CHINESE ELITE IN HONG KONG
xenophobia and inbred loyalty to China as the motherland.
83
Descriptions of the type of Chinese settler are found in numerous reports Government officials submitted to London. In 1844 the Colonial Treasurer writes,
It is literally true that after three years and a half's uninterrupted settlement there is not one respectable Chinese inhabitant on the island.... The policy of the mandarins on the adjacent coast being to prevent all respectable Chinese from settling at Hong Kong; and in consequence of the hold they possess on their families and relatives this can be done most effectually. At the same time, I believe that they encourage and promote the deportation of every thief, pirate and idle or worthless vagabond from the mainland to Hong Kong.... No Chinese of humbler class will ever bring their wives and children to the colony. The shopkeepers do not remain more than a few months on the island, when another set take their place; there is, in fact, a continual shifting of a Bedouin sort of population, whose migratory, predatory, gambling, and dissolute habits utterly unfit them for continuous industry, and render them not only useless, but highly injurious subjects, in the attempt to form a colony.11
In establishing British government at Hong Kong, it was hoped that Hong Kong could lure away from Macao and Canton the larger part of the junk trade and thus make Hong Kong a centre of trade for the whole coast of Kwang Tung Province. Though a small beginning was made, this trade soon languished. Remarking on the absence of a substantial local trade with Canton, Gutzlaff states that this is because
there are no Chinese large firms at Victoria to receive goods in charge, and sell them as soon as there is a demand. Attempts to found such establishments have also been made, but have not succeeded from want of encouragement or on account of considerable individual loss. At the present moment (April, 1845) there remains unfortunately not one single large merchant from Canton in the settlement who is able to promote by his capital and influence such a desirable state. The whole business is
CHINESE ELITE IN HONG KONG
xenophobia and inbred loyalty to China as the motherland.
83
Descriptions of the type of Chinese settler are found in numerous reports Government officials submitted to London. In 1844 the Colonial Treasurer writes,
It is literally true that after three years and a half's uninterrupted settlement there is not one respectable Chinese inhabitant on the island.... The policy of the mandarins on the adjacent coast being to prevent all respectable Chinese from settling at Hong Kong; and in consequence of the hold they possess on their families and relatives this can be done most effectually. At the same time, I believe that they encourage and promote the deportation of every thief, pirate and idle or worthless vagabond from the mainland to Hongkong.... No Chinese of humbler class will ever bring their wives and children to the colony. The shopkeepers do not remain more than a few months on the island, when another set take their place; there is, in fact, a continual shifting of a Bedouin sort of population, whose migratory, predatory, gambling, and dissolute habits utterly unfit them for continuous industry, and render them not only useless, but highly injurious subjects, in the attempt to form a colony,11
In establishing British government at Hong Kong, it was hoped that Hong Kong could lure away from Macao and Canton the larger part of the junk trade and thus make Hong Kong a centre of trade for the whole coast of Kwang Tung Province. Though a small beginning was made, this trade soon languished. Remarking on the absence of a substantial local trade with Canton, Gutzlaff states that this is because
there are no Chinese large firms at Victoria to receive goods in charge, and sell them as soon as there is a demand. Attempts to found such establishments have also been made, but have not succeeded from want of en- couragement or on account of considerable individual loss. At the present moment (April, 1845) there remains un- fortunately not one single large merchant from Canton in the settlement who is able to promote by his capital and influence such a desirable state. The whole business is
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