of the Legislative Council 'whose knowledge of local conditions was gleaned from a panoramic view of the peninsula from an elevation of 1,200 feet, or wealthy landowners 'whose interests patently conflicted with those of the residents'. The Association demanded the development
1 Hong Kong Hansard 1920, p. 83.
* Hong Kong Hansard 1921, p. 17.
Hong Kong Hansard 1921, p. 19.
Hong Kong Hansard 1921, p. 25.
The wealthiest Europeans from whom the unofficial members were gener ally selected, normally inhabited The Peak, 1,200 feet above the City of Victoria.
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of motor roads in Kowloon similar to those on the island, a European reserved area, similar to the Peak Reservation, and a hospital for Europeans. In the following November more concrete demands were made regarding amenities such as hospitals, street lighting, improved roads and drainage. The most interesting pro- posal at this meeting was that the jubilee of Kowloon as a British possession (1861-1921) should be made the occasion of inaugurat- ing a Kowloon Municipal Council with an unofficial majority, whose decisions should at first be subject to the Governor's veto. This plan was never worked out in detail.
The Constitutional Reform Association lingered on for a year or two, but never again recaptured its earlier enthusiasm. In May 1921, a joint meeting of the Association with the Kowloon Resi- dents' Association was held to protest against the recently increased house rates which led to further agitation for elected unofficial members on the Legislative Council. The reform agitation soon died down. A series of strikes of Chinese workers threatened to turn into a general social upheaval which together with an economic recession, made reform inopportune; next, the radicalism of the Kuomintang Party under Sun Yat-sen then influenced by Bolshevik advisers, damped enthusiasm for reform; and besides, the Imperial Government by issuing in 1917 the revised Letters Patent and Royal Instructions made the possibility of further changes remote. When constitutional change did come it was to give greater representation to the Chinese. As time went on the disparity in numbers between the Chinese and European communities had become greater. The Chinese national feelings were also stirred by the Nationalist Party, the Kuomintang, who now pressed for the abolition of extraterritorial rights, the retrocession of foreign concessions, tariff autonomy, and the general revision of the so- called 'unequal treaties'. In 1926 the Shanghai Municipal Council finally admitted for the first time three Chinese representatives. The upsurge of national feeling among the Chinese was directed mainly against Japan and Great Britain. Japan had incurred China's enmity by taking advantage of the Great War to press on China the Twenty-one Demands in the spring of 1915, deeply encroaching on Chinese sovereignity. Britain with the largest economic and financial interests in China was the aunt sally of the Chinese
The Hill District Reservation of Residential Area Ordinance, 29 April 1904, reserved the Peak district exclusively for European residence.
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nationalist feeling against the Western Powers in general. A series of strikes in Hong Kong culminated in 1925 in an economic boycott which paralysed the port.
On 9 July 1926, Sir Chouson Chow,1 was appointed the first Chinese member of the Executive Council, following the death of Sir Paul Chater who had served on the Council since 1896. The appointment was made on personal grounds and also to disarm anti-British sentiment in China and encourage local Chinese loyalty in Hong Kong. Two years later, the Legislative Council was increased in number to ten officials, including the Governor, and eight unofficials. This change was made on the initiative of the Governor, Sir Cecil Clementi, partly as a result of the rapid post-war growth of Kowloon which he thought merited two additional unofficial representatives of its own in the Council. This increase in their number from six to eight automatically brought about a corresponding increase on the official side. The increases were sanctioned by the Additional Royal Instructions of 15 November 1928, and came into effect in January 1929. The ten official members now consisted of the Governor, the six official members of the Executive Council, and three other officials, the Inspector General of Police, the Harbour Master and the Director of Medical and Sanitary Services. Of the eight unofficial members, two were elected by the Chamber of Commerce and unofficial Justices respectively, as before, and of the remaining six who were appointed on the nomination of the Governor, three were to be Chinese, i.e. one of the two additional unofficial members had to be Chinese. The second additional unofficial member was selected from the Portuguese community, now represented for the first time. The decision to allocate the two new unofficial seats to the Chinese and Portuguese communities was taken on the initia-
Sir Chouson Chow (1861-1959). Born in Hong Kong. Knighted, 1926; Korcan Customs Service, 1882-94; Chinese Consular Service in Korea, 1894-96; held various posts in Railways and Customs services in China; Counsellor in the Foreign Ministry in Peking, 1910. Unofficial Member of the Hong Kong Legislative Council, 1921-31, and of the Executive Council, 1926-36.
