Directory_and_Chronicle_1933 — Page 1055

HONGKONG

港香

Heuug-hong

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The Island of Hongkong (which gives its name to the British Colony in South China) is situated off the coast of the Kwangtung province, near the mouth of the Canton river. It is distant about 40 miles from Macao and 90 from Canton, and lies between 22 deg. 9 min. and 22 deg. 17 min. N. lat. and 114 deg. 5 min. and 114 deg. 18 min. E. long. The Chinese characters repre- senting the name of the island (Heung Kong) may be read as signifying either Good Harbour or Fragrant Streams. By Convent ons dated, respectively, 1860 and 1898, further territory was ceded by China, consisting of upwards of 280 square miles on the opposite mainland together with the islands of Lantao, Lamma, Cheungchow and others. The last concession is by way of a lease for ninety-nine years.

HISTORY AND GOVERNMENT

Before the British ensign was hoisted on Possession Point in the City of Victoria in the year 1840 the island can hardly be said to have had any history, and what little attaches to it is very obscure. Scantily peopled by fishermen and agriculturists, it was never the scene of stirring events, and was little affected by dynastic or political changes. It is alleged, however, that after the fall of the Ming dynasty in 1628, some of the Emperor's followers found shel- ter in the forests of Hongkong from the fury of the Manchus. The peninsula of British Kowloon has more claim to association with Chinese history. In the year A.D. 1287 it is recorded that the last Emperor of the Sung dynasty, when flying from Kublai Khan, the Mongol conqueror, took refuge in a cave in Kowloon, and an inscription on the rock above is said to record the fact. The inscription consists of the characters Sung Wong Toi, meaning the Sung Emperor's Pavilion. On the cession of the territory to Great Britain the natives petitioned the Hongkong Government that the rock might not be blasted or otherwise injured, on account of the tradition connecting it with the Im- perial personage above mentioned. In 1898, during the administration of Major-General Wilsone Black, a resolution was passed by the Legislative Council preserving the land on which the rock stands for the benefit of the public in perpetuity.

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Hongkong is a Crown Colony and was ceded to Great Britain by the Chinese Government in 1841. In the troubles which preceded the first war with China the necessity of having some place on the coast whence British trade might be protected and controlled, and where officials and merchants might be free from the insulting and humiliating requirements of the Chinese Authorities, became painfully evident. As early as 1834 Lord Napier, smart- ing under his insolent treatment by the Viceroy at Canton, urged the Home Government to send a force from India to support the dignity of his com- mission. "A little armament," he wrote, "should enter the China seas with the first of the south-west monsoon, and on arriving should take possession of the island of Hongkong, in the eastern entrance of the Canton river, which is admirably adapted for every purpose." Two years later Sir George Robin- son, endorsing the opinion of Lord Napier that nothing but force could better the British position in China, advised the occupation of one of the islands in this neighbourhood, so singularly adapted by nature in every respect for commercial purposes.' In the early part of 1839 affairs approached a crisis, and on the 22nd March, Captain Elliot, the Chief Superintendent of Trade, re- quired that all the ships of Her Majesty's subjects at the outer anchorages of Canton should proceed forthwith to Hongkong, and, hoisting their national colours, be prepared to resist every act of aggression on the part of the Chinese

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