wu-ting-fang

Wu Tingfang (1842-1922)
Reform and
Modernization in
Modern Chinese
History
Linda Pomerantz-Zhang
ભારતી
Wu Tingfang (1842-1922)
Reform and Modernization in Modern Chinese History
Linda Pomerantz-Zhang California State University
Dominguez Hills
WPIENTIA
T-VIRT
Hong Kong University Press
香港大學出版社
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Wu Tingfang (1842-1922)
Reform and
Modernization in
Modern Chinese
History
Linda Pomerantz-Zhang
ભારતી
Wu Tingfang (1842-1922)
Reform and Modernization in Modern Chinese History
Linda Pomerantz-Zhang California State University
Dominguez Hills
WPIENTIA
T-VIRT
Hong Kong University Press
香港大學出版社
Wu Tingfang (1842-1922)
Reform and
Modernization in
Modern Chinese
History
Linda Pomerantz-Zhang
ભારતી
Hong Kong University Press
139 Pokfulam Road, Hong Kong
Hong Kong University Press 1992
ISBN 962 209 287 X
All rights reserved. No portion of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher, Hong Kong University Press.
Cover photo reproduced by permission of the Urban Council of Hong Kong from the collection of the Hong Kong Museum of History.
Printed in Hong Kong by Calay Printing Co. Ltd.
This book is dedicated to my father, Samuel Pomerantz,
and to the memory of my mother,
Clara Sarfaty Pomerantz (1911–1980)
Contents
Preface
Acknowledgements
vii
viii
Introduction
1
Chapter 1
The Colonial Matrix 1842-1877
7
Chapter 2
Hong Kong Barrister 1877-1882
41
Chapter 3
With Li Hongzhang 1882–1896
71
Chapter 4
Promise and Disappointment in America 1897-1902
103
Chapter 5
Wu Tingfang and the New Nationalism 1902-1905
137
Chapter 6
Towards a New Era 1905-1911
171
Chapter 7
Wu Tingfang and the 1911 Revolution
193
Chapter 8
Elder Statesman 1912-1922
231
Conclusion
287
Glossary
295
Bibliography
297
Index
313
Preface
My interest in Wu Tingfang began in the early 1960s when, as a graduate student, I began exploring the history of Chinese immigration to the United States. Wu's striking personality, articulate command of the English language, and effectiveness as a diplomat and public figure all combined to make him an intriguing-even unique-figure, and I was curious to find out more about him. There were at that time almost no scholarly political biographies in modern Chinese history, and I thought that a scholarly biography of such a person―an overseas Chinese educated abroad, a practicing barrister turned railway administrator, diplomat, official and political figure of the late Qing and early Republican period-would be a valuable addition to the field of modern Chinese history.
Originally I hoped to use unpublished papers in the possession of Wu Tingfang's descendants, as preliminary discussions with Wu family members in Los Angles led me to believe that some of Wu's personal papers were held by the family in Hong Kong. Thus, based on my preliminary research and armed with this information, I began my Ph.D. dissertation research on Wu Tingfang's life.
Only later, after a great deal of research had been completed, did I ascertain that the Wu family in Hong Kong had none of Wu Tingfang's private papers, and that, moreover, these papers were most likely all destroyed in a fire that swept the Governor's yamen in Guangzhou in 1922, soon before Wu Tingfang's death.
This study of Wu Tingfang's life by necessity, then, has been researched from Wu's public papers, as assembled from a wide variety of documentary sources, and supplemented by the works of many of the figures with whom Wu was associated during his long life. The result is a political biography of Wu Tingfang as a public figure. It focuses on what he did and thought, as revealed in the documentary sources, and less on his private life and emotions. As such, this biography makes a contribution to the political history of modern China by detailing, as much as is possible from the sources, the emergence in modern Chinese political life of a talented man of overseas mercantile family background with cultural interests and educational training shared by very few of his generation. It seeks to demonstrate the problems as well as opportunities experienced by Wu and others like Wu in the last decades of the Qing Dynasty. Finally, this work indicates the insurmountable problems Wu and his circle encountered in proposing solutions to China's problems in the early Republican period.
vii
Acknowledgements
I am deeply indebted to many friends, colleagues and institutions for their assistance in seeing this study through to publication. This project began as a Ph.D. dissertation at UCLA under the direction of Professors Han Yu-shan, David M. Farquhar (both now deceased), Richard C. Rudolph, John Caughey, and Roger Daniels.
A number of people read all or parts of the manuscript and offered useful suggestions, including Ming Chan, Paul A. Cohen, Britten Dean, Joseph Esherick, Norma Farquhar, Stephen R. MacKinnon, Robert Marks, Ed Rhoads, Art Rosenbaum, John Schrecker, and anonmyous reviewers. John K. Fairbank was especially encouraging and helpful to me at various stages in the revision of this work. I alone am responsible for any errors of fact or interpretation.
The research for this study was undertaken with assistance provided by a Fulbright Fellowship to Taiwan, National Defense Foreign Language fellowships, and a travel grant provided by the UCLA Academic Senate. Postdoctoral assistance has been provided by the California State University Dominguez Hills, Social and Behavioral Sciences Research Award and CSUDH Professional and Institutional Development grants. Additional support for the book's publication has been provided by the CSUDH Foundation.
Staff members of many libraries in the United States, Hong Kong, Taiwan and England were indispensable allies, without whom this work could not have been completed.
In particular, I wish to express my thanks to Charlotte Furth for many years of friendship and support. She, as well as Susan Ko, Sucheta Mazumdar and Honming Yip, have provided constant encouragement. My colleagues at California State University Dominguez Hills have provided collegiality and friendship for the past twenty years, and my husband Dawei Zhang and children Jacob and William deserve my heartfelt thanks for their support and patience.
viii
Introduction
Wu Tingfang's eighty-year life spanned a momentous phase of China's history. Born in 1842 as the Qing Dynasty suffered its first major defeat at the hands of Great Britain, Wu came of age and maturity in a period which saw the decline and eventual disappearance of the Qing Dynasty, in spite of the efforts of Wu and many others to reform and shore up its existing structures. His later years were marked by frustrating, futile efforts to create a modern national political system, but he died in 1922 before these efforts achieved success. His achievements, aspirations and frustrations all reflect China's social and political condition in the modern world, in which the drama of its struggle to maintain its national autonomy while transforming itself into a modern nation unfolds over the counterpoint of the perpetually unresolved debate over cultural identity.
Wu Tingfang was a product of the British colonial venture in Asia. Born to a merchant family in Singapore and raised in Guangzhou and Hong Kong, Wu was educated in missionary schools before going abroad to Great Britain for professional legal training. A pioneer in modern journalism, Wu was the first Chinese to receive British training as a barrister, the first Chinese to practice as a barrister in Hong Kong, and the first Chinese to serve as a member of Hong Kong's Legislative Council. He was thus an example of a new social group that emerged in the Chinese urban littoral in the latter part of the nineteenth century, a group often defined in a non-Chinese colonial context as "colonial intelligentsia."
Along with other intellectuals of the littoral, such as his brother-in-law He Qi (Ho Kai, 1859-1914), Wang Tao (1828–97) and Zheng Guanying (1842– 1923), Wu was an early advocate of institutional reforms. His views reflected a nationalist perspective on China's situation as well as an undisguised admiration for British political institutions, both of which were specific products of the colonial environment in which he functioned, and which is described in some detail in Chapter 1.
From 1877 to 1882 Wu was a key figure in the reform administration of Sir John Pope Hennessy, the Irish-born colonial governor whose program in Hong Kong served as a trial run for his later policies of Home Rule in Ireland. Wu's rise to a position of influence took place in the context of the growth of Chinese economic power in Hong Kong and the continued, often bitter, economic competition between Chinese and western business interests. The propertied Chinese elite of Hong Kong functioned vis-à-vis the colonial authorities much as the gentry-merchant elite inside China did in relation to
1
2
Wu Tingfang (1842–1922): Reform and Modernization in Modern Chinese History
Imperial authorities. Wu's political strength derived from his unique capability, by virtue of his standing as an English barrister, to serve as a go-between between the propertied Chinese and the colonial authorities in a setting in which an expanded consultative role, rather than parliamentary reform, was seen as most productive for Chinese interests.
The most contentious issues were racial segregation and a number of discriminatory measures against Chinese, particularly those that were perceived as harmful to Chinese business and commercial interests. As described in Chapter 2, Wu's experiences in promoting Chinese interests were mixed. His successes were largely due to his ability to influence Hennessy, who was already disposed to accept reforms proposed by the Chinese. But when Hennessy's political position weakened, leading to his removal from Hong Kong, the marginality of Wu's position was painfully revealed. When Hennessy left Hong Kong in 1882, Wu chose to leave the Colony as well.
In 1882 Wu moved to Tianjin and began an association with Li Hongzhang (1823-1901) that lasted until the latter's death in 1901. Wu was one of three foreign-trained men who were the key figures in Li's modernization efforts. Wu was centrally involved in the development of the Kaiping mines and railway system, specifically in charge of raising capital and managing construction for the first major railway system in China. These activities placed him squarely at the center of the Self-Strengthening (or Westernization) Movement.
In light of China's subsequent defeat at Japan's hands in the Sino-Japanese War of 1894-95, Li Hongzhang's modernizing efforts are generally acknowledged to have been failures, but there remains considerable scholarly controversy over the character of the modernization program and the reasons for its failure.
Wu's experiences under Li as explored in Chapter 3 suggest that although the mufu ("tent government”) innovation provided some measure of flexibility in a rigid and increasingly outmoded bureaucratic structure, it nonetheless relegated unorthodox officials such as Wu Tingfang to positions of relative marginality and dependence upon powerful patrons like Li Hongzhang. Similarly, Wu's experiences in the railway administration show that although the guandu shangban (official supervised-merchant managed) system under which Li Hongzhang's enterprises functioned provided a setting for the utilization of new domestic sources of capital, it ultimately thwarted the success of modernizing ventures because of the parasitic, anti-capitalist values and behaviors associated with the bureaucratic structures in which they operated. Wu's efforts during this period to modernize China's conduct of foreign relations similarly resulted in frustrating limitations. Wu's project to develop a code of commercial law that might eventually result in the abolition of extraterritoriality died for lack of official support, and his efforts to negotiate with Japan in 1886 on the basis of equality met with Li Hongzhang's capitulation in the face of Japan's threats.
Equality was out of the question in the negotiations that took place following Japan's victory over China in 1895. China's disastrous defeat led to widespread
Introduction
3
recriminations against Li Hongzhang, and as Wu was Li's principal assistant in these talks, which led to further loss of sovereignty for China, Wu's reputation and prospects suffered as a result of Li's disgrace.
Wu's career with Li Hongzhang suggests that the move from colonial littoral to a position of rank and prestige inside China was not difficult for a man of Wu's credentials and training, but that as in Hong Kong, this position carried little policy-making power and depended upon the patronage of a powerful sponsor.
In 1896 Wu was appointed China's Minister to the United States, Spain and Peru, a post he took up the following year and kept through the upheavals that started with the abortive reform movement of 1898 and culminated in the Boxer Uprising and subsequent foreign occupation of the Chinese capital in 1900-1901. Chapter 4 deals with Wu's diplomatic activities during this period. Wu was an advocate of a foreign policy tilt towards England and the U.S. at a time when the dominant trend in Beijing was to seek alliance with Russia. Wu hoped to have China take the initiative in proposing an “open door" in trade relations as a means of undercutting extraterritoriality and bolstering Chinese sovereignty, but these views did not prevail at the time.
As the first Chinese Minister with credentials as a “western expert" to serve in Washington, D.C., Wu proved adroit in his ability to reach U.S. public opinion in his effort to influence policy formation with regards to China. His greatest efforts were expended in an effort to redress injustices in U.S. immigration policy towards China, and although he ultimately proved unsuccessful in his efforts to prevent the Chinese Exclusion Laws from being extended to Hawaii and the Philippines, he did succeed in forcing reforms in the implementation of the laws in the continental U.S., and more particularly he succeeded in promoting a national debate on the topic.
Wu's popularity with the U.S. public and familiarity with U.S. policy makers was helpful in the crisis of 1900, in which the U.S. joined the allied expeditionary force and participated in the peace negotiations that followed the occupation of the Chinese capital. Wu sought to influence the U.S. by presenting the Chinese "case" against the destabilizing activities of foreign missionaries; at the same time he hoped to use the U.S. as ally against the reactionary elements in the Qing court.
Intellectually, Wu's sojourn in the U.S. appears to have marked a turning point in his attitudes towards China and the West. Although he had long decried the harmful effects of western missionaries in China, he had formerly held a more optimistic view of the prospects for positive western influences in China's development. Exposure to virulent anti-Chinese prejudice and xenophobic reactions to the Boxers on the part of the American public, however, tempered Wu's earlier admiration for Anglo-American civilization and led to a more pessimistic view of the West's role in China. At the same time he began to develop a positive reevaluation of aspects of Chinese civilization, particularly those he associated with Confucian social and political values. He sought intellectual companionship with American social purity reformers, cultural conservatives whose critical views of deteriorating moral
4
Wu Tingfang (1842–1922): Reform and Modernization in Modern Chinese History
and social standards in the U.S. and espousal of abstinence from alcohol, sex and in some cases, flesh eating, appealed to Wu.
Wu's more critical perspective on contemporary American society and newly softened stance towards Chinese culture was reflected in his rejection of radical political alternatives for China. The anti-monarchical revolutionary movement began in 1895 with Sun Yixian (Sun Yat-sen) as its principal initial organizer. In 1896 Wu and his brother-in-law He Qi split over the issue of reform, with He Qi declaring that official corruption and incompetence made genuine reform an impossibility under the Qing. He Qi subsequently became a sometime patron of Sun, but Wu Tingfang apparently disdained any contact with the revolutionaries and moreover was indirectly responsible for their persecution abroad when he was Minister to the United States, Spain and Peru.
Wu was also not associated with the outlawed reform organization whose principal figures were Kang Youwei (1858–1927) and Liang Qichao(1873– 1929). Wu admired Kang and Liang; it is doubtful that his admiration was reciprocated. Rather Wu was one of a fairly large number of late Qing officials in the post-Boxer period who functioned within the existing structures in an effort to make them viable conduits for a moderate nationalist program of reform and modernization.
Wu was thus an active participant in the late Qing reform movement. From 1902 to 1906 he held substantive posts in the Board of Commerce, Board of Foreign Affairs, and Board of Punishments. His main contributions to the reform effort were in the areas of foreign policy and law, but in both areas he experienced frustrations as well as achievements.
In foreign policy, Wu sought to utilize the new nationalist organs of public opinion emerging in China's major cities in support of an assertive foreign policy to protect China's sovereignty. He clashed with Britain over China's position in Tibet, and with the United States both over its discriminatory immigration policies and its insistence on Chinese neutrality in the Russo- Japanese War. He clashed both with Britain and America over their railway and mining concessions.
These clashes occurred in a context in which Wu miscalculated the degree to which the Anglo-Saxon nations were prepared to accept China's new nationalism, and the resulting hostile reaction of British and American officials to his activities reduced his effectiveness, in the eyes of the Court, as a foreign affairs official. This perceived weakness, in turn, opened the door to bureaucratic factional intrigues against him which further undermined his position. While Wu's initial appointments into the central government in 1902 had reflected Yuan Shikai's patronage, Wu was not part of Yuan's inner circle and moreover did not have powerful supporters during the post-Boxer period. Wu's frustrations led him to consider resigning in 1904 and again in 1905 when it was clear that his ability to function effectively as a foreign affairs official was impaired. He persisted, however, in the end, because of his desire to complete the massive law reform project that engaged his energies from 1904 to 1906, even as he knew that its prospects for success were in doubt.