2 Sir Cecil Clementi (1875-1947). K.C.M.G., 1926. G.C.M.G. 1931. Cadet, Hong Kong, 1899; Colonial Secretary, British Guiana, 1913-22; Colonial Straits Settlements and High Commissioner Malaya, 1930-34- Author of Secretary, Ceylon, 1922-25; Governor of Hong Kong, 1925-30; Governor of
Cantonese Love Songs, etc.
a
Hong Kong Administration Reports for 1931, p. 4.
5. SIR SHOUSON CHOW E First Chinese member of the Executive Council, 1926.
By courtesy of the South China Morning Post. Hong Kong.
Facing page 146
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tive of the Governor. Another change introduced at the same time limited the term for holding an unofficial seat to four years.
This broadening of the Council by greater community represen- tation made further inroads in the monopoly of unofficial seats long held by the British commercial houses. Highly significant of this change, Jardine, Matheson & Co.'s continuous representation since 1850 was interrupted in 1921, and not resumed until 1926.
From 1929 to the outbreak of the Pacific War, circumstances militated against further change in the constitution of the Legis- lative Council. The severe economic depression of 1931 in Europe spread to the Far East and seriously contracted the commercial activity of the Colony and its revenue. When trade began to recover, Japan's military and economic aggression in China led to open hostilities in 1937 and her alignment with Germany and Italy in a fascist alliance against the Soviet Union and the Western Powers, altered the direction of Chinese nationalist xenophobia.
CHAPTER IX
LOCAL GOVERNMENT 1883-1941
The Sanitary Board and the First Popular Elections, 1883-1898 A SANITARY Board, with local government functions concerned with the maintenance of public health, was set up in 1883. It acquired unofficial members in 1886, two of whom were first elected in 1888. Because of these elections, the Sanitary Board is not without constitutional importance; moreover it later developed into the Urban Council. Since the Second World War, it has been. suggested that this should in turn ripen into a fully elective municipal council as the most practical step in the path of constitutional advance.
Among the recommendations made by Osbert Chadwick, in his 1882 Report on the sanitary condition of Hong Kong, was the appointment of a sanitary inspector to carry out necessary public health measures. Pressed by the Secretary of State, who regarded the matter as urgent, W. H. Marsh, then the Officer Administering the Government, recommended in March 1883, H. Macallum, the apothecary at the Government Civil Hospital, for the post. Marsh who considered a new sanitary department unnecessary, suggested that control should be exercised by a Sanitary Board comprising the heads of the three departments most closely concerned, the Surveyor-General, the Colonial Surgeon and the Registrar- General, one of whom, as Chairman, would be responsible for the work of the sanitary officials. Further details were left for the new Governor, Sir George Bowen, to decide.
Bowen accepted Marsh's proposal and the Sanitary Board consisting of the three officials was set up on 5 July 1883, under the chairmanship of J. M. Price, the Surveyor-General. He pro- posed1 that the Board should have at least two additional unofficial members, to be nominated by the Governor, but there was so much discussion about its powers that the unofficial element was not added until 1886. The powers of the Board were first defined in the Order and Cleanliness Amendment Ordinance, Number 7 of 13 June 1883. It was given wide powers of inspection and control in accordance with a code of sanitary regulations which were to be
1 Sir George Bowen to Lord Derby, 29 May 1883, No. 88, CO 129/209.
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proposed and discussed by the Board but become operative only after being passed by the Governor in Council, with whom ultimate responsibility therefore rested. The Board thus had the reduced status of an initiating body, able to exercise an independence limited mainly to the control of its own paid officials. Its weakness was revealed almost immediately after its birth, for in the summer of 1883 the Colony suffered a serious outbreak of cholera. The Board made recommendations for more efficient street cleaning and disinfecting of premises by scavenging gangs assisted by a volunteer sanitary corps under the supervision of thirty inspectors. The Attorney-General ruled, however, that a new ordinance would be necessary to carry out these measures and they were held over, though their urgency was great for during the period August 19-26, 1883, when the cholera outbreak was at its worst, 404 tons of refuse were removed per day as against the normal daily average of 83 tons. An Augean task confronted the Board. Quite apart from cholera, the problems of overcrowding, slum clearance, insanitary dwellings, food protection, water-supply and many others that the Chadwick Report had exposed, were aggravated by years of neglect. The Board's proposals for sanitary improve- ment moreover excited bitter opposition from the property owners, foreign and Chinese. Bowen's draft Public Health Ordinance provoked such determined resistance from property owners that the bill did not even get a first reading in the Legislative Council; with the result that Bowen had achieved practically nothing by the time of his departure in December 1885.
