RAS-1976 — Page 292

NOTES AND QUERIES

277

In the face of criticism one of the items discussed at a public meeting held at Tung Wah in 1875 was the question was it "advis- able to have a Kung Soh or Town Hall built so as to separate the functions of the Committee from that of the General Community in order to avoid further criticism". There was no concensus of agreement on this question at this meeting. Two years earlier the Registrar General had asked the Committee to select two men from each District of Hong Kong to serve as Headmen of the District Watchmen. The Committee had demurred stating that they would like to see a separation of their duties as the Committee of the Hospital and the leaders of the Kai-fong. The Governor agreed that it would be desirable for such a separation -- the occasion was the introduction of the new Hospital Committee to the Governor in July, 1873. So the relation between the Hospital Committee and the Kai-fong leaders had been under discussion for some time, but no definite action was taken. One of the factors seemed to be that for the Kai-fong to function adequately as a separate body from the Tung Wah Committee it needed a proper meeting hall.

At the time of the discussion concerning separation of the two groups in 1875, a petition was submitted to the Government for the grant of a site at Possession Point on which the Chinese com- munity might build such a Meeting Hall. When the 1876 Committes called on the Governor as was the custom shortly after its election, he said the matter was under consideration. The Chairman of the founding Committee, Mr. Leong On said that they had been obliged to resort to the Hospital as a place of meeting. This had given rise to adverse criticism in the foreign newspaper and they wished to have a meeting house in order to avoid future complaint. However, though the matter was "under consideration" by the Government nothing resulted.

As we have noted one newspaper editor almost from the founda- tion of the Hospital had grave doubts about the role the Tung Wah Hospital Committee would play as a representative of the Chinese community and its relation to the colonial administration. These misgivings on the part of a segment of the foreign community were not abated by the course of events. An ever growing outcry against the quasi-political activities of the Hospital Committee appeared in the editorials and the correspondence columns of Hong Kong newspapers.