Introduction
5
Wu's draft commercial code, issued in 1904, met with only limited success, and was followed by Wu and Shen Jiaben's (1837-1910) proposed judicial reforms humanizing judicial proceedings. These reforms received Imperial support in 1905–6, but were nonetheless largely ignored by local magistrates who continued to use torture to extract confessions and in other ways violate the letter and spirit of the reforms. Finally, Wu and Shen's draft procedural code of 1906, which granted sweeping civil liberties to all Chinese subjects and limited the powers of officials in criminal proceedings, was roundly denounced by most high-level officials as departing too radically from Chinese political traditions; it was never accorded Imperial approval.
Wu resigned from his posts one week after submitting the draft procedural code for Imperial approval, but accepted a new mandate the following year, 1907, to serve a second term as China's Minister to the United States, etc. Shut out by U.S. officials and then by the Beijing Government after the deaths of the Empress Dowager (Cixi) and the Guangxu Emperor (Dezong) in 1908, Wu was recalled in 1909 just as he was negotiating with the Peruvian Government for a treaty guaranteeing protection to Chinese living in Peru. At this point, Wu declined further positions under the Qing Government.
Although Wu was seventy years old, his role in the revolution of 1911 was probably the most important in his life. He was a key figure in the revolutionary take-over of Shanghai and served the revolutionaries as foreign affairs representative, chief Republican delegate to the North-South peace talks, and finally as Minister of Justice in the first cabinet headed by Sun Yixian. Wu led an active, relatively effective campaign to win foreign neutrality and non-intervention in China, and succeeded in mobilizing considerable foreign opinion on behalf of the Republican agenda.
Throughout this period Wu was associated with the Jiangsu constitutionalists led by Zhang Jian, joining them in supporting Yuan Shikai's rise to power. Wu thus used his position in the North-South negotiations to further Yuan's cause in the belief that Yuan's leadership constituted the most stable course for China in the immediate post-revolutionary period. Wu also clashed repeatedly with Chen Qimei(1877-1916), the head of Shanghai's revolutionary government, and sought to temper the new government's radicalism.
In supporting Yuan Shikai nationally and a moderate Shanghai government locally, Wu was motivated both by the desire to avoid any pretext for foreign intervention, as well as by his distrust of the revolutionaries to adequately represent the interests of China's new urban propertied classes. Leadership and political alliance were far more important than the form of government in the short run, but Wu also believed that Yuan's leadership might provide a better guarantee for liberalism in China. As Wu saw it, respect for property and due process in legal proceedings had a better chance of success under Yuan than under the revolutionaries.
In these hopes, however, Wu was soon disappointed. One of his most publicized initiatives was to make two criminal trials with political overtones held early in 1912 into models of liberal jurisprudence. But his enthusiasm for British judicial procedures was not shared by Yuan or other powerful
6
Wu Tingfang (1842–1922): Reform and Modernization in Modern Chinese History
figures of the early Republican period, and his initiatives were not pursued further.
Wu went into retirement in 1912 but was loosely associated with Yuan Shikai. He refrained from any public criticism of Yuan in the latter's moves against the Guomindang, while Wu's son Wu Chaoshu (C. C. Wu, 1886- 1934) served Yuan in a variety of advisory roles during this time. With the announcement of Yuan's monarchical plans in 1916, however, Wu belatedly joined the anti-Yuan movement by publicly calling upon Yuan to resign the
presidency.
Following Yuan's death in 1916, Wu agreed to serve as Foreign Minister in the government formed under Li Yuanhong as President. This government was marked by severe factional struggle between Li and the Prime Minister Duan Qirui. Wu supported Li in this struggle and was appointed Acting Premier when Li forced Duan out of his government in 1917. In one of the many ironic twists characterizing factional politics of the early Republican period, Li then ordered Wu to dismiss the Parliament so as to obtain the support of the monarchist general Zhang Xun. Wu's refusal to dismiss Parliament in spite of enormous pressure and personal threats against his life made him the hero of the moment and greatly added to his stature.
Escaping from Beijing, Wu eventually linked up with the coalition of Guomindang politicians and southern militarists who had established a rump government in Guangzhou under the rubric "Protect the Constitution." Chapter 8 details the complex internal factional politics that dominated the Guangzhou Governments that Wu participated in from 1917 until his death in 1922 and describes the role of the southern governments' key figures in national politics. From his initial position as a possible mediator and peace- maker between the Guangzhou Governments, dominated by Guangxi militarists, and the Zhili militarists in the North, Wu moved gradually towards alliance with Sun Yixian. In 1920 Wu broke with the Guangxi military and civilian factions and formally aligned himself with Sun, remaining the latter's strong supporter in his drive to unify China under Guomindang rule. Wu died, however, one week after civil war erupted between Sun Yixian's forces and those of his chief military supporter, Chen Jiongming.
His stature assured by virtue of his age and reputation as an elder statesman, Wu Tingfang's last years were nonetheless spent in a political environment marked by political factionalism that increased in intensity as the prospects for establishing a viable national government declined. Maneuvering in this futile and demeaning political milieu, Wu Tingfang died at the age of eighty without seeing any genuine prospects either for the unification of the Chinese polity or the modernization of its society.
1
The Colonial Matrix 1842-1877
The Colonial Impact
Wu Tingfang's life was decisively shaped by Great Britain's colonial enterprise in Asia. Wu was born in one British colony, Singapore, and came of age
in another, Hong Kong. In the latter he received much of his education, found his first employment and developed the skills that made his future career possible. In all major respects his career choices reflected his colonial origins, and even though he left Hong Kong permanently at the age of forty, he kept close ties to family and associates in Hong Kong throughout his life.
Several developments in Hong Kong's nineteenth century history made possible the emergence of a person such as Wu Tingfang. Seized by Great Britain during the Opium War of 1840-42 and formally established as a Crown Colony in 1843, Hong Kong's particular circumstances lent themselves to the development of a large and powerful Chinese merchant class that came to play an important role both in Hong Kong and in China. Wu Tingfang was a product of this merchant class, more specifically of its offshoot, the modern colonial intelligentsia of Hong Kong. This colonial intelligentsia was composed of people educated in the British mode who often served as clerks, translators and lower-ranked bureaucrats in the colonial government, although a very small number of them were also trained in western professions such as law, medicine and journalism. Wu was one of a tiny minority of nineteenth century Hong Kong Chinese who had been so trained.
Although this group of professionally trained intellectuals was extremely small, it had an important impact on modern Chinese history. Wu Tingfang and others of this group transferred their newly-acquired skills to a variety of modernizing projects in China and in particular came to dominate the newly emerging foreign affairs bureaucracy of the late Qing. Moreover, Wu and others of his milieu were a critical element in developing and popularizing modern nationalist concepts-themselves a product of the specific Hong Kong colonial environment—in nineteenth century China. These concepts contributed to the emerging reform and revolutionary movements of the late Qing and early Republican period of Chinese history.
7
Wu Tingfang (1842–1922): Reform and Modernization in Modern Chinese History
The Rise of the Hong Kong Chinese Bourgeoisie
From the start Hong Kong differed from many other British colonizing ventures in that its prime function was as entrepôt for the Anglo-Chinese trade, but in spite of this, historical circumstances led to Hong Kong's emergence as a major Chinese city by the late 1850s. Whereas in 1840 the island of Victoria had perhaps 5,000 to 7,000 Chinese residents, mostly fishermen, by 1858 there were over 85,000 Chinese residents, vastly outnumbering the European population estimated to be 1,611. By 1870 there were over 115,000 Chinese in Hong Kong (including Kowloon), and 8,754 Europeans, for a total population of 124,198.1
There were few Chinese families. At least three-quarters of the Chinese in Hong Kong were single male laborers engaged in manual work as seamen, longshoremen, freight haulers, "coolies" of various sorts, carpenters, masons and other construction workers, and servants in the homes of the wealthy. Most of these men lived in the many lodging houses that dotted the city. There were also many fishermen and a marginal population of floaters who engaged in theft and piracy, which was so prevalent as to be a major cause of concern to European and Chinese alike.2
The dramatic rise in Hong Kong's Chinese population occurred in the context of widespread disorder in the Pearl River Delta region throughout the 1850s, caused in part by the activities of the Taiping and other sectarian rebels, and partly by the large-scale inter-ethnic warfare between Hakka and "Punti." In particular, when the Taiping rebels seized the important city of Foshan (Fatshan) in 1854, many wealthy people in Guangzhou apparently panicked and fled to Hong Kong, joined by large numbers of refugees.3
This exodus was encouraged, perhaps inadvertently so, when the British decreed that Chinese living in Hong Kong might register their ships as British, thereby granting them the same degree of protection that European shipping enjoyed. In the Anglo-French War with China (1856-60), the British fought in part to protect the rights of Chinese ships of British registry, thereby strengthening the basis for Hong Kong's ascendancy over Guangzhou as the center of commerce for South China.1
Hong Kong's commercial ascendance over Guangzhou was unsuccessfully challenged by Qing authorities in the 1860s. In 1867 the Cotton Dealers'
1. Hong Kong, Historical and Statistical Abstract of the Colony of Hong Kong (Hong Kong: Noronha, 1907); G. B. Endacott, A History of Hong Kong, 2d ed. (Hong Kong: Oxford University Press, 1973), pp. 65, 85, 98, 116; E. J. Eitel, Europe in China: The History of Hongkong from the Beginning to the Year 1882 (London: Luzac, 1895; reprint, Taipei, 1968), pp. 371, 463, 485.
2. A repeated cause for lamentation by colonial officials who hoped for a more stable Chinese population. See, e.g., Gt. Brit., Sessional Papers, 1857, no. 12: 607.
3. Frederick Wakeman, Jr., Strangers at the Gate: Social Disorder in South China, 1839-1861 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1965).
4. Eitel, Europe in China, p. 302; “Correspondence Relating to the Registration of Colonial Vessels," Gt. Brit. Colonial Office, Sessional Papers, 1857, 1st sess., no. 12: 79–592.
The Colonial Matrix 1842-1877
9
Guild of Guangzhou attempted to fine Hong Kong Chinese merchants involved in the cotton piece-goods trade, but the Guild was forced to desist when the British Government issued a strong protest. In the same year the so-called "customs blockade" was organized by the Qing authorities in an effort to subject imports from Hong Kong to an internal transit tax or lijin (li-kin). These attempts, however, were unsuccessful.5
Thus the Chinese merchant community of Hong Kong flourished in spite of Qing efforts, and also in spite of the numerous anti-Chinese measures undertaken by British authorities in the 1850s and 1860s. These measures included registration, imposition of pass laws, and the branding and deportation of criminals. This latter was undertaken in the aftermath of the anti-Chinese hysteria which swept the European residents in 1857, when a Chinese baker was accused of the attempted poisoning of the European population.
6
Mercantile interests continued to be strengthened by a series of measures undertaken by the Hong Kong authorities in the 1860s. Chinese wills were ruled valid in Hong Kong, and soon thereafter, the Governor ruled that salt, a government monopoly in China, would not be subject to taxation in Hong Kong. This last gave rise to a brisk trade in salt smuggling."
All of this combined to result in the rapid rise in the so-called “junk trade" between Hong Kong and various South China ports, all of which operated outside of the control of Qing authorities in Guangzhou. This junk trade consisted of imported cotton piece goods and opium from England and India, and exports of rice, tea, silk, salt and foodstuffs from China.
Another important factor in the growth of Chinese mercantile interests in Hong Kong was its emergence as a center in the network of overseas Chinese commerce. While the overseas exodus began much earlier, it took a new turn around 1850 as the result of the discovery of gold in California in 1849, which had led to an influx of Chinese miners and workers to the American West. Also the 1850s saw the rapid rise of Singapore's population and a general expansion of Chinese communities throughout Southeast Asia. The transporting of Chinese workers abroad and their provisioning became a flourishing enterprise. While the actual transporting of workers was soon shifted to Macau, the Hong Kong Chinese merchants retained their control over an expanding network of commerce with overseas Chinese communities, the details of which are not yet fully documented but which appears to have been extensive and increasingly valuable.R
5. Eitel, Europe in China, pp. 415–19.
6. Ibid.; "Papers Connected with the Confinement of Chinese Prisoners at Hong Kong, and with the Trial of a Baker and Others on the Charge of Poisoning," Gt. Brit., Sessional Papers, 1857, 2d sess., no. 43: 169ff.
7. Eitel, Europe in China, pp. 332, 336.
8. See, e.g., Linda Pomerantz, "The Chinese Bourgeoisie and the Anti-Chinese Movement in the United States, 1850–1905,” Amerasia Journal 11, no. 1 (Fall 1984): 1–30; Edgar Wickberg, The Chinese in Philippine Life, 1850–1898 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1965), p. 60.
10
Wu Tingfang (1842–1922): Reform and Modernization in Modern Chinese History
The growth of Chinese mercantile interests in Hong Kong may be seen in Table 1, indicating the composition of the Hong Kong mercantile bourgeoisie in 1876. Whereas in 1846 there were 388 Chinese traders and two compradors operating in Hong Kong, by 1876 there were 1,557 Chinese mercantile firms in the Colony. The upper stratum, composed of less than 100 individuals or firms, consisted of compradors for foreign firms, large import-export merchants, and large opium merchants, as well as shippers and bankers. The much larger lower stratum was composed of small traders, shopkeepers, and owners of small handicraft workshops. Other enterprises included money lending, tax and opium "farming" or concessions, and especially investing in urban real estate, which was both lucrative and prestigious.9
The pre-eminent position of mercantile activities is underscored by the relative underdevelopment of manufacturing in Hong Kong in the 1870s. Table 2 lists 1,920 manufacturing enterprises in Hong Kong in 1876. These were largely traditional handicraft operations, rattan workers occupying the largest category (596), with gold beaters (111), vermillion manufacturers and dealers (111), opium processors (108), and sail and rope makers (100) being the most important enterprises. There was also a small "modern" sector of enterprises that either served a foreign clientele or reflected its influence, such as cigar makers (21), image makers (photographers, 10), lemonade and soda-water makers (28) and sugar refining (25).10
The Hong Kong bourgeoisie, then, was overwhelmingly mercantile in nature, as befitting Hong Kong's growth as trading center. It also appears that the Hong Kong merchants had particularly close ties with their counterparts in Guangzhou. In Hong Kong's early days, many merchants maintained their primary residence in Guangzhou, and in the 1860s, many
9. Detailed information about the financial dealings of the Hong Kong bourgeoisie may be found in Carl T. Smith, "The Emergence of a Chinese Elite in Hong Kong," Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society 11 (1971): 74–115. See also Marjorie Topley, "The Role of Savings and Wealth Among Hong Kong Chinese,” in Hong Kong: A Society in Transition, ed. Ian C. Jarvie and Joseph Agassi (New York: Praeger, 1968), pp. 196, 210. On opium “farms” or monopolies see also "Papers Relating to Hong Kong,” Gt. Brit., Sessional Papers, 1860, no. 48. See also The Hong Kong Almanack and Directory for 1846, as cited in Henry Lethbridge, “A Chinese Association in Hong Kong: The Tung Wah,” in his Hong Kong: Stability and Change: A Collection of Essays (Hong Kong: Oxford University Press, 1978), p. 56; Gt. Brit., Sessional Papers, 1881, no. 65: 824.
10. Gt. Brit., Sessional Papers, 1881, no. 65: 824. It would appear that manufacturing was an offshoot from mercantile pursuits. This is suggested by the fact that when the Hong Kong bourgeoisie underwent a major expansion in the late 1870s, the mercantile sector proliferated threefold while the “industrial” sector showed little increase. The careers of Kwok A-cheong and Ho A-mei, two of the wealthiest Chinese in Hong Kong by the early 1870s, also illustrate this phenomenon. Kwok started his career as a comprador and soon engaged in a variety of mercantile- related economic ventures. Shortly before his death in 1880 Governor Sir John Pope Hennessy encouraged him and a few other wealthy Chinese to start a factory to make ketchup, soy sauce and preserved fruit for the European market. On Kwok see Smith, “Emergence of a Chinese Elite,” pp. 97-98. Ho A-mei was educated in a mission school in Hong Kong and had many economic ventures, including transport of Chinese workers to Australia and New Zealand, the formation of the Canton and Hong Kong Telegraph Company, the On Tai Insurance Company, and mining ventures in Hong Kong and Guangdong. See Smith, "Emergence of a Chinese Elite," p. 104.