The following year, 1886, to allay criticism, the Board took the initiative in proposing that representatives of the community be added to its number as unofficial members. W. H. Marsh, once more serving as Officer Administering the Government, accepted the Board's proposal1 and appointed four unofficial members as representatives of the ratepayers and also added two officials, the Captain Superintendent of Police and the Sanitary Inspector; the
1 W. H. Marsh to Secretary of State, 11 August 1886, No. 159, CO 129/228. The four unofficial members were A. P. MacEwen, Dr Patrick Manson, Dr Ho Kai and N. J. Ede. MacEwen was an unofficial member of the Legislative Council, elected by the Chamber of Commerce, and a partner of Holliday, Wise & Co. Dr Manson was an authority on tropical diseases and one of the founders of the Hong Kong College of Medicine for the Chinese (1887) and later a founder of the London School of Tropical Medicine. Dr Ho Kai, the only Chinese, was qualified in law and medicine and soon became an influential spokesman of the Chinese. N. J. Ede was Secretary of the Union Insurance Society of Canton.
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re-organized Board now consisted of nine members, five official and four unofficial. Marsh explained to the Secretary of State that he sought to strengthen the Board's authority by making it more representative.
The new Board's first task was to revise the draft of the proposed Public Health Ordinance left over by Bowen; in a protracted debate, the main issue was whether the desired improvement in housing standards could be imposed without compensating the owners of property, and the draft was not ready before December 1886. Insistence upon minimum standards of housing with adequate space for ventilation alone was calculated by the Board to cost $1,582,192 in compensation to property owners.
The draft bill proposed amongst other things that the Board itself should be reorganized. It suggested a Municipal Board of Health consisting of four officials, the Surveyor-General, Registrar- General, Colonial Surgeon and Captain Superintendent of Police, and four unofficial members of whom two were to be appointed by the Governor and two were to be elected by those whose names appeared on the jury lists; the Governor was also to nominate the president, vice-president and secretary of the Board. It was to have wide powers to make bye-laws on virtually all aspects of public health. However, the Executive Council amended the bill to limit the Board's power to make bye-laws, on the ground that the more important public health regulations ought to appear in the Ordinance itself, and not be left to the Board.1 The Executive Council wished to keep ultimate control over all the sanitary legislation in its own hands, as against the Board's desire for elected and nominated unofficial members to strengthen its own position on controversial matters. Dr Ho Kai supported the idea of a municipal council to deal with health questions and wanted all discussions to be held in public, but he took a very strong line against the proposed sanitary improvements, arguing that they would shake public confidence, and entail sacrifice of valuable building space, which would result in more cramped housing, higher cost of land and higher rents. He thought that the govern- ment was making the great 'mistake of treating Chinese as if they were Europeans' and protested that the Chinese did not need or
W. H. Marsh to Sir Henry T. Holland, BT. (later, Lord Knutsford), February 1887, No. 62, CO 129/231.
2 Ibid.
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desire more living space. He complained that the bye-laws were based on those of English cities and declared, 'I protest loudly against this kind of indiscriminate and servile legislation'. In view of the opposition aroused, the Sanitary Board's draft bill was drastically amended and made to apply only to new houses and not to existing property; but even then Ho Kai's opposition was not appeased. The Secretary of State refused to sanction the payment of compensation to owners: 'Owners could not fairly claim compensation for being prevented by the law from building houses without regard to the requirement of the health . . [of the people]', was his verdict. In the autumn of 1887 all the contentious clauses concerning property and housing space and back yards were removed from the Public Health Bill and in this emasculated form the Ordinance was passed. Dr Ho Kai maintained bitter opposition for which he sought support by organizing a petition against the Ordinance among the Chinese. Every effort was made by the property owners to shelve the bill. As Major General Cameron, the Officer Administering the Government, pointed out, the trouble was the apathy of the general public over the bill, for the Europeans were not permanently resident, and the Chinese wanted only to be left alone, and so the initiative had to come from the government in face of opposition from interested parties who 'wanted to repudiate the first principle of sanitation'.1
The Executive Council, though it had rejected the proposal to set up a municipal board of health, did accept, in the Public Health Ordinance, a thorough-going re-organization of the Sanitary Board, including its proposal to have an elected element among its membership. It was to be composed of four official members, Surveyor-General, Colonial Surgeon, Registrar-General and Captain Superintendent of Police, and not more than six additional members of whom four, including two Chinese, were to be nominated by the Governor, and two were to be elected by those ratepayers whose names were on the special and common jury lists. As before, the Governor appointed the president, vice- president and secretary. The Board's sessions were to be in public. This re-organization did not pass without opposition, mainly over a demand that all six unofficial members should be elected and not merely two, giving the Board an elected majority and not merely an
1
Major General Cameron to Sir Henry T. Holland, BT., 27 September 1887, No. 331, CO 129/234.
