LAND AND LEADERSHIP IN THE H.K. REGION OF KWANGTUNG 99
finality, that he managed all the important affairs of the group of villages over which he exercised a personal influence; and I have already mentioned the impressive bearing of Kung Fong-chai's nephew. Yet there is a paradox. Despite the drive and ability which removed them from ordinary villagers by many degrees, these three persons were otherwise very close to them. They came from the same farming stock, had many kinsfolk among them, and had been brought up and educated together with them in the same place. They all had village wives who had been chosen for them by their parents in their early manhood in accordance with custom: and though, like most rich men in old China, they may have taken concubines later on they do not seem to have gone outside the island for them. Moreover they lived in ordinary village houses which were scarcely different in size or outward appearance from those of other villagers. Perhaps because of these ties they appear to have made good landlords, whether through fear of family and local opinion or because they were so close to a farming life and stemmed directly from farming stock.
My fourth point concerns land as a decisive factor in local leadership. Land played a major part in the emergence of these three men. One factor common to all three is that it appears to have been essential to build up an estate in order, through receipt of rents, to obtain the funds needed to become a substantial money-lender*. Once the capital sufficient to embark on this course was acquired it seems to have been comparatively easy to profit by the desires, needs or misfortunes of others. Many mortgages led to eventual ownership by the money lender, who could also purchase land with the proceeds received from his interest loans. Yet these men were not large landowners and their holdings were very small by comparison with the total areas of cultivated land in the various localities. At Shek Pik, for instance, the Kung family owned only eight acres out of a total of 180.17 What was important, then, was not so much the size of the estate as the fact that the average villager's holding was much less. Once possessed of land and capital one was in a position to act as a man of affairs when setting out, or being called upon, to become one.
* Rents were usually paid in kind locally but could thereafter be converted into cash.
LAND AND LEADERSHIP IN THE H.K. REGION OF KWANGTUNG 99
finality, that he managed all the important affairs of the group of villages over which he exercised a personal influence; and I have already mentioned the impressive bearing of Kung Fong- chai's nephew. Yet there is a paradox. Despite the drive and ability which removed them from ordinary villagers by many degrees, these three persons were otherwise very close to them. They came from the same farming stock, had many kinsfolk among them, and had been brought up and educated together with them in the same place. They all had village wives who had been chosen for them by their parents in their early manhood in accordance with custom: and though, like most rich men in old China, they may have taken concubines later on they do not seem to have gone outside the island for them. Moreover they lived in ordinary village houses which were scarcely different in size or outward appearance from those of other villagers. Perhaps because of these ties they appear to have made good landlords, whether through fear of family and local opinion or because they were so close to a farming life and stemmed directly from farming stock.
My fourth point concerns land as a decisive factor in local leadership. Land played a major part in the emergence of these three men. One factor common to all three is that it appears to have been essential to build up an estate in order, through receipt of rents, to obtain the funds needed to become a substantial money-lender*. Once the capital sufficient to embark on this course was acquired it seems to have been comparatively easy to profit by the desires, needs or misfortunes of others. Many mort- gages led to eventual ownership by the money lender, who could also purchase land with the proceeds received from his interest loans. Yet these men were not large landowners and their hold- ings were very small by comparison with the total areas of cul- tivated land in the various localities. At Shek Pik, for instance, the Kung family owned only eight acres out of a total of 180,17 What was important, then, was not so much the size of the estate as the fact that the average villager's holding was much less. Once possessed of land and capital one was in a position to act as a man of affairs when setting out, or being called upon, to become one.
* Rents were usually paid in kind locally but could thereafter be converted into cash.
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