The Colonial Matrix 1842–1877
Table 1
The Chinese Mercantile Bourgeoisie of Hong Kong, 1876
Type of business
Trading hongs*
215
Traders
Shroffs
Brokers
287
40
142
Money changers
111
Bullion dealers
34
Bankers
Piece goods dealers
67
Cotton and yarn dealers
38
Tea merchants
26
Rice dealers
95
Coal dealers
16
Fire arms dealers
15
Timber dealers
15
Drapers
101
Foreign goods dealers
167
Compradors
77
Ship compradors
67
Ship charterers
7
Bird's nest sellers
Shark's fin dealers
Jade dealers
Cinnamon dealers
12
9
8
Sesame oil dealers
Ginseng dealers
Total
Source: Gt. Brit. SP. 1881:824.
1,557
11
*Defined by Hennessy as “Nampak hongs and other wealthy merchants in the England-China trade."
11
Hong Kong firms were branches of older Guangzhou firms.11 There are some indications of conflicts with Guangzhou interests, as the Cotton Dealers' Guild of Guangzhou's unsuccessful attempt to fine Chinese merchants who dealt in the Hong Kong cotton piece-goods trade in 1867.12 But in spite of this example, most indications suggest a close and harmonious relationship between the Hong Kong merchants and their counterparts in Guangzhou. Many prominent Hong Kong Chinese maintained offices in Guangzhou and kept in close contact with merchant organizations there, while investing heavily in land and various enterprises in Guangdong Province.13
11. Smith, “Emergence of a Chinese Elite,” pp. 84–85 passim.
12. Eitel, Europe in China, p. 415.
13. Lethbridge, "The District Watch Committee: The Chinese Executive Council of Hong Kong?" in his Hong Kong: Stability and Change, p. 128.
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Wu Tingfang (1842–1922): Reform and Modernization in Modern Chinese History
Table 2
Manufacturing Industries in Hong Kong, 1876
Type of Industry
Bamboo workers
93
Beancurd dealers
Boat builders Carvers
Cigar makers Engineers
Gold beaters
Glass manufacturers
Image makers
93
48
59
21
10
111
10
Lantern makers
50
Leather box makers
39
Lemonade and soda-water makers
28
Oar makers
30
Opium dealers*
108
Paper box makers
21
Rattan workers
596
Sail and rope makers
100
Sandalwood dealers and workers
74
Sapanwood dealers and workers
96
Sauce manufacturers
49
Soap manufacturers
Sugar refineries
25
Tanners
7
Tobacco manufacturers
44
Tooth powder manufacturers
Umbrella makers
97
Vermillion manufacturers and dealers
111
Watch makers
Weavers
Total
1,920
Source: Gt. Brit. SP. 1881:824.
*Processors of raw opium.
Recent research by Ming Chan indicates that by the early 1870s Hong Kong and Guangzhou were closely linked economically and were mutually interdependent. He describes the relationship in this way:
Hong Kong could be considered South China's foreign trade department. It was taking foreign orders, was in charge of shipping, insurance, banking, and accounting, while Canton became the domestic collecting station, a centralized marketplace for the South China export as well as domestic trade. There was a resultant division of labor between the Inland River Port and the Outer Harbor on the oceanfront, somewhat parallel to the relation in Germany between Bremerhaven and Bremer.
The Colonial Matrix 1842-1877
13
In functional terms, Canton and Hong Kong could, in the pre-1949 period, almost be considered as two parts of a single port city.
14
The Hong Kong Chinese bourgeoisie also played an important role in Shanghai's development as a center for foreign interests in China. In the 1850s and 1860s almost all of the major compradors for foreign firms in Shanghai had Hong Kong origins or close connections. This "Hong Kong- Shanghai corridor,” to use Paul A. Cohen's term, was dominated initially by the Hong Kong mercantile bourgeoisie, although by the end of the century, the Ningbo group of merchants from neighboring Zhejiang Province had reestablished much of its former power and influence in Shanghai.15
In summary, a large and powerful mercantile bourgeoisie emerged in Hong Kong in the 1850s and 1860s, its growth primarily linked to the expansion of foreign commercial interests in China and secondarily to the migration of Chinese abroad. As in other nineteenth century colonial settings, this bourgeoisie functioned as economic middlemen in the emerging pattern of trade relations, and its fate was closely connected to the expansion of those relations.
The "Colonial Situation"
Although Hong Kong retained special features reflecting its strategic functions as Great Britain's China entrepôt, it nonetheless came to be governed in conformity with British colonial practices and to develop features in common with other British colonies. Along with them, it shared the structural inequalities endemic to the “colonial situation." The term "colonial situation" describes the massive and fundamental inequalities between colonizers and colonized that is the principal characteristic of nineteenth century colonialism.16
Pioneer anthropologist Raymond Kennedy ascribed the following characteristics to the "colonial situation": a true caste division based on color; political and economic subordination of the colonized to the colonizers; inadequate social services, especially educational facilities, for the colonized;
14. Ming Chan, summary of “A Tale of Two Cities: Canton and Hong Kong," in The Rise and Growth of the Colonial Port Cities in Asia, ed. Dilip K. Basu (Santa Cruz, Calif.: Center for South Pacific Studies, University of California, Santa Cruz, 1979), p. 150.
15. Paul A. Cohen, Between Tradition and Modernity: Wang T'ao and Reform in Late Ch'ing China (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1974); Susan Mann, "The Ningpo Pang and Financial Power at Shanghai,” in The Chinese City Between Two Worlds, ed. Mark Elvin and G. William Skinner (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1974), pp. 73–96.
16. G. Balandier, "The Colonial Situation: A Theoretical Approach (1951),” in Social Change: The Colonial Situation, ed. Immanuel Wallerstein (New York: Wiley, 1966), pp. 34–61. For a different perspective on the colonial experience see Frank H. Tucker, The White Conscience (New York: Ungar, 1968); Hans Kohn, “Reflections on Colonialism,” in The Idea of Colonialism, ed. Robert Strausz- Hupe and Harry W. Hazard (New York: Praeger, 1958), pp. 2–16.
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Wu Tingfang (1842–1922): Reform and Modernization in Modern Chinese History
and finally, a social barrier that is "virtually impassable" between colonizers and colonized.1 Kennedy describes the latter as follows:
The groups are mutually exclusive to an almost total degree except in such formal relationships as those of employer and employee or master and servant, which are stamped with the mark of obvious inequality. The upper caste has its own clubs, recreational functions, friendship circles, and the like, from which natives are rigidly excluded. . . . The white person who associates freely with natives is sure to be regarded with suspicion and even scorn by his fellows; and marriage with a native brings outright ostracism.18
In Hong Kong there were sharp divisions within the population based largely on nationality, with the British and other Europeans constituting the elite. Miniscule in numbers compared to the Chinese population, they nonetheless dominated society. The British residents were mostly heads of large shipping and mercantile firms involved with the cotton, tea and opium trade, such as Jardine, Matheson and Company, Dent and Company, and Butterfield and Swire. These firms owned and managed the docks, river steamers, insurance companies, a major sugar refinery, a gas company and major banking institutions.1 These leading merchants had political influence in the colonial administration, frequently serving on the Governor's Executive Council or as his appointees to the Legislative Council. They could also, when necessary, appeal directly to the Governor's superiors in London.
In addition to the British merchants, the "European" community was primarily composed of merchants of other European nationalities, as well as Americans. Moreover, the European community included non-merchants such as missionaries, government officials, military troops, newspapermen, and a temporary population of seamen.20
A middle stratum was comprised of Portuguese, Indians and Eurasians. Portuguese residents were an important segment of the European community. Many had been residents of Macau, the Portuguese colony across the bay, many of whom migrated to Hong Kong in the 1850s, 1860s and later, especially when a large typhoon destroyed much of Macau in 1874. While the British considered the Portuguese as "European," there was nonetheless little social mixing, perhaps because many Portuguese were actually Eurasian. As many Portuguese often knew Cantonese, they proved useful to the British merchants
17. Raymond Kennedy, "The Colonial Crisis and the Future," in The Science of Man in the World Crisis, ed. Ralph Linton (New York: Columbia University Press, 1945), p. 311.
18 Kennedy, "The Colonial Crisis”, pp. 308-11.
19. Rhoads Murphey, The Outsiders: The Western Experience in India and China (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1977).
20. Lethbridge, “Caste, Class, and Race in Hong Kong before the Japanese Occupation,” in his Hong Kong: Stability and Change, pp. 163–67; and “Condition of the European Working Class in Nineteenth Century Hong Kong," ibid., pp. 189–213.
The Colonial Matrix 1842–1877
15
and colonial administrators and soon constituted a middle stratum of clerks in government and business.21 Indian merchants (largely Parsi), police and soldiers (mostly Punjabi) should also be viewed as part of the middle stratum. Although some Indian merchants were among the early China traders and had amassed great fortunes, they were largely excluded from the elite of British merchants. Both Portuguese and Indians were “middlemen” minorities in Hong Kong, distinct from the Chinese below them but denied access to genuine power.22
A small Eurasian community existed in Hong Kong in the nineteenth century, and although its members included some of the richest of the mercantile bourgeoisie, the Eurasians were to some extent outcasts. Most cultivated a Chinese identity and eventually merged into the Chinese population, while nonetheless playing important roles as low-ranking clerks in Hong Kong's early days as a colony.23
There was a large social gulf between the Europeans and the vast majority of Chinese. Chinese were subject to laws and regulations that set them apart from Europeans, such as registration, and in the case of Chinese criminals, branding, deportation and flogging (see Chapter 2). The British had their own institutions, such as the Hong Kong Club, Amateur Dramatic Corps, Choral Society, Horticultural Society, etc., and their own activities, such as the annual yacht races, from which Chinese were excluded. In the words of one of Hong Kong's leading historians, there was no "social mixing. "24
The essential colonists' dilemma was succinctly expressed by Sir Hercules Robinson, Governor of Hong Kong from 1859 to 1865, as he fretted over the rapid increase in the Chinese population:
My constant thought has been how best to prevent a large Chinese population establishing themselves [sic] at Kowloon, and as some native population is indispensable, how best to keep them to themselves and preserve the European and American community from the injury and inconvenience of intermixture with them.2 25
Close association between Chinese and Europeans, especially social mixing as equals or through intermarriage, brought ostracism. This is illustrated in the case of R. D. Caldwell, who was the Colony's Registrar-General in 1859, and who was accused by the Attorney-General of being unsuited for office. The case against Caldwell consisted of the charge that he had associated with
21. Eitel, Europe in China, p. 281; Lethbridge, “Caste, Class, and Race,” pp. 178–79. 22. Lethbridge, “Caste, Class, and Race,” pp. 177–78.
23. Ibid., pp. 175-76; for a memoir of the most prominent Eurasian family, see also Irene Cheng, Clara Hó Tung: A Hong Kong Lady, Her Family and Her Times (Hong Kong: The Chinese University of Hong Kong, 1976).
24. Endacott, A History of Hong Kong, p. 70. See also Lethbridge, “Caste, Class, and Race,” pp. 7–9, 21, 179–85; Eitel, Europe in China, pp. 363–64.
25. Cited in Endacott, A History of Hong Kong, p. 122.
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Wu Tingfang (1842–1922): Reform and Modernization in Modern Chinese History
Wong A-kee, also known as Ma Chow-wang, who was married to a Chinese woman and who was a Singaporean of mixed racial ancestry.26
Residential areas remained segregated throughout the nineteenth century, and certain areas (especially Victoria Peak) were excluded from Chinese settlement until well into the twentieth century.27 In the 1870s and 1880s Europeans fought to preserve certain areas of Central Victoria for their own businesses in the face of stiff competition from Chinese commercial interests. 28 The "colonial situation” also manifested itself in the realm of ideology, in the ways Europeans conceptualized their own superiority in relation to the Chinese. Most Europeans believed in the historic necessity of colonialism and in the superiority of their own culture and institutions to those Chinese. They stoutly maintained that the main pattern of history lay in the “due subordination of Asia to Europe. "29 In the words of E. J. Eitel, the famous chronicler of nineteenth century Hong Kong, the Colony was "the vantage point from which the Anglo-Saxon race has to work out its divine mission of promoting the civilization of Europe in the East, and establishing the rule of constitutional liberty on the continent of Asia and on the main of the Pacific."30
Chinese protestations were dismissed as “ethnocentrism,” which many Europeans viewed as a major stumbling block to the success of the colonizing venture in China. As Governor Sir John Bowring complained (in discussing the Chinese in Java):
Amalgamation with the races among whom they fix themselves, if ever to be accomplished, must be the work of ages; for, mean and poor though he be, it will not be easy to eradicate from the mind of a Chinaman [sic] his exalted notions of the greatness of his country, and the superiority of his country's learning, literature and institutions, to those of any portions of the outer world.31
To the colonizers, then, cultural intermediaries could be seen as an important adjunct to the colonizing venture, by helping to break down Chinese "ethnocentrism" and acquaint Chinese with the more positive aspects of the "outer world" in its effort to "civilize" Asia. The critical group in this process
26. Caldwell's activities financing and managing brothels were also cause for concern among some members of the colonial administration. See “Papers Relating to Hong Kong,” Gt. Brit., Sessional Papers, 1860, no. 48: 62ff.
27. Lethbridge, “Caste, Class, and Race,” pp. 172–75. As late as 1904 Edith Blake, wife of former Hong Kong Governor Sir Henry Blake wrote to G. E. Morrison, “Another bill which was passed in Hong Kong was forbidding any Chinese of whatever standing to have a residence on the Peak! A quite unnecessary insult as the Chinese have no desire to live on the Peak...." See G. E. Morrison, The Correspondence of G. E. Morrison, ed. Lo Hui-min (London: Cambridge University Press, 1978), 1:261.
28. On Chinese-Western business competition in Hong Kong in the 1870s and 1880s, see Chap. 2. 29. Eitel, Europe in China, p. 290.
30. Ibid.
31. "Correspondence with the Superintendent of British Trade in China, Upon the Subject of Emigration from that Country,” Gt. Brit., Sessional Papers, 1852–53, no. 63: 376.
The Colonial Matrix 1842-1877
17
was the Chinese intelligentsia of nineteenth century Hong Kong, whose development will be discussed below.
The Emergence of the Hong Kong Colonial Intelligentsia
From an early period wealthy Chinese merchants had assumed the political leadership of the entire Chinese community of Hong Kong, both in its dealings with nearby Qing authorities as well as with the British administrators in Hong Kong. This practice both reflected Chinese political traditions of indirect rule through local elites as well as British colonial practices of establishing indirect rule through indigenous elites whenever possible.
In nineteenth century China members of the scholar-gentry elite (civil service degree holders) usually served as intermediaries between the local people and governmental authorities. To the authorities, the local gentry was seen as representing local interests; to the common people the gentry's status and power derived from its link to the government. As genuine gentry members were scarce in early Hong Kong, the wealthy bourgeois Chinese emulated the practices of the Chinese local gentry. Almost all had purchased gentry status, official ranks, title or honors, and proudly displayed themselves in official robes for ceremonial occasions. This not only facilitated the conduct of trade in China, but also conferred status upon the merchants in terms of Chinese culture and social structure.32
As in China control of temples and charitable institutions became a function of the Hong Kong merchant elite. As early as 1851 the export merchants of the Nanbei (Nampak) Guild formed a committee to assume charge of the Wenwu Temple, following well-established Chinese traditions. The Wenwu Temple then became the Hong Kong Chinese elite's main organ. According to E. J. Eitel, the committee “. . . secretly controlled native [sic] affairs, acted as commercial arbitrators, arranged for the due reception of mandarins passing through the Colony, negotiated the sale of official titles, and formed an unofficial link between the Chinese residents of Hongkong and the Canton authorities."34 This is a fair summation of traditional roles assumed by the local elite in China proper.