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unofficial majority. All the unofficial members of the Legislative Council voted against the Public Health Bill, not merely on account of those clauses dealing with the constitution of the Sanitary Board, and it was carried only by recourse to the official majority. The Chinese petition against the Public Health Ordinance, organized by Ho Kai, was supported by 47,000 signatures. It referred to the Elliot Proclamation of 1841 which promised the Chinese the free enjoyment of their customs, and it declared that since there had been no epidemic or plague and since the Chinese were prosperous, they wanted no disturbance or change. The petitioners asked that four members of the Board should be elected instead of two, and that the Board should be empowered to appoint its own officials. The Secretary of State considered the petition but the Ordinance came into force in June 18881 despite the Chinese protest.
The reconstituted Sanitary Board was now set up. The first elections to the Board in accordance with its new constitution were held on 12 June 1888, and the local press remarked that 'the day would be ranked as a day of note by the future historian of Hong Kong; for the first time the ratepayers of the Colony had been given a voice in the management of their own affairs'. Of four candidates for the two elective seats, J. D. Humphries and J. J. Francis, Q.C., were elected with 71 and 55 votes respectively, the other two candidates, R. K. Leigh and A. MacConachie polled 43 and 18 respectively. The total poll was 187 votes out of the 669 persons on the jury lists for that year, not all of whom were qualified as ratepayers to vote. Humphries entered the lists at the last moment and conducted a vigorous campaign with processions of rickshaws; and yet less than one elector in three voted.
The nominated unofficial members were Wong Shing (Chinese member of the Legislative Council), Dr Ho Kai, Dr James Cantile and N. J. Ede. Osbert Chadwick, then in the Colony to advise on sanitary works, was made a member of the Board by a special
ordinance.
The contentious clauses of the Public Health Ordinance were left to a Buildings Ordinance No. 15 of 1889, but here again the opposition was such that Des Vœux omitted its contentious property clauses, and eventually a Crown Lands Resumption Ordinance was passed later in the same year by which sanitary improvements were to be effected by using the power of resumption.
The Daily Press, 16 June 1888.
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The unofficial members held their seats for three years, and on 17 June 1891, a second election was held. There was much excite- ment and the three candidates made election speeches, though questions were not allowed by the presiding officer. Humphries and Francis were again elected with 217 and 198 votes respectively, and the third candidate, A. Shelton Cooper, secured only 77 votes. The jury lists numbered 738 and the total number of votes cast was 492, a reasonably heavy poll, bearing in mind that not all those qualified to serve on the jury were necessarily qualified to vote as ratepayers. The third election took place on 16 June 1894 but aroused very little interest or excitement. J. J. Francis and R. K. Leigh were the only candidates, nevertheless there being no provision for declaring unopposed candidates duly elected, balloting was necessary as a matter of form.
Election by those whose names appeared on the jury lists meant election by those who could speak English. A juror was a 'male person between the ages of 21 and 60. . . who is a good and sufficient person resident within the Colony and is not ignorant of the English language 1 The jury lists do not give the nationality of the juror, but the lists for 1888 and 1891 both showed 30 Chinese names, and the impression gained from reading the lists is that many nationalities were represented, with a majority, certainly not overwhelming, of English.
The bubonic plague in 1894 inevitably raised once more the issue of the composition and powers of the Sanitary Board. Sanitary improvement made little headway against the opposition of the Chinese and of the property owners with the result exactly as Chadwick had prophesied an outbreak of plague. The Sanitary Board drew up more stringent bye-laws dealing with compulsory visiting and cleansing of houses and the isolation of infected cases; it set up a special housing committee to deal with resumption of