95
GOVERNMENT AND PEOPLE IN HONG KONG 1841-1962: A CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY
A Review Article by COLINA LUPTON
The subtitle of this book begs the question. Has Hong Kong really had a constitutional history? And if not, why the book? Mr. Endacott puts this query on the second page of the preface, and his answer is an interesting one. Given the fact that Hong Kong received a Crown Colony form of constitution in 1843 and still retains it in 1965, there must be something which explains its tranquillity in the midst of a continent of upheaval. The stability here contrasts forcibly with the emergent nationalisms which surround the Colony, in Indonesia, Indochina, Malaysia and certainly not least in China itself. Government here must be broadly in sympathy with the desires of the people, or it would not be supported. Even if this is partly due to local realization that the important decisions about the Colony's future are taken in London, Peking and elsewhere, the fact is that the Government provides enough of what the people want for its authority not to be called in question.
It is certainly true that as the Colony has grown and developed, the Government has done so too. But it might perhaps have been a fairer statement to call this not a constitutional history but an administrative one, for in all justice it is largely in the administration that the changes have been made, and quite a substantial portion of the book does actually deal with these changes. It is sad evidence of the apathy which Mr. Endacott so frequently remarks on as evinced in Hong Kong public life that the publishers have limited the printing of this book to a mere 2,000. In a territory of nearly four million, where at least fifty thousand or so must have a good reading knowledge of English, it seems that such a book on government is not expected to provoke much informed interest.
Anyone who attempts to narrate the whole history of Hong Kong in one volume is confronted by a problem. This is the fact that the Colony's history falls very decisively into two
By G. B. Endacott, Hong Kong University Press, 1964,
95
GOVERNMENT AND PEOPLE IN HONG KONG 1841-1962: A CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY
A Review Article by COLINA LUPTON
The subtitle of this book begs the question. Has Hong Kong really had a constitutional history? And if not, why the book? Mr. Endacott puts this query on the second page of the preface, and his answer is an interesting one. Given the fact that Hong Kong received a Crown Colony form of constitution in 1843 and still retains it in 1965, there must be something which explains its tranquillity in the midst of a continent of upheaval. The stability here contrasts forcibly with the emergent nationalisms which surround the Colony, in Indonesia, Indochina, Malaysia and certainly not least in China itself. Government here must be broadly in sympathy with the desires of the people, or it would not be supported. Even if this is partly due to local realization that the important decisions about the Colony's future are taken in London, Peking and elsewhere, the fact is that the Government provides enough of what the people want for its authority not to be called in question.
It is certainly true that as the Colony has grown and developed, the Government has done so too. But it might perhaps have been a fairer statement to call this not a constitutional history but an administrative one, for in all justice it is largely in the administration that the changes have been made, and quite a substantial portion of the book does actually deal with these changes. It is sad evidence of the apathy which Mr. Endacott so frequently remarks on as evinced in Hong Kong public life that the publishers have limited the printing of this book to a mere 2,000. In a territory of nearly four million, where at least fifty thousand or so must have a good reading knowledge of English, it seems that such a book on government is not expected to provoke much informed interest.
Anyone who attempts to narrate the whole history of Hong Kong in one volume is confronted by a problem. This is the fact that the Colony's history falls very decisively into two
By G. B. Endacott, Hong Kong University Press, 1964,
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