32. On the Chinese elite see Hsiao Kung-ch'uan, Rural China: Imperial Control in the Nineteenth Century (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1960); Zhang Zhongli [Chang Chung-li], The Chinese Gentry: Studies on Their Role in Nineteenth Century Chinese Society (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1962), especially pp. 51–56; M. Freedman, “Colonial Law and Chinese Society,' Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 80 (1950): 97-98, 122. The numbers of literati are suggested by the following: the 1876 census listed 341 persons as “students," as distinct from "schoolboys." By 1881 their numbers had risen to 2,562. Gt. Brit., Sessional Papers, 1881: 824. On merchants displaying official garb, see, e.g., North China Herald (hereafter cited as NCH), 4 Apr. 1878, p. 340; Xianggang Donghua Sanyuan fazhan shi (1870–1960) (Hong Kong, 1960); Zhang Zhongli, The Income of the Chinese Gentry (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1962), pp. 150–51.
33. On the Wenwu Temple, see Lethbridge, "The Evolution of a Chinese Voluntary Association in Hong Kong: The Po Leung Kuk,” in his Hong Kong: Stability and Change, p. 100. 34. Eitel, Europe in China, p. 282.
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Wu Tingfang (1842–1922): Reform and Modernization in Modern Chinese History
Moreover, the wealthy Chinese also assumed the role of spokesmen for the entire Chinese community in dealing with the British authorities. In 1857, for example, when the baker Cheung A-lum was accused of attempting to poison the European population of Hong Kong, a deputation of wealthy Chinese led by the large landowner and construction contractor Tan A-choi successfully appealed to the Governor against the deportation of Cheung to Hainan.35 Eventually such delegations became more commonplace.
As the Hong Kong Chinese bourgeoisie became more powerful in the 1860s it looked to the establishment of a new structure to assert its interests. In 1867 a charitable institution or yici was formed to handle the treatment of dead and dying people. This evolved into the Tung Wah (Donghua) Hospital for Chinese, established in 1870 and funded in part by a government grant derived from the gambling monopoly. The Tung Wah Hospital was managed by a Chinese board of directors under the supervision of the Colonial Government. Upon its opening in 1872 it was supported largely through contributions, but also with an annual government grant.36 The Tung Wah Hospital became a main instrument in the structure of indirect political rule in Hong Kong well into the twentieth century.
Although both British and Chinese political traditions lent themselves to the establishment of indirect political rule through local elites, the structures functioned with only limited success in the decades of the 1850s through 1870s. This is because British administrators, and propertied Chinese each had somewhat different objectives in their dealings with each other. The principal concern of the colonial administrators was to maintain order through indirect rule. By contrast, a major interest of the wealthy Chinese was to seek political representation through the organs of indirect political rule. Neither was fully possible with the existing structures.
The colonial authorities were continually concerned with crime and the maintenance of public order. Robberies and piracy formed a constant motif of life in Hong Kong, and the European superstructure was unable to penetrate the Chinese community deeply enough to control it.37 Also troublesome were the spontaneous strikes and other forms of resistance to discriminatory regulations imposed on Chinese with the alleged aim of controlling criminal activities. In 1857 "mobs" in the streets protested the imposition of pass laws and registration ordinances. In 1860 a brief general
35. On Tan A-choi, see Smith, “Emergence of a Chinese Elite,” pp. 87–88. On the baker's case, see Gt. Brit., Sessional Papers, 1857, 2d sess., no. 43: 169–205; 1857-58, no. 43: 653-57.
36. Eitel, Europe in China, pp. 462–63; Xianggang Donghua Sanyuan; Lethbridge, “A Chinese Association in Hong Kong,” in his Hong Kong: Stability and Change, pp. 52-70.
37. The case of R. D. Caldwell illustrates this phenonemon. Through his Chinese (secret society?) connections he was able to receive information about thefts. Caldwell's main informant was Wong A-kee, who began his career by contolling the fish stalls at the Central Market and eventually became wealthy through a variety of activities, including landowning and labor brokering. With his assistance, Caldwell was able to prosecute many pirates, but when Wong was convicted of receiving stolen goods, Caldwell was severely hampered and arrests dropped considerably. Gt. Brit., Sessional Papers, 1861, encl. 3 in no. 9, app. 3.
The Colonial Matrix 1842-1877
19
strike protested new laws aimed at controlling pawnbrokers' activities and supervising cargo boat crews. In 1863 chair coolies led a three month general strike resisting an ordinance calling for the licensing and regulation of all public vehicles. In 1866 and 1867 a strike by boat owners in protest against new registration ordinances was narrowly averted, and in 1872, carrying coolies struck to protest a new tax levied on coolie lodging houses.38 British efforts to establish a Chinese police force and develop a “headman” (dibao) system to maintain order proved ineffective during this period, and by the early 1870s the British were more willing to look to the wealthy Chinese to maintain order in their own community.39
Starting in the 1850s delegations of propertied Chinese had requested political representation in the colonial government, but their requests were turned down. In 1856 the Governor proposed to the Colonial Office that, in accordance with the stated wishes of the wealthy Chinese, the Legislative Council be enlarged by the addition of elected "non-official" members, including Chinese. The Colonial Office, however, rejected this proposal for fear that an enlarged council with hostile British merchants on it might usurp financial control from the Governor, but also because the "proportion of Chinese and Foreign to British was conclusive against any big change." Moreover, in the Colonial Secretary's words:
The testimony of those best acquainted with them, represent the Chinese race as endowed with much intelligence, but as very deficient in the most essential elements of morality. The Chinese population of Hongkong is, with perhaps a few honourable exceptions, admitted to stand very low in this respect.
40
Although the Colonial Secretary felt that it was unlikely that education would improve the "moral culture" of the Hong Kong Chinese, he was nonetheless willing to concede that if any competent Chinese could be found who were "deserving of confidence," they might serve in the Colonial Administration, provided that British officials supervise them closely.*
In 1872 a delegation of directors of the Tung Wah Hospital met with Governor Sir Arthur Kennedy to make a major proposal concerning political representation. The Tung Wah directors wished to establish a separate governing structure for Chinese. This "Chinese Municipal Board" would be
38. These and other instances are discussed in detail in Tsai Jung-fang, "The 1884 Hong Kong Insurrection: Anti-Imperialist Popular Protest During the Sino-French War,” Bulletin of Concerned Asian Scholars 16, no. 1 (Jan.-Mar. 1984): 2-5. See also Eitel, Europe in China, pp. 340, 364, 368–69, 461, 508.
39. Endacott, A History of Hong Kong, pp. 84–85; Lethbridge, “The District Watch Committee,” pp. 104-6.
40. Labouchere to Bowring, 29 July 1856, encl. 5 in Gt. Brit., Sessional Papers, 1857, 2d sess., no. 43: 101. See also Endacott, Government and People in Hong Kong, 1841-1962: A Constitutional History (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 1964), pp. 35–38, 48, 51.
41. Labouchere to Bowring, 25 July 1856.
20
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Wu Tingfang (1842–1922): Reform and Modernization in Modern Chinese History
composed of two Chinese representing each district, and would advise the Registrar-General, upon whom the responsibility for Chinese matters had been placed in the Colonial Government. Kennedy, however, turned down this request.42
Clearly, the key to the solution for propertied Chinese was to find and identify Chinese who would be seen by the colonial authorities as “deserving of confidence.” In the context of the times, this meant western-trained Chinese who were relatively acculturated to British ways, in short, a new colonial intelligentsia, of which Wu Tingfang was the outstanding representative in nineteenth century Hong Kong.
As in other European colonies, missionary educational institutions were of key importance in the creation of a colonial intelligentsia, and this is particularly true of Hong Kong, where nineteenth century British and American missionaries viewed the Colony as the major base from which to launch the missionary enterprise on the Chinese mainland. Within a few years of Hong Kong's founding, American Baptists, English Catholics, the London Missionary Society, the Anglican Church, and the Evans Missionary Society of Basel had all established churches or missions in the Colony, and from these the earliest modern schools emerged.
The first such school was that founded by the Morrison Education Society when its school in Guangzhou was transferred to Hong Kong in 1843. Also in 1843 a Catholic seminary was established, and the London Missionary Society founded its Anglo-Chinese College under the supervision of the famous Sinologist James Legge. In 1851 the Anglican Church established St. Paul's College for Boys, which in the 1850s was the most prestigious of these new educational institutions. Government-sponsored schools had their start in 1860 with the establishment of Government Central School, later Queen's College.
43
St. Paul's College, which Wu Tingfang attended in the late 1850s, was established to train Chinese Anglican ministers. Baptism was required of the students, and thirteen of the first class of thirty students were dismissed when they refused to be baptized. The curriculum included English language and literature, science, "Divinity and Sacred History," and Chinese language and literature. But in spite of its religious intentions, St. Paul's never quite fulfilled the objectives of its founders, and instead became known simply as a good school where Chinese boys could learn English. Appropriately, many of St. Paul's graduates served as translators and interpreters for the Hong Kong
42. Eitel, Europe in China, p. 507.
43. Richard Lovett, The History of the London Missionary Society, 1795–1895 (London: Frowde, 1899), 2:449–57; Kenneth Scott Latourette, A History of Christian Missions in China (New York: Macmillan, 1929), pp. 217-–18; Liu Yuesheng, Xianggang Jidujiao huishi (Hong Kong, 1937), p. 158; Mai Meisheng, “Jidujiao zai Guangdong,” in Guangdong wenwu, ed. Guangdong wenwu zhanlan hui (Hong Kong: Zhongguo wenhua xiejin hui, 1941), 3:750ff.; Chen Zhao, “Xianggang de chuqi jiaoyu," in Xianggang bainian shi, ed. Li Jinwei (Hong Kong: Nanzhong bianyi, 1943).
44. Church Missionary Record 12:203–4; Church Missionary Society, Proceedings, 52nd year, p. 95; 53rd year, pp. 157–59; Gt. Brit. Colonial Office, Hongkong Government Gazette, 1876, CO 132/17.
The Colonial Matrix 1842-1877
21
Government or for western firms throughout the Chinese treaty ports. In recognition of this function St. Paul's received an annual grant of £250 from the British Foreign Office during the 1850s to enable it to serve this function.45
By the 1850s Hong Kong's missionary schools had produced a small number of Chinese graduates who began filling the ranks of lower-echelon posts both in the Colonial Government and in various western firms. Their links through family background or personal economic activities to the mercantile bourgeoisie is worthy of note and may be illustrated by briefly examining the careers of some of the more famous among them. These include Tang Tingshu and his brother Tang Maozhi, He Dong (Sir Robert Ho Tung), Wei Yu and He Qi.
1. Tang Tingshu (Tong King-sing or Tang Jie, 1832-92) and his brother Tang Maozhi (Tong Mow-chee, 1827-97) were famous compradors and outstanding representatives of the modern business class in nineteenth century China. Tang Tingshu had been a student at the Morrison Education Society School and probably St. Paul's College before becoming an interpreter in the Hong Kong Government. In 1858 he moved to Shanghai as Interpreter and Clerk in the Shanghai Maritime Customs Administration, later becoming head comprador for Jardine, Matheson and Company. He was one of the wealthiest compradors in China and enjoyed substantial investments in a broad variety of Chinese and western enterprises. He played a major role in developing the China Merchants' Steam Navigation Company (CMSNC) and the Kaiping mines. His career has been written about extensively.46
Tang Maozhi's career paralleled that of his younger brother. He received a missionary education in Guangzhou and then served as an interpreter for the Hong Kong Registrar-General. From 1848 to 1861 he was a merchant in San Francisco, returning to China to serve as chief translator for the Shanghai Customs Service. In 1870 he managed the Indo-China Steamship Company for Jardine, Matheson and Company in Shanghai, and when his brother was appointed to manage the CMSNC, he succeeded him as head comprador for Jardine's, a position he held until his death in 1897. His son Tang Shaoyi (1860-1938) was an important figure in twentieth century Chinese politics, as described below in subsequent chapters.47
45. Arnold Wright, ed., Twentieth Century Impressions of Hongkong, Shanghai, and other Treaty Ports of China.... (London: Lloyd's, 1908), p. 327; N. B. Dennys, ed., The Treaty Ports of China and Japan. by William Frederick Mayers, N. B. Dennys, and Charles King (London: Truebner, 1867), p. 53; Gt. Brit. Colonial Office, Hongkong: Correspondence, Original, ser. 129/190 (hereafter cited as CO 129).
46. Very useful have been: Liu Kwang-ching, "Tang Tingshu zhi maiban shidai,” Qinghua xuebao, n.s., 2, no. 2 (June 1961): 143–80; Hao Yen-p'ing, The Comprador in Nineteenth Century China: Bridge Between East and West (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1970), pp. 140-41; Paul A. Cohen, Between Tradition and Modernity, pp. 247-48.
47. Hao Yen-p'ing, Comprador in Nineteenth Century China, p. 170 passim; obituary in NCH, 3 Sept. 1897, pp. 459-60. On Tang Shaoyi see Louis T. Sigel, “T’ang Shao-yi (1860–1938): The Diplomacy of Chinese Nationalism” (Ph.D. diss., Harvard University, 1972); Stephen R. MacKinnon, Power and Politics in Late Imperial China: Yuan Shikai in Beijing and Tianjin, 1901–1908 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1980), pp. 67-68 passim.
22
Wu Tingfang (1842–1922): Reform and Modernization in Modern Chinese History
2. He Dong (Sir Robert Ho Tung, 1862–1956) was a native of Hong Kong and a graduate of Government Central School. After serving two years on the staff of the Imperial Maritime Customs Service in Guangzhou from 1878 to 1880, he returned to Hong Kong and began his twenty year long association with Jardine, Matheson and Company, first as office assistant and then as manager of several of Jardine's subsidiaries. Through his many investments he became a millionaire in 1896 and was considered the wealthiest person in Hong Kong in the early twentieth century as well as its largest property owner. In 1898 he became chairman of the Tung Wah Hospital Board of Directors. In 1899 he was made Justice of the Peace, and in 1916 he was knighted.48
3. Wei Yu (Wei Yuk, Wei Baoshan, Sir Bosun Wei Yuk, 1849–1921) was born to a wealthy comprador's family. His father Wei Guang (Wei A-kwong) was the head comprador of the Chartered Mercantile Bank of India, London and China. Wei Yu received a classical Chinese education before being sent to Government Central School to learn English. He studied in England and Scotland from 1867 to 1872. Upon his return to Hong Kong, he joined his father at Chartered Mercantile Bank and succeeded him as chief comprador upon his father's death in 1879. He was chairman of the Tung Wah Hospital Board of Directors from 1881 to 1883, when he was appointed Justice of the Peace. In 1896 he was appointed member of the Legislative Council, and he was knighted in 1919. His brothers Wei An and Wei Pei had legal careers in Hong Kong, the former as a solicitor and the latter as barrister.49
(Wei Yu was connected through marriage to another prominent Hong Kong family, that of Huang Sheng (Wang Shing). Huang was an early Christian convert and one of three Chinese to be sent to the United States in 1847 for studies at Yale University. He was the first Chinese to be placed on the Hong Kong jury list and the second to serve in the Legislative Council, following Wu Tingfang.) 50
4. The family of He Qi (Ho Kai) was intimately connected to that of Wu Tingfang, as He was his brother-in-law.51 He Qi's father, He Jinshan (Futang,
48. Howard L. Boorman, ed., Biographical Dictionary of Republican China (New York: Columbia University Press, 1967–71), 2:75–76; Hao Yen-p’ing, Comprador in Nineteenth Century China, p. 100; Woo Sing Lim [Wu Xinglian], Xianggang Huaren mingren shilue (Hong Kong: Five Continents Book Co., 1937), pp. 1–3.
49. On Wei Guang, see Carl T. Smith, “An Early Hong Kong Success Story: Wei Akwong, the Beggar Boy," Chung Chi Bulletin, no. 45 (Dec. 1968): 9–14. On Wei Yu, see Smith, “Emergence of a Chinese Elite," p. 110; Lethbridge, “Caste, Class, and Race,” pp. 169–70; Woo Sing Lim, Xianggang Huaren, pp. 3–4; Arnold Wright, Twentieth Century Impressions, p. 109.
50. On Huang Sheng, see Smith, "Emergence of a Chinese Elite,” pp. 108–9; Dennys, Treaty Ports, p. 76; Feng Ziyou, Geming yishi (Shanghai, 1946-47; reprint, Taibei: Shangwu, 1953), 1:6. 51. There were several connections between Wu and the He family. In addition to marrying He Miaoling, Wu's younger brother-in-law, Shenyou (Ho Yow) served under Wu as Consul-General in San Francisco during Wu's term of office as Minister to the United States. Wu's son Wu Chaoshu married He Qi's eldest daughter. Another of He Qi's daughters married Fu Bingchang (1895– 1934), who was Wu's secretary in the early Republican period. Several of He Qi's grandsons were
The Colonial Matrix 1842-1877
23
1818-71) was raised in Malacca, where he became a block cutter for the Anglo-Chinese College press and subsequently a student of the College's director, Dr. James Legge. In 1843 He Jinshan came to Guangdong Province with Legge, and in 1846 he was ordained as a pastor of the London Missionary Society church in Hong Kong. He maintained this position until his death in 1871. His missionary colleagues described him as a "capital English scholar," whose "manner of thought is more nearly allied to the English [than to the Chinese]." "52 He was also an astute businessman who left an estate rumored to be over $150,000, a large sum in those days. His widow was viewed as one of the wealthiest people in Hong Kong in the 1880s. According to G. H. Choa, the family's business interests included real estate holdings in Hong Kong as well as landowning and money lending in its native village of Xijiao in Nanhai district.5
53
He Qi himself was one of five brothers and six sisters. He attended Government Central School and was sent to England for studies in 1872 at the
age
of thirteen. He studied medicine at Aberdeen, and after qualifying there, entered Lincoln's Inn, where he was called to the Bar in 1882, five years after Wu Tingfang. He returned to Hong Kong with his English wife Alice Walkden, where he became a civic leader, was appointed to numerous commissions by the Hong Kong Government, served on the Legislative Council and engaged in many philanthropic activities, including the establishment of the Alice Memorial Hospital and the Hong Kong College of Medicine. He was made a CMG in 1902 and was knighted in 1912. A successful speculator in stocks, real estate and other enterprises, he was famous in China as well as in the Colony.
These short biographical sketches of the more famous members of Hong Kong's intelligentsia illustrate the close relationship between that group and the mercantile bourgeoisie during the latter part of the nineteenth century. The intelligentsia not only served as economic intermediaries between the worlds of Chinese and western commerce, and additionally as political
54
said to have placed themselves under Wu Tingfang's patronage. See G. H. Choa, The Life and Times of Sir Kai Ho Kai: A Prominent Figure in Nineteenth-Century Hong Kong (Hong Kong: The Chinese University Press, 1981), p. 21.
52. London Missionary Society, Report of the Directors, 1849, p. 22. See also ibid., 1851, p. 19; 1855, pp. 50–51; 1862, p. 79; 1863, p. 19; 1865, p. 17; 1874, p. 73; Mai Meisheng, “Jidujiao zai Guangdong," 3:747-48; Smith, “Emergence of a Chinese Elite,” pp. 104–6.
53. Choa, The Life and Times of Sir Kai Ho Kai, p. 11. NCH, 12 Feb. 1897, p. 224; Smith, "Emergence of a Chinese Elite," pp. 104-5.
54. The most complete account of He Qi's life is Choa, The Life and Times of Sir Kai Ho Kai. A new evaluation of He's thought is to be found in Tsai Jung-fang, "The Predicament of the Comprador Ideologists, He Qi (Ho Kai, 1859–1914) and Hu Liyuan (1847–1916),” Modern China 7, no. 2 (Apr. 1981): 191–225. Shorter accounts of He's life include: Woo Sing Lim, Xianggang Huaren, pp. 1–2; Paul A. Cohen, Between Tradition and Modernity, pp. 246–47; and his “Littoral and Hinterland in Nineteenth Century China: The ‘Christian' Reformer," in The Missionary Enterprise in China and America, ed. John K. Fairbank (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1974), pp. 201–2, 208–12; Lo Hsiang-lin, Hongkong and Western Cultures (Tokyo: Centre for East Asian Cultural Studies, 1963), pp. 135-36, Paul A. 145–46; Harold Z. Schiffrin, Sun Yat-sen and the Origins of the Chinese Revolution (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1970), pp. 20–22. See also Lethbridge, “The District Watch Committee," p. 125. On He Qi's being made a CMG, see London Times, 26 June 1902, p. 5.
24
Wu Tingfang (1842–1922): Reform and Modernization in Modern Chinese History
intermediaries between the colonial authorities and the Chinese populace of the colony, but also in a more general sense as cultural intermediaries between China and the West.
A small number of the Hong Kong Chinese intelligentsia became essayists and journalists who are well known for advocating institutional reforms at a time when most Chinese officials and literati only envisaged a much more superficial program of reform. The most important members of this group of reformers were He Qi, whose career has been briefly described above, Wang Tao, Zheng Guanying and Wu Tingfang.
55
Modern journalism in China is associated with the Hong Kong-based reformers, as it became their innovation to develop newspapers as a venue to popularize their views. The first Chinese language newspaper, Zhongwai Xinbao (Chung Ngoi San Po, Chinese and foreign newspaper), was founded by Wu Tingfang in 1860, and the Huazi Ribao (Wah Tze Yat Po, Chinese language daily news), was founded by Wu's friend Chen Aiting (Chen Yan, d. 1905) in 1873 or 1874. Wang Tao's Xunhuan Ribao (Tsun Wan Yat Po) was soon added to the list. Wu's newspaper, which was representative of the others, contained a small section of news about Europe, mostly translations from Hong Kong's English language press, sandwiched in among the market and shipping notices and various advertisements. In this inauspicious way, merchants and traders began to receive newsworthy information about the western world.56
In spite of differences in emphasis among Wang Tao, Zheng Guanying, He Qi and others, they all shared the conviction that China needed to undergo reforms modeled on Great Britain-and in some respects Hong Kong itself. They felt that Chinese merchants should be given more power and prestige so as to function more effectively. The merchantry, while autonomous, should nonetheless be supported positively by the state. Merchant capital, profits from the Sino-Western trade, could be ploughed into development projects that would strengthen and enrich China. The active promotion of Chinese commerce-"commercial war" or shangzhan—would thus be an instrument
of China's modernization.57
55. The authoritative study of Wang Tao's life and thoughts is Paul A. Cohen, Between Tradition and Modernity. On Zheng's life and ideas see ibid., pp. 244–66; Hao Yen-p'ing, Comprador in Nineteenth Century China, pp. 196–97 passim; Chong Kay Ray, “Cheng Kuan-ying (1841-1920): A Source of Sun Yat-sen's Nationalist Ideology?” Journal of Asian Studies 28 (Feb. 1969): 247–67; Wang Xi, “Lun Zheng Guanying," Lishi yanjiu, 1982, no. 1: 18-38.
56. Huazi Ribao, ed., Huazi Ribao qishinian jinian kan (Hong Kong, 1934), p. 1; Lo Hsiang-lin, Hongkong and Western Cultures, pp. 58–59, 201; Roswell S. Britton, The Chinese Periodical Press, 1800– 1912 (Shanghai: Kelly & Walsh, 1935), pp. 38–47; Ge Gongzhen, Zhongguo baoxue shi (Shanghai: Shangwu, 1935), pp. 102–5. Britton and Ge are in error linking the Zhongwai Xinbao to the Daily Mail and the Huazi Ribao to the Daily Press. The reverse is correct. Cf. Frank H. H. King and Prescott Clarke, A Research Guide to China Coast Newspapers, 1822-1911 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1965), p. 28. On Chen Aiting see Smith, "Emergence of a Chinese Elite,” p. 107.
57. Paul A. Cohen, Between Tradition and Modernity, pp. 185–208; Hao Yen-p’ing, Comprador in Nineteenth Century China, p. 204; Tsai Jung-fang, “Comprador Ideologists in Modern China: Ho Kai (Ho Ch'i, 1859–1914) and Hu Li-yuan (1847–1916)” (Ph.D. diss., UCLA, 1975), pp. 118–63, and his "Predicament."
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25
Legal and judicial reforms were seen as essential to the new economic order. Merchants and others needed protection against the abuse of power. Unless the system were modified and made to function as it did in England, merchants could not be expected to have confidence in the state, and without such confidence, merchant capital would not be used to benefit China. To achieve a condition in which confidence was warranted, the reformers proposed institutional changes to broaden the basis of decision making. He Qi and his writing partner Hu Liyuan went so far as to propose the establishment of advisory organs, modeled after the Hong Kong Legislative Council, by which the propertied elements of Chinese society could make their views known.58
These changes were also contingent upon the revamping of the educational system and training of officials. All bemoaned the low caliber and inadequate training of Qing officials and saw corrupt official practices as undermining the core of their political program. But more than that was at stake: modern subjects such as sciences, technological subjects, and foreign languages were needed in the schools. Knowledge itself should be more widely disseminated, they maintained, in order to release the energies of the people. And the civil service examination system should be modified so as to permit people with western- style educations, such as themselves, to enter the exalted ranks of officialdom.59 This in short was the political program of the Hong Kong Chinese intelligentsia: major changes in the education, training and recruitment procedures of China's future political elite, a massive infusion of merchant capital with its accompanying political influence into the body politic, and institutional reforms facilitating China's transformation into a modern nation capable of holding its own in the face of western aggression.
Wu Tingfang was a product of the world that has been briefly described above, a world in which Chinese commercial interests emerged, competed and faced limitations in a setting in which they had been paradoxically nurtured by British culture and institutions. His was a world in which Chinese culture and institutions both accommodated and clashed with those of nineteenth century England in a fugue of great subtlety and complexity. As a product of this world Wu came to understand contemporary English society in a way far deeper than most Chinese of his generation could; he participated in British culture as he rebelled against the degraded status to which he had been relegated by the structures of the "colonial situation." He developed values and skills that could be shared by only a tiny minority of his countrymen, and he was given opportunities that few of them could even imagine attaining. It is to this story that we now turn.
58. He Qi and Hu Liyuan, Xinzheng zhenquan (n.p., 1909), reprinted in Wuxu Bianfa, ed. Zhongguo shixue hui (Shanghai: Shenzhou guoguang she, 1953), 1:187–216; Tsai Jung-fang, "Comprador Ideologists,” pp. 65–69; Paul A. Cohen, Between Tradition and Modernity, p. 220ff. 59. He Qi and Hu Liyuan, Xinzheng zhenquan, pp. 189–91; Paul A. Cohen, Between Tradition and Modernity, pp. 154–84, 211–15; Tsai Jung-fang, “Comprador Ideologists,” pp. 58–65, 122, 124.
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Wu Tingfang (1842–1922): Reform and Modernization in Modern Chinese History
Childhood and Youth, 1842–1862
Wu Tingfang was born in 1842, the third son of a merchant from the Pearl River Delta district of Xinhui. Although some sources point to Batu Berendum, Malacca, as his birthplace, most indicate that he was born in Singapore, and that his origins were relatively humble. His mother was probably a Christian Hakka woman from Singapore named Lian E (although a few sources suggest that his mother was a Malay), and his father was a small merchant who most likely was a helper in a Christian mission.60 While the sources do not indicate the precise nature of the family business in Singapore, we may surmise that as the vast majority of Chinese in Singapore at that time were impoverished male sojourners, the fact that the Wus' were a family unit suggests a measure of affluence.61
In 1845 Wu's father, Wu Rongzhang, moved his family to Guangzhou, a move that suggests that the family's business was flourishing, for few Chinese in Singapore were able to accumulate enough savings to return to China. A few were so fabulously wealthy that they dared not leave. The Wus must have been somewhere between these two extremes. When Wu Rongzhang died in 1877, however, he left his son Tingfang a handsome inheritance.62
Upon returning to Guangzhou, the Wu family settled in Fangcun, a new suburb in the western, or mercantile, sector of the city.63 While living in Fangcun, there were two eventful episodes in Wu's life. The first was when he was kidnapped by bandits and held ransom for over a week until he was able to trick his captors and managed to escape.64
60. Toung Pao, 21 (1922): 365. On Wu's birthplace as Singapore see Wu Zhiyong boshi aisi lu (n.p., 1922), p. 1. On Batu Berendum, see Li Yiji, comp., Gu Gangzhou gujin shi (Hong Kong: Guangxin, 1975), 2:82–83. Carl T. Smith, using materials from the mission school in Guangzhou that Wu probably attended, states that Wu's mother was a Malay woman, but I have not verified this. See Smith, "Emergence of a Chinese Elite,” p. 107. Smith's assertion is based on reports by Andrew P. Happer, teacher at the Canton Mission School established by the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, concerning Ng A-fat. Smith believes that Ng A-fat was Wu Tingfang's elder brother, but I have examined the same materials and fail to see the link. See Happer to Walter Laurie, 27 Sept. 1852, no. 289 in Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. Board of Foreign Missions, Missions Correspondence, China, 1837–1911, Incoming Letters, 1837–1894. Some works erroneously assert that Wu was a member of the same family as Haoguan (Howqua) of the Gong Hang (Co- Hong), but Wu's family's ancestral home was Xinhui, Guangdong Province, and Haoguan was a Fukienese. See, e.g., Kenneth E. Folsom, Friends, Guests and Colleagues: A Study of the Mu-fu System in Late Ching China (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1968), p. 141; Marianne Bastid-Bruguiere, "Currents of Social Change,” in The Cambridge History of China, vol. 11, Late Ch'ing, 1800–1911, Part 2, ed. John K. Fairbank and Liu Kwang-ching (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1980), p. 548. 61. On the scarcity of Chinese women in Singapore in the 1830s see Sir Ong Siang Song, One Hundred Years of the Chinese in Singapore (London: Murray, 1923), p. 23; Victor Purcell, The Chinese in Malaya (London: Oxford University Press, 1948). See also Zhang Yunqiao, Wu Tingfang yu Qingmo zhengzhi gaige (Taibei, 1987), pp. 31–33.
62. On the economic status of Chinese in Singapore, see Purcell, The Chinese in Malaya, p. 86; Siah U Chin, "Numbers, Tribes and Avocations of the Chinese in Singapore," Logan's Journal 2 (1848) as cited in Song, One Hundred Years, p. 74. On Wu's inheritance, see Hennessy to CO, encl. 2, no. 4, CO 129/187.
63. Dennys, Treaty Ports, p. 195.
64. Chen Cisheng, Wu Tingfang yishi (Shanghai: Hongwen tushu, 1925), pp. 9–12.
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27
The second development concerned Wu's education. He began his formal education studying the classics under the instruction of a local teacher. That he received a formal classical education suggests that his family believed this essential for success in later life. But young Wu, while fond of studying, was said to have been bored by the classics and frequently said that studying them was a waste of time. In time honored school-boy fashion he is said to have spent many pleasant hours reading forbidden novels and adventure tales inserted into his copy of the Analects while his teacher dozed.65
Something must have rubbed off, however, for Wu's early Confucian education left a lasting imprint upon his outlook. In spite of subsequent Christian education and baptism as a Christian, he was always far more attracted to the secular traditions of the western world than to its religions, and he maintained that Confucian social values provided a better basis for stability than Christianity.
Soon Wu began to attend a local mission school, probably following in the footsteps of his two elder brothers. This school was probably the one established by the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions in Guangzhou in 1830.66 After attending this school for six months, Wu received a letter of introduction from one of his teachers (probably Samuel Wells Williams) to help him enter St. Paul's College in Hong Kong. In 1855, at the age of fourteen, Wu moved to Hong Kong and entered St. Paul's College.67
Wu's parents' decision to have Tingfang attend a missionary school in Hong Kong was probably a reflection of the situation in Guangzhou in the early 1850s. As noted above, the Pearl River Delta region saw great disorder in the early 1850s. Wu Rongzhang apparently decided it would be more advantageous to the Wu family fortunes if the family relocated to Hong Kong and Tingfang entered St. Paul's.
In order to attend St. Paul's College, baptism was necessary, so presumably Wu complied with this regulation. St. Paul's provided Wu with a basic education in English and Chinese. During his four years at St. Paul's his English became quite proficient, providing the basis for his future career development.68
65. Ibid., pp. 2-3.
66. Ibid., p. 1. According to Chen, Wu often attended a mission in Guangzhou where an English missionary named Yanhuilinshen taught him English and then, six months later, gave him a letter of introduction to a missionary in Hong Kong named Buoli'an. This account is also to be found in Wu Tingguang, Wu Tingfang lishi (Shanghai: Guomin tushuju, 1922), p. 1. Yanhuilinshen might have been the American, Samuel Wells Williams, who was a teacher at the ABCFM's Guangzhou mission until 1853. Buoli’an might have been Dr. Dyer Ball, who had been a member of the ABCFM's staff in Guangzhou and who was in Hong Kong in 1856. My search through missionary materials has, however, failed to turn up documentary evidence of Wu's studies at this school. See Happer to Laurie, 9 Feb. 1854, and “List of Protestant Missionaries in China, 1856,” no. 414, Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. Board of Foreign Missions, Missions Correspondence, Incoming Letters; Missionary Herald at Home and Abroad 46 (1850): 186-87; American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, Report of the Forty-third Meeting, 1852 (Boston, 1852), pp. 119– 20; Chinese Repository 20 (1851): 522–23.
67. Wu Tingguang, Wu Tingfang lishi, p. 1.
68. Ibid. Wu Tingguang states that Wu transferred to Queen's College and graduated from the
28
Wu Tingfang (1842–1922): Reform and Modernization in Modern Chinese History
Next to his education at St. Paul's, most important for Wu Tingfang's career was his marriage in 1862 to He Miaoling (d. 1937), the second daughter of He Jinshan, whose career has been described above. The He family was wealthy and ambitious. In addition to He Jinshan's wealth, Wu's mother-in- law, née Li, was from a wealthy family with connections through relatives to the Qing Government.69 Not only did the He family finance Wu's studies abroad, but also those of He Qi and his younger brother Shenbao (Wyson Ho). The He family came to play a major role in all of the young Wu Tingfang's important career decisions.
The marriage appears to have been a satisfying one for Wu. He Miaoling was a devout Christian who contributed generously to philanthropic causes (perhaps as much as $200,000 before her death at the age of ninety-one). Her philanthropy included construction of the He Miaoling wing of the Tung Wah Hospital complex in Hong Kong, scholarships at the Ying Wah School and contributions to the Hop Yat Church building fund.7o One son was born to Wu many years after he and He Miaoling were married: Chaoshu (C. C. Wu) was born in Tianjin in 1886.71
On the subject of his marriage, many year later, Wu told an audience of an anti-footbinding society in Shanghai that he had waited three years to find a suitable bride with unbound feet, only to marry Miaoling rather than remain a bachelor.72 In fact, Wu had nothing but praise for the traditional system of arranged marriage, which may be seen as testimony to his own satisfaction.73
Thus by the age of twenty, Wu Tingfang was well established as a young man. He had completed an education at a prestigious Christian school in Hong Kong, was proficient in English, and had married well, into a rising and influential family of wealthy Hong Kong Chinese. He was in a most advantageous position for personal advancement.
latter. However, Wu graduated in 1859 or 1860, and Queen's College (Government Central School) was not founded until 1860. According to Professor Luo Xianglin of the University of Hong Kong, records from St. Paul's are no longer extant. Personal communication, 1966.
69. Fu Bingchang, Fu Bingchang xiansheng fangwen jilu (Nan'gang, Taiwan: Institute of Modern History, Academia Sinica), recorded 1959–60 and stored in the Oral History Project, Columbia University, p. 63b.
70. On Mrs. Wu, see Wu He Miaoling (Guangzhou: Wu family, 1937), a commemorative volume prepared by the Wu family upon Mrs. Wu's death. On Mrs. Wu's philanthropy, see G. H. Choa, The Life and Times of Sir Kai Ho Kai, pp. 12–13.
71. On Wu Chaoshu see Wu Tiyun boshi aisi lu (n.p., 1934). In 1911 W. W. Yen (Yan Huiqing, 1877-1950) told G. E. Morrison that Wu was a baptized Christian with two concubines. See Morrison, Correspondence 1:672; Cyril Pearl, Morrison of Peking (Sydney: Angus & Robertson, 1967), p. 234. On Wu's secondary wife or wives see Chap. 3.
72. NCH, 9 Apr. 1903, p. 684.
73. NCH, 17 July 1903, p. 237; Wu Tingfang, America Through the Spectacles of an Oriental Diplomat (New York: Stokes, 1914), pp. 120–23; and his Minguo tuzhi chuyi (Shanghai: Author, 1915), pp. 78– 79a.
The Colonial Matrix 1842-1877
Choosing a Career
29
Upon graduating from St. Paul's College in 1858, Wu got a job as translator for the Hong Kong Daily Press. This job developed into his own publishing enterprise, the Zhongwai Xinbao, as an offshoot of the Daily Press. In 1859 or 1860, the London Missionary Society commissioned the Daily Press to print a Chinese-English dictionary, and Wu arranged to lease the new Chinese press for a monthly fee in order to start up his newspaper. Known as the Daily Press's "Chinese issue," Wu's paper was at first composed of one small sheet of about 15,000 characters. Two-thirds of the paper was devoted to advertisements. The remainder was set aside for news, mainly shipping and market information, but with some translations of items from the English language newspapers. Wu worked on the Zhongwai Xinbao for ten years, and it remained under the management of his brother Wu Chen (Ng Chan) until the latter's death around 1890.74
Since apparently there are no extant issues of Wu's newspaper, it is difficult to assess fully the type of information that was translated into Chinese for the edification of its readership. Similarly, Wu's relationship with the publisher of the Daily Press remains unclear. Yorick Jones Murrow (1817-84), the publisher of the Daily Press, was a bellicose Welshman who had led his newspaper in the anti-Chinese hysteria of 1857. He readily used his newspaper as a vehicle for sensational news, and was frequently charged with libel and slander by outraged Europeans in Hong Kong. It cannot have been easy to work for a man like Murrow, especially if one were Chinese.75
Journalism was not a full time occupation for Wu. In 1861 he began work as clerk and interpreter in the Hong Kong Police Magistrate's Court. His starting salary of £112.10 made him among the best paid of the Chinese interpretation staff.76 One year later, he was transferred to the Supreme Court as Chinese Clerk in the newly established Court of Summary Jurisdiction. He held this position until 1866, when he was transferred back to the Police Magistrate's Court as First Chinese Interpreter, and his salary was raised to £150. In 1868 his salary was further raised to £175, at which level it remained for five years.7
The social inequalities discussed above as part of the "colonial situation" were reflected in Wu's job. Within the colonial administration, in most
77
74. Wu Zhiyong boshi aisi lu (n.p., 1922), p. 1. On Wu Chen, see Smith, “Emergence of a Chinese Elite," p. 106.
75. G. B. Endacott, A Biograhical Sketch-book of Early Hong Kong (Singapore: D. Moore for Eastern Universities Press, 1962), pp. 130–34; Wright, Twentieth Century Impressions, pp. 344-46; Dennys, Treaty Ports, pp. 85, 86, 88. Ge Gongzhen, Zhongguo baoxue shi, p. 105; Lo Hsiang-lin, Hongkong and Western Cultures, p. 201; and Britton, Chinese Periodical Press, p. 39 are in error in claiming that George M. Ryder was the publisher of the Daily Press. Ryder sold his interest to Murrow in 1857. See King and Clarke, Research Guide, p. 146.
76. Gt. Brit. Colonial Office, Bluebooks, Hongkong, 1861, p. 158 (CO 133/18).
77. Ibid.; 1862, p. 148 (CO 133/19); 1863, p. 115 (CO 133/20); 1864, p. 166 (CO 133/21); 1865, p. 172 (CO 133/22); 1866, p. 194 (CO 133/23); 1867, p. 194 (CO 133/24); 1871, p. 88 (CO 133/ 28); 1873, p. 92 (CO 133/30).
30
Wu Tingfang (1842–1922): Reform and Modernization in Modern Chinese History
departments Chinese clerks handled the bulk of the routine work and even assumed considerable responsibility, but advancement into higher and better paying positions was largely barred from them. Upper echelon posts were staffed by British civil servants, and those just below them by civil servants of Portuguese descent, who as Europeans, held higher positions than Chinese civil servants.
In Wu's case, his superior during his years in the courts was R. A. Rozario, a Portuguese from Macau, whose annual salary of £350 was much higher than those of the Chinese interpreters. In later years Wu joined almost all of the public officials in the Colony in declaring that although Rozario was a conscientious public servant, he was incompetent as a court interpreter as he could only communicate in the Xiangshan or Macau patois of Cantonese. We can only speculate that it must have been galling for Wu and other interpreters to find themselves in a subordinate position to a man less competent than they were because of the inequalities inherent in colonial social structure.78
Wu and other Chinese who had reached the top of the scale for Chinese civil servants were unquestionably dissatisfied with the state of affairs, as illustrated by the case of Ng A-ts'un in 1870. Ng had been a clerk and interpreter in the Colonial Surveyor's office for six years. He developed tuberculosis and requested a two-week sick leave. This was granted but then he was dismissed from his job. He decided to apply for a twelve-month leave of absence in accordance with existing civil service regulations applying to British and European civil servants. The Governor, Sir Richard MacDonnell, refused to grant him the leave, which the governor viewed as a “ridiculous privilege for a Chinese civil servant,” and moreover held that the customary bonus of one month's pay every four years was "not quite applicable" to Chinese employees. Ng was dismissed with a bonus of $100 while the issue was referred to the Colonial Office.79
According to E. J. Eitel, the Austrian missionary chronicler of Hong Kong's history who was close to Wu Tingfang, the Chinese civil servants viewed the decision on the Ng case as an object lesson to them for having dared to consider themselves on the same level as British and European civil servants. According to Eitel, they felt that the only explanation for the difference in treatment between themselves and the Europeans was that of race distinction, as of course it was.'
80
A number of resignations followed the Ng A-ts'un affair. The most important of these occurred in 1871, when Wu's close friend and colleague Chen Aiting (Yan) resigned his post as Third Clerk in the Police Magistrate's
78. "Report by Mr. Ng Choy," encl. in Hennessy to Earl of Carnarvon, 7 Sept. 1877, no. 109, CO 129/179.
79. "Report by Dr. Eitel... on the Hong Kong Pension Scheme as Affecting the Chinese, and the Supply of Interpreters,” encl. in Hennessy to Earl of Kimberley, 31 Oct. 1880, no. 174, CO 129/190. 80. Ibid.
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Court, which he had held since 1866, and soon began to publish the Huazi Ribao. In 1877, he declined an offer by Governor Sir John Pope Hennessy (1834-91) to reenter the colonial administration. Instead, upon Wang Tao's recommendation of him to Chen Lanbin, the newly appointed Qing Minister to the United States, Cuba and Peru, Chen Aiting was appointed Consul- General in Havana.81
That Chen and others had the option of alternative careers illustrates the differences between Hong Kong and many other British colonies in the nineteenth century. As new fields such as modern diplomacy became areas requiring staffing in the Qing Government, new opportunities became available for colonial intelligentsia such as Chen Aiting and Wu himself.
Meanwhile, Wu apparently had serious thoughts about a career shift as his thirtieth birthday came and went. Several possibilities were open to him. He could join his friend Chen Aiting and join the Qing diplomatic corps, where his proficiency in English would be most useful. Then too, he could develop his journalistic abilities. In fact, he aided Chen in founding the Huazi Ribao and then Wang Tao in founding the Xunhuan Ribao; but Wu chose not to place his full energies in this direction.8
82
Instead, Wu decided to study in England and become a barrister, a decision that changed his life. We do not know the full circumstances surrounding his decision, although we do know that his wife's family must have approved. He Jinshan had suffered a severe stroke in 1870 and died the following year. Soon after that, in 1872, the young He Qi went to Great Britain to begin his ten year long training in medicine and law. The following year, 1873, Mrs. He agreed to pay for her son-in-law's education abroad as well.83
Certainly the decision to seek legal training abroad made little sense in terms of China's indigenous culture or social structure. While officials in China were familiar with law and indeed sometimes specialized in it, the development of a legal profession as such was frowned upon; severe penalties were imposed on people who encouraged the undertaking of a suit or who profited from one. Conventionally, the study of Confucian mores was held to be an adequate basis for officials who had to administer the law, and the study of law for its own sake was tainted with the despised brush of Legalism, at least outwardly.84
81. On Chen, see Wu's eulogy in NCH, 11 Aug. 1905, p. 32; Paul A. Cohen, Between Tradition and Modernity, pp. 74-75; Smith, "Emergence of a Chinese Elite,” p. 107. See also Chen Lanbin, “Shi Mei jilue,” in Xiaofanghuzhai yudi congchao, comp. Wang Xiqi (Shanghai, 1877–97; reprint, Taibei: Guangwen, 1964), 12:57; Zhang Yinhuan, Sanzhou riji (n.p., ca. 1890), 1:26a.
82. Ge Gongzhen, Zhongguo baoxue shi, p. 77; Paul A. Cohen, Between Tradition and Modernity, p. 76. 83. Choa, The Life and Times of Sir Kai Ho Kai, pp. 10–12; Fu Bingchang, Fangwen jilu, p. 63b; Wu He Miaoling, p. 1.
84. Chang Yu-chuan, "The Legal Practitioner in China,” Chinese Social and Political Science Review 22, no. 2 (1938): 147; Sybille van der Sprenkel, Legal Institutions in Manchu China: A Sociological Analysis (London: Athlone Press, University of London, 1966), p. 69; Ch'u T’ung-tsu [Qu Tongzu], Local Government in China Under the Ch'ing (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1962), p. 189.
122
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Only when viewed in the colonial context does Wu's decision make sense. For Englishmen at that time, the barristry was a glamorous and prestigious profession. Lincoln's Inn, which Wu decided to attend, was one of the four Inns of Court dating back to the late Middle Ages. Before the nineteenth century, the Inns of Court had been largely finishing schools for young aristocrats, and even when Wu attended, much of the aristocratic aura remained. Residence at an Inn was important to a young Englishman, not only for the formal education that he received, but also for the friendships he formed with the leading men of his generation. For this reason, as well as for the fact that the professions were considered "upper-class" in class conscious Victorian England, attendance at one of the Inns of Court brought one prestige. In British settler colonies, training at one of the Inns of Court had been a long established avenue of social mobility and a path to political power.
85
In a colonial outpost such as Hong Kong, where English aristocrats were scarce indeed, barristers were even more socially prominent than in England itself. Barristers, together with wealthy merchants and a smattering of other professional men, formed an elite that directed the affairs of the Colony under its various governors. Given the high status of barristers and Wu's knowledge of English law based on his long experience working in the Hong Kong courts, it is understandable that Wu should decide to train himself in this direction.
Not only did Wu's decision to attend Lincoln's Inn in part reflect dissatisfaction with the inherent limitations to advancement for Chinese interpreters in Hong Kong, but also a perception of himself as a potential leader of his community. Chinese in Hong Kong had long been subjected to abuse at the hands of unscrupulous lawyers and victimized in the courts because of their unfamiliarity with British legal institutions.86 On his return to Hong Kong in 1877, Wu told a San Francisco reporter that his years working in the Hong Kong courts had enabled him to "see the wrongs and outrages" to which Chinese were subjected, and he expressed his hope that he could serve his community by helping to ameliorate some of the abuses.87
Thus, Wu's decision to attend Lincoln's Inn suggests his ambition to achieve a position of leadership in Hong Kong. To the Europeans, he could qualify for elite status in terms of the society of the mother country; to the Chinese, he would seek reform of colonial social structure so as to improve the status of his countrymen. The implicit nationalism in his desire was not necessarily in conflict with his self-interest.
85. On the social status of barristers in England, see Alan Harding, A Social History of English Law (London: Penguin, 1965), pp. 170–79, 206–13, 285–91, 351, 432; S. G. Checkland, The Rise of Industrial Society in England, 1815–1885 (London: Longmans, 1964), pp. 284–88, 293–96. On the role of barristers in colonial North America, see Roscoe Pound, The Lawyer from Antiquity to Modern Times.... (St. Paul, Minn.: West Pub. Co., 1953), p. 157; Anton-Hermann Chroust, The Rise of the Legal Profession in America (Norman, Okla.: University of Oklahoma Press, 1965), 1:33–37. 86. Endacott, A History of Hong Kong, pp. 38, 96; Eitel, Europe in China, p. 333.
87. San Francisco Post, 4 Mar. 1877.
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European Sojourn, 1874–1877
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Wu Tingfang's travels and studies abroad constituted a major turning point in his life. He lived in London for two and a half
years and spent considerable time traveling on the European continent and North America. He now had a firsthand understanding of western institutions of the sort not possible via the colonial experience alone.
To be called to the Bar, the student had to reside in Lincoln's Inn for twelve terms (three years), dine in its Hall for a prescribed number of meals, and
pass examinations in various fields of law. To enter Lincoln's Inn Wu and other students of his day had to post a bond with a surety. Once every three terms (or annually) each student was formally presented to the Bar table by the steward after dinner. The first and last time this ceremony was performed the student had to produce a certificate of introduction from a barrister who was a member of the Society of Lincoln's Inn, which constituted in effect a certificate of good character. The available records do not indicate who Wu's sponsor was. Upon being called to the Bar the student had to pay a sum that had been fixed in 1863 at £82. These various requirements must have contributed to the feeling that one was entering an elite group where birth and worth were subtly intertwined.
88
The course of study at Lincoln's Inn was loosely defined. The four main fields were jurisprudence, equity, real and personal property, and common law, and lectures were offered by eminent authorities twice weekly in each field, adding up to a total of eight lectures each week. The rest of the time the student was left on his own, “to pursue his studies,” noted a committee of the society in 1889, “as best as he can.
"89
Wu entered Lincoln's Inn in January 1874 and took his examinations in Trinity term 1876 after just two and one-half years. The exams took five days to complete, from 29 May to 2 June 1876, and covered the fields of real and personal property, equity, common law, the Institutes of Gaius and Justinian, Roman law and jurisprudence, and constitutional law and legal history.9
90
Having completed his exams early, Wu still had to complete the three years' residence requirement in order to be called to the Bar. In the interim, Wu spent his time in studies and travels through Britain and the Continent. In January 1877, Wu was finally called to the Bar, and prepared to return to Hong Kong.
91
Unfortunately, efforts to uncover further information about Wu's life in England have proved fruitless. It would be nice to know where he lived, who
88. Sir Ronald Roxburgh, ed., The Records of the Honourable Society of Lincoln's Inn (The Black Books) (London: Lincoln's Inn, 1968), 5:lix-lx.
89. Ibid., p. lviii.
90. See Lincoln's Inn, Legal Education Examination Papers, 1874–1877 for list of successful students and sample examination questions.
91. Ibid. Wu is listed herein as being called to the Bar on 31 January 1877.
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Wu Tingfang (1842–1922): Reform and Modernization in Modern Chinese History
his friends were, and what kind of life he had, but I have only been able to unearth small fragments. Wu certainly had contact with (and probably responsibility for) his brother-in-law He Qi, a teenager studying in Aberdeen while Wu was in London.
Also through He's and his friend Wang Tao's colleague Dr. James Legge, Wu became acquainted with members of the Anglo-Oriental Society for the Suppression of the Opium Trade. Wu addressed a gathering of the society on 19 January 1875. His address was so successful that it resulted in his writing an eloquent letter to The Times with a plea to the British Government to outlaw the opium traffic and the proposal that it subsidize opium growers in India until they were able to convert to different crops.9
92
Nonetheless, the only written reference that I have found from Wu about his stay in London suggests that it was a lonely experience for him. In his America Through the Spectacles of an Oriental Diplomat, published in 1914, Wu wrote that the British, while not exactly unsociable, "surround themselves with so much reserve that strangers are at first chilled and repulsed.” Using his own experience as an example; Wu said that he had sat opposite the same student at the Lincoln's Inn Library for months without exchanging a word. "I thought I was too formal and reserved, so I endeavored to improve matters by occasionally looking up at him as if about to address him, but every time I did so he looked down as though he did not wish to see me. Finally I gave up the attempt.
"93 Wu concluded:
This is the general habit with English gentlemen. They will not speak to a stranger without a proper introduction; but in the case I have mentioned surely the rule would have been more honored by a breach than by the observance. Seeing that we were fellow students, it might have been presumed that we were gentlemen and on an equal footing.94
Forty years later, when Wu wrote the book in which these quotations appear, this still rankled.
Another fragment of information about Wu's sojourn abroad comes from an interview he gave to a San Francisco reporter while passing through that city en route to Hong Kong in March 1877. The context was the severe outbreak of anti-Chinese violence in California, marked by massive rallies, vilification of the Zhonghua Huiguan (or the Chinese Six Companies), and calls for an end to Chinese immigration to the United States.
These events undoubtedly dismayed Wu. To the reporter, he defended Chinese against charges that they were "slaves" to the Zhonghua Huiguan. While he did not think Chinese would ever “assimilate” to American society,
92. Friend of China (London), 1 (Mar.-Oct. 1875), pp. 13–14. I am indebted to Louis T. Sigel for this reference.
93. Wu Tingfang, America Through the Spectacles, p. 113.
94. Ibid., pp. 114-15.
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he thought that this should not be used to deny them the vote, since the vote had been given to "millions of illiterate blacks" to whom, in his opinion, the Chinese were "vastly superior." Wu also took this occasion to denounce missionaries and the Christian religion. "Our religion is as good as the Christian religion,” he said, “and why should we change? I think attempts to convert us are simply absurd, for to change would not better us, morally or intellectually. No Chinaman [sic], except for selfish motives, wants to become a Christian. "95
This statement is suggestive on many levels. Perhaps three years of sitting opposite stuffy and chilly Englishmen and then being inundated with anti- Chinese racism in the United States brought about a renewed sense of national identity for Wu. As he did not believe Chinese in the United States would "assimilate❞ to American society, perhaps he felt that he too could never "assimilate❞ into English society, nor would he accept the view that Christianity was superior to Chinese ethics.
The nationalist consciousness that was the product of colonialism in Hong Kong seems to have been reinforced by Wu's experiences abroad. In his case, nationalist identity took the form of the rejection of Christianity, and particularly the rejection of the missionary enterprise in China. In later years these views developed into a world view in which he linked Confucianism with the forces of progress in the world, and missionaries with the forces of reaction.
Chinese Alternatives
Wu's professional accomplishments in England opened up new career possibilities for him in the Qing Government. In the mid-1870s, the Qing Government was faced with an acute shortage of yangwu rencai, or talented men in foreign matters. They were needed to staff the new diplomatic posts and manage the new self-strengthening enterprises that called for a knowledge of western languages, technology and managerial techniques. As Li Hongzhang lamented to Guo Songtao (1818-91) in 1877, there were only about fifty people in all the Empire who were qualified to handle the new positions.96
Under these circumstances, officials faced with the immediate responsibility for staffing these new posts became interested in bourgeois Chinese from the treaty ports or overseas areas, many of Cantonese origin. As Li Hongzhang realistically noted in a letter to Ding Richang (1823-82), these people were "relatively close to the atmosphere of the West."97
Hence, Guo Songtao recommended a prosperous merchant from Singapore, Hu Xuanze (Hoo Ah Kay or Hu Ji, d. 1880) for the new post of
95. San Francisco Post, 4 Mar. 1877.
96. Li to Guo, 26 Aug. 1877 (GX 3/7/18), Li Hongzhang, Li Wenzhonggong quanji, ed. Wu Rulun (Nanjing, 1905; reprint, Taibei: Wenhai, 1965), "Pengliao han'gao," 17:18.
97. Li to Ding, 31 Mar. 1876 (GX 2/3/6), Li Hongzhang, Quanji, “Pengliao han’gao,” 16:7.
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Wu Tingfang (1842–1922): Reform and Modernization in Modern Chinese History
Consul-General to that colony.98 Similarly, Chen Lanbin, Minister to the United States, Cuba and Peru, recruited Chen Aiting and other members of the Hong Kong and treaty port bourgeoisie to serve on his staff.99
Even relatively conservative officials came to see overseas Chinese as possible sources of talent. For example, Liu Kunyi (1830–1902) wrote on the special talents of Cantonese such as Wu:
Those who live near the mountains will be expert hunters; those near the sea will excel at fishing. The Cantonese have had many contacts with foreigners. Several million of them are born in foreign ports and not only speak and write western languages well, but also understand their laws, arts and skills. For example, Hu Xuanze, whom Guo Songtao recommended as Consul-General, Yu Shenxiang, the translator for the U.S. Consulate [in Guangzhou], and Wu Zhiyong [Tingfang] the English barrister, are all products of Guangdong. . . . The competence of the Cantonese in foreign matters can thus be seen.'
100
This was the context for Wu Tingfang's brief flirtation with Qing officialdom in 1877. Around the time that Wu was called to the Bar in London, the Chinese Legation there was established, with the progressive Guo Songtao and the more conservative Liu Xihong as Ministers. Quite naturally Wu paid a courtesy call upon the legation and chatted with the envoys. He reportedly told them:
The British Government is [both] monarchical and democratic. Each time legislation is proposed, the common people discuss its shortcomings. Hence the rule of the Queen and her ministers is more far-reaching [than in China]. Since no Chinese live here, when incidents arise [between Britain and China], [the British Government] bases itself upon what its merchants have said when it so outrageously complains and slanders [us]. Now that you envoys are stationed [here], our sincerity and feelings will become known. But to be properly effective, it is vital to find intelligent men who are skilled in foreign languages and station them abroad. Also, we should have our views published in newspapers and widely circulated. Only thus will the situation improve.1
101
This statement indicates that Wu had a good understanding of the dynamics of nationalism in Britain and the importance of public opinion in policy
98. Guo Songtao memorial, 3 Oct. 1877 (GX 3/8/27), Qingji waijiao shiliao, comp. Wang Liang (1935; reprint, Taibai: Zhonghua, 1964), 11:13–15; Michael R. Godley, Mandarin-Capitalists from Nanyang: Overseas Chinese in the Modernization of China, 1893–1911 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981), pp. 67-69.
99. Chen Lanbin, “Shi Mei jilue."
100. Liu Kunyi, “Juanzi shengxi zhuyang yangwu rencai zhe," 29 Nov. 1877 (GX 3/10/25), Liu Kunyi yiji (Beijing: Zhonghua, 1959), 1:429–31.
101. Liu Xihong, “Yingzhao riji,” in Wang Xiqi, Xiaofanghuzhai 11:7b.
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formation. In this statement we see a theme to be repeated many times in Wu's later career: the success of China's diplomacy rests in part on the ability to have access to the organs of public expression in the West. It is worth noting that this tactic suggests a certain confidence in the society and culture of the imperialist world. All that was needed was to publicize the wrong; surely the rationality and common sense of the public would demand a change. Also it is worth noting that Wu firmly believed that people like himself were needed to conduct propaganda on China's behalf.
It is difficult to know whether Wu's statement should have been construed as a hint that he would have liked such a job. In any case, Guo and Liu decided to offer him a post as interpreter in the London Legation, but Wu appears to have been indignant at the low level of the position offered. He declined. Guo and Liu then offered him the higher position of attaché, but Wu declined that as well. He said that he had already been offered the position of Consul-General in Lima, Peru (a post mostly due to Wang Tao's recommendation of Wu to Ding Richang), and that he had already replied to Chen Lanbin accepting it. Even so, he told Guo and Liu's representative, the position of attaché could not in any way compare to the prestige and salary of a barrister in Hong Kong. As a barrister he expected to earn the equivalent of 1,000 taels monthly, while an interpreter or attaché could not expect to receive more than 200 taels. A barrister's income, he explained to the Chinese envoys, could only be compared to that of vice-presidents in the metropolitan boards, high officials in the censorate and other officials of that caliber. 102
Wu appears to have entered into this somewhat unseemly haggling to impress Guo and Liu with the fact that his education constituted the western equivalent of China's elite civil service examination. Soon after this exchange, however, Wu received word that his father had died in Hong Kong, and in accord with proper Confucian behavior, he refused all offers and returned to his familial responsibilities in Hong Kong.
Guo and Liu tried to get Wu back to London by memorializing the Zongli Yamen for permission to hire him as secretary of legation, third grade, with a special salary. "Since he is so knowledgeable about English law," they wrote, "he is not content to perform menial tasks."103 Their request that Chen Lanbin release Wu from his obligation to serve in Lima was granted, but Wu was simply not interested in either post.
While his father's death (which in strictly orthodox terms would have called for three years' mourning) may have been a strong factor in his decision to decline these offers, the exchange nonetheless indicates something of the
102. Zhang Deyi, “Suishi riji,” ibid. 11:12b–13. While Wu was still in England, Wang Tao had written to Ding Richang, then on sick leave in Guangdong, to recommend Wu, Chen Aiting and Zhang Zongliang to him as useful persons knowledgeable about the West. See Wang Tao, Taoyuan chidu xuchao (Shanghai, 1889; Beijing: Zhonghua, 1959), 9:17. See also Paul A. Cohen, Between Tradition and Modernity, p. 291.
103. Guo and Liu memorial, 22 June 1877 (GX 3/5/12), Qingji waijiao shiliao 10:15–16.
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disadvantages that bourgeois Chinese such as Wu faced vis-à-vis Qing officialdom. The Qing bureaucracy was linked to the civil service examination system, and outsiders such as Wu were not part of the structure. Overseas Chinese in addition suffered from their link with western imperialism. Both Guo and Liu emphasized Wu's refined and gentle demeanor in an effort to distinguish between a man of his caliber and the stereotypical “menial” of foreign firms towards whom traditional officials expressed contempt.104 Sensing these difficulties, Wu chose to return to Hong Kong.
Contact with Li Hongzhang
Wu's brief flirtation with Qing officialdom of 1877 still had a final act to be played. In October 1877, several months after having returned to Hong Kong, Wu paid a call upon Li Hongzhang in Tianjin. In his posts as Governor- General of Zhili Province and Superintendent of Trade for the Northern Ports, Li Hongzhang had by 1877 become the leading political figure of late nineteenth century China, directing under his control various modernization projects and supervising much of the Dynasty's foreign affairs.105
106
An introduction was arranged through Li Zhaotang, Customs Intendent at Tianjin, who was a relative of Wu's mother-in-law, Mrs. He, née Li.1
Li Hongzhang was very impressed with Wu and offered him a position as adviser for the specific purpose of drafting a code of commercial law for use by foreigners and Chinese in the treaty ports. In recommending Wu for this position, Li wrote to the Zongli Yamen that “although he has lived in Hong Kong and abroad for years, he is unpretentious and sincere, with the spirit of the scholar [ru] and absolutely no foreign mannerisms.” Again, Li was trying to break down the prejudice against foreign trained Chinese.107
The proposal for a commercial law code had been made by Guo Songtao as one of many inspired by his travel abroad. Guo's purpose was twofold: first, he hoped that a uniform law code would minimize friction between Chinese and foreigners and thereby prevent outbursts of the sort that had previously
104. Ibid.; Liu Xihong, “Yingzhao riji.”
105. Liu Kwang-ching, “Li Hung-chang in Chihli: The Emergence of a Policy, 1870-1875,” in Approaches to Modern Chinese History, by Albert Feuerwerker et al. (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1967), pp. 68–104.
106. Fu Bingchang in Fangwen jilu, p. 63b recalled that Mrs. He's relative was named Zeng, but her surname was the same Li as that of Li Zhaotang. Li Zhaotang (Chaomin) was a native of Guangdong Province and a jinshi of 1856. He was secretary in the Zongli Yamen, where he was strongly recommended by Prince Gong for his achievements. In 1863 he was appointed to assist Shen Baozhen, Governor of Jiangsu. In 1874 he was transferred to Tianjin as Customs Daotai. In 1878 he was appointed Judicial Commissioner of Zhili Province. F. S. A. Bourne, "Historical Table of High Officials Composing the Central and Provincial Governments of China,” China Review 7, no. 5 (1878–79): 321. In 1879 he was granted sick leave; in 1882 he was posted to the Guanglu Si, Court of Banqueting, and in the following year he was relieved. Wei Xiumei, ed., Qingji zhiguan biao (fu: Renwn lu) (Taibei: Zhongyang yanjiuyuan, Jindaishi yanjiusuo, 1977), 2:78. 107. Li to Zongli Yamen, 7 Oct. 1877 (GX 3/9/1), Qingji waijiao shiliao 10:15–16.
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led to retaliatory expeditions. Second, he viewed the code as the first step towards the establishment of full Chinese sovereignty in the treaty ports.
108
Guo proposed that the Zongli Yamen undertake a study of the various legal systems in the western nations and compile a composite code embodying the best features of each. It would then be subject to revisions by a special committee composed of top-level officials in consultation with Sir Robert Hart (1835-1911), Inspector-General of the Imperial Maritime Customs, Li Hongzhang and Shen Baozhen, the latter Superintendent of Trade for the Southern Ports. Guo proposed that the new code be widely distributed among the various foreign diplomats in China to facilitate its acceptance.
Wu accepted Li's proposal that he supervise the translations from western law codes, in accord with Guo's recommendations. With some haggling over Wu's salary, Li finally agreed to meet his request for the unusually high salary of 6,000 taels a year, making arrangements for the salary to be shared between the Northern and Southern Trade Superintendencies.11o
That Li was most eager to obtain Wu's services is clear. In writing to Guo Songtao to inform him that Wu would stay in Tianjin rather than in the London Legation, Li concluded:
[You] shouldn't try to grab him up when he can better serve [here]; also he isn't willing to go abroad. One can but measure talent and use it, and if we do not use him, he will remain a captive of the foreigners in Hong Kong for some time to come.'
111
Wu's motives suggest a mixture of self-interest and nationalism. The former is suggested by his concern for his salary. That Li was willing to find funds to pay him a salary some twenty times the regular official pay was a measure of confidence in Wu and an indication that his work would be highly valued.
The nationalism implicit in Wu's interest should not, however, be overlooked. The law reform project reflects Guo's (and Li's) concern for China's sovereignty, a fundamental concern of Chinese nationalists. Here was an opportunity for Wu to provide a service to China and transform his feelings of indignation into something constructive.
Sadly, however, the project did not come to fruition at that time. In fall 1877, Guo Songtao's diary of his trip abroad, in which he had expressed admiration for some western institutions, was published and produced a strong conservative reaction among many officials and literati. The climate of opinion underwent a radical change.112
Li Hongzhang's memorial on the project was approved by the Zongli Yamen,
108. Guo, “Qing zuancheng tongshang celi,” 3 Oct. 1877 (GX 3/8/27), ibid. 11:10–13.
109. Ibid.
110. Li Hongzhang to Shen Baozhen, 22 Oct. 1877 (GX 3/9/16), Li, Quanji, “Pengliao han'gao," 17:24-25.
111. Li to Guo, 8 Nov. 1877 (GX 3/10/4), ibid. 17:28–29.
112. Immanuel C. Y. Hsu, China's Entrance into the Family of Nations: The Diplomatic Phase, 1858– 1880 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1960), pp. 186-99.
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but with considerable reluctance. The Yamen noted that students in its translation bureau were already involved in a large, as yet uncompleted, translation project of French legal works. The ministers of the Yamen were also concerned with the inherent difficulties arising from the effort to standardize judicial practices so as to conform to those of the West. In general, Chinese law demanded punishments of greater severity than those of the West, and the Yamen's officials expressed concern that leniency might result in social disorder. Thus the entire project seemed dubious to the Zongli Yamen.113
We may
surmise that this lukewarm endorsement was not encouraging to Wu. As the condemnation of Guo Songtao gained momentum late in 1877, there was increasing unwillingness to support any of his projects. Guo's recommendation of Hu Xuanze was heatedly attacked and the policy of recruiting overseas Chinese into the bureaucracy harshly scrutinized. Soon after he had written approvingly of Cantonese such as Wu, Liu Kunyi changed his mind and wrote of the dire consequences that could follow from the recruitment of overseas Chinese. Echoing what was probably a widespread sentiment, he said:
I deeply respect my tongxiang's [i.e., Guo Songtao's] learning, but I fear that he is not at his best in these matters. It is commonly rumored that many former compradors and menials in western firms have been accompanying our ministers abroad simply because they know something of foreign languages, but I cannot yet judge whether or not that is true. Our generation's task is to plan for the future without losing sight of the fundamentals. If we accept imposters as consuls, we shall only become the object of the foreigners' ridicule and contempt.114
Members of the colonial and treaty port bourgeoisie who entered the Qing bureaucracy had to contend with this type of widespread prejudice. For some, the prestige of service in the Qing civil service, combined with their displeasure at their limited prospects in the colonial situation, was enough to overcome whatever qualms they might have felt about the lowly place assigned to them in the traditional scheme of things. But for a man like Wu, who had just spent three years at considerable cost and sacrifice to attain the very symbol of British elitedom as he saw it, it was not. As he watched the reaction against Guo grow, Wu settled into his law practice in Hong Kong rather than risk the uncertainty of life in Tianjin. Having examined the Chinese alternatives and judging them inadequate for his ambitions, he turned again to the colonial alternatives.
At the age of thirty-five, Wu Tingfang thus returned to Hong Kong to develop his career as a barrister, the first Chinese from the Colony to do so. In the next five years he was given ample opportunity to test both the possibilities as well as limitations that his new status as a British-trained professional could provide for him.
113. Zongli Yamen memorial, 31 Oct. 1877 (GX 3/9/25), Qingji waijiao shiliao 11:26–30. 114. Liu Kunyi to Shen Guifen, 5 Jan. 1878 (GX 3/12/3), Yiji 4:1833–34.
2
Hong Kong Barrister 1877-1882
Wu Tingfang and the Chinese Bourgeoisie of Hong Kong
During his years as a barrister in Hong Kong, Wu Tingfang (or Ng Choy [Wu Cai], Ng A Choy as he was then known) became the key figure in a three-way conflict that broke out involving the Chinese bourgeoisie, the British merchants and the Governor, Sir John Pope Hennessy. Underlying the political turbulence was the extremely fierce trade competition between the Chinese bourgeoisie and the British trading and shipping interests based in Hong Kong.
In the 1870s, Hong Kong underwent a process of unprecedented economic expansion, largely due to the growth of trade with China. From 1871 to 1884 the portion of China's foreign trade with Hong Kong increased from 24.4% to 33.8%, and by 1893 it constituted 48%. After this point Shanghai gradually began to supersede Hong Kong's importance as the dominant trading center.' The expansion of the China trade was marked by stiff competition between Chinese and European merchants and shippers. In 1868 the British Consul- General at Guangzhou noted with dismay that Chinese traders were giving Westerners severe competition. The import trade at Guangzhou, he reported, was "entirely in the hands of Chinese." In 1873 he lamented:
There can be no question that the days of European supremacy in trade here passed away forever in this country and the foreign merchant finds his field of action being gradually circumscribed and limited by those who but a few years ago kowtowed to him for his patronage.2
There are several indications of the growing power of Chinese merchant and shipping interests in Hong Kong. During the decade 1867–77, the volume of shipping in Hong Kong nearly doubled, but western shipping suffered a decline in proportion to junk shipping after the world-wide depression of
1. C. F. Remer, The Foreign Trade of China (Shanghai: Commercial Press, 1926), pp. 53-57.
2. Enclosure, Alcock to Hammond, 28 June 1868, FO 17/504, cited in Nathan A. Pelcovits, Old China Hands and the Foreign Office (New York: Institute of Pacific Relations, 1948), pp. 34–35.
41
42
Wu Tingfang (1842–1922): Reform and Modernization in Modern Chinese History
1873-74. By 1877, about 60% of the Colony's shipping was in junks, and only about 40% in western bottoms (and some of these were Chinese-owned). These trends are illustrated in Table 3:
Table 3
Tonnage Entered at Hong Kong, 1867-1877
Tons
1867
1868
1869
1870
1871
1872
1873
1874
1875
1876
1877
Tons
4,500,000
4,500,000
4,400,000
4,400,000
4,300,000
4,300,000
4,200,000
4,200,000
4,100,000
4,100,000
4,000,000
4,000,000
3,900,000
3,900,000
3,800,000
3,800,000
3,700,000
3,700,000
3,600,000
3,600,000
3,500,000
3,500,000
3,400,000
3,400,000
3,300,000
3,300,000
3,200,000
3,200,000
3,100,000
3,100,000
3,000,000
3,000,000
2,900,000
2,900,000
2,800,000
2,800,000
2,700,000
2,700,000
2,600,000
2,600,000
2,500,000
2,500,000
2,400,000
2,400,000
2,300,000
2,300,000
2,200,000
2,200,000
2,100,000
2,100,000
2,000,000
2,000,000
1,900,000
1,900,000
1,800,000
1,800,000
1,700,000
1,700,000
1,600,000
1,600,000
1,500,000
1,500,000
1,400,000
1,400,000
1,300,000
1,300,000
1,200,000
1,200,000
1,100,000
1,100,000
1,000,000
1,000,000
Junk Tonnage
Foreign Shipping Tonnage
Combined
Source: Gt. Brit. CO 133:34(1877).
Hong Kong Barrister 1877-1882
43
During the years 1876-81, over 20,000 Chinese emigrated to Hong Kong, bringing a total population of 160,402, of whom 150,690 were Chinese.3 A good proportion of them were members of the bourgeoisie. During the years 1877-81, the number of Chinese mercantile firms and individuals expanded threefold, from 1,557 to 4,808. The largest area of growth was that of medium- size traders, although there was also an expansion in large-size trading firms. Chinese banking developed, as indicated by the emergence of 55 bankers and a rise in the number of shroffs, or banking clerks. The number of Chinese ship charterers rose nearly six times, while the bourgeoisie in almost every area registered expansion. These trends are illustrated by Table 4:
Table 4
Growth of the Chinese Mercantile Bourgeoisie in Hong Kong, 1876–1881
Type of business
Trading hongs*
Traders
1876
1881
215
395
287
2,377
Shroffs
40
208
Brokers
Money changers
142
455
111
111
Bullion dealers
Bankers
34
34
55
Piece goods dealers
67
109
Cotton and
yarn dealers
38
58
Tea merchants
26
51
Rice dealers
95
128
Coal dealers
16
20
Fire arms dealers
15
20
Timber dealers
15
107
Drapers
101
156
Foreign goods dealers
167
191
Compradors
77
95
Ship compradors
67
113
Ship charterers
7
41
Bird's nest sellers
12
35
Shark's fin dealers
9
15
Jade dealers
8
18
Cinnamon dealers
7
Sesame oil dealers
5
Ginseng dealers
4
Total
1,557
4,808
Source: Gt. Brit. SP. 1881:824.
*Defined by Hennessy as “Nampak hongs and other wealthy
merchants in the England-China trade.”
3. Hong Kong, Historical and Statistical Abstract.
44
Wu Tingfang (1842–1922): Reform and Modernization in Modern Chinese History
Manufacturing industries did not register the same phenomenal growth during the same period as did mercantile interests, and in some cases they registered declines (e.g., gold beating, rattan making, sapanwood working and sugar refining). This suggests, as noted above in Chapter 1, that the real strength of the Chinese bourgeoisie in Hong Kong lay in commercial or mercantile sectors, not in industrial fields. Table 5 illustrates this phenomenon:
Table 5
Growth of Chinese Manufacturing Industries in Hong Kong, 1876–1881
Type of industry
Bamboo workers
Beancurd dealers
1876
1881
93
121
93
107
Boat builders
Carvers
Cigar makers
Engineers
Gold beaters
Glass manufacturers
Image makers
48
110
59
70
21
31
10
121
111
60
16
10
15
Lantern makers
50
63
Leather box makers
39
53
Lemonade and soda-water makers
28
30
Oar makers
30
43
Opium dealers
108
103
Paper box makers
21
10
Rattan workers
596
448
Sail and rope makers
100
141
Sandalwood dealers and workers
74
76
Sapanwood dealers and workers
96
20
Sauce manufacturers
49
41
Soap manufacturers
7
Sugar refineries
Tanners
Tobacco manufacturers
Tooth Powder manufacturers
Umbrella makers
3715
25
15
1
44
96
57
97
169
Vermillion manufacturers and dealers
111
123
Watch makers
13
Weavers
6
Total
1,920
2,166
Source: Gt. Brit. SP. 1881:824.
* Processors of raw opium.
The influx of Chinese in the late 1870s and in particular, of Chinese mercantile interests, when combined with the severe trade competition between Chinese and western interests, created near panic on the part of the
Hong Kong Barrister 1877–1882
45
European merchants and shippers. In the late 1870s and early 1880s Chinese began accelerated investments in properties in the Colony as residences or sites for businesses. As early as 1877, the Daily Press observed that wealthy Chinese were paying large sums of cash to purchase land and residences, while the China Mail noted that 'the Chinese will eventually buy us up, stock, lock and barrel' is the most casual observation now made amongst Hong Kong residents."4 In 1880 Hennessy's decision to open large areas of government-owned land for purchase by Chinese residents led to a great flurry of land transactions and a speculative wave among Chinese investors, as discussed below. By 1881, the Colony's top ratepayers were mostly Chinese, whereas in 1876 they had been mostly European, as indicated by Table 6:
Table 6
Names of the 20 Ratepayers Paying the Largest Amount of Rates for the Years 1876 and 1881
1876
Amount
1881
Amount
1.
Douglas, Lepraik and Co.
$11,108.92
1.
Wo Hang
$11,398.00
2. Jardine, Matheson
8,453.40 2. 'Ng Sang
10,240.00
and Co.
3.
Kwok A-cheong
6,906.36 3. Jardine, Matheson
7,544.60
and Co.
4.
T.G. Linstead
6,527.52
4.
Yeong Shu-lum
6,876.60
5.
Siemssen and Co.
6,305.44
5.
Lum Sow
6,003.90
6.
Turner and Co.
5,913.72
6.
Ho Lai Shi*
5,863.39
77.
D. Sassoon, Sons and Co. 5,499.00
7.
Kwok Ying Kai
5,748.00
8. J.J. Dos Remedios
4,972.80
8.
Ching Sing Yeong
5,730.30
and Co.
9. Lum Sow
4,475.08
9.
Lo Shing
5,624.00
10. Hong Kong and Shang- 3,938.40
10. 'Ng Cheong
5,363.00
hai Banking Corp.
11. Wo Hang
3,372.48
11. Yeong Amow
4,968.00
12. Lee Shing
3,154.80
12. Tang Leek
4,748.00
13. Choy Chan
2,988.00
13. Kwok Ying Shew
4,700.25
14. Coore Lind and Co.
2.965.08
14. Low Cheong
4,690.46
15. Chao Ying Yoong
2,585.40 15. Koo Mun Wa
4,596.70
16. 'Ng Sang
2,572.80
16. Ip Ching Chuen
4,516.00
17. W. Curtis
2,467.44