[ { "id": 205000, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1965", "page_number": 108, "title": "RAS-1965", "content_text": "GOVERNMENT AND PEOPLE IN HONG KONG 1841 - 1962 99\n\nwas actually protecting local Chinese. The Colonial Office had no desire to see the indigenous population handed over to the power of the Hong Kong British business interests. It was not considered until the 1870s that the Chinese might have a part to play in the function of government, the Colonial Office believing that \"the testimony of those best acquainted with them represent the Chinese race as endowed with much intelligence but very deficient in the elements of morality\" (Secretary of State for the Colonies to Sir John Bowring). The first Chinese member of the Legislative Council was not appointed till 1880, and he, so a Colonial Office minute tells us, was a cipher. While obviously it was not practical to give much in the way of electoral power to either the British or the Chinese communities in the nineteenth century, it seems a pity that more was not done between the two world wars when it might have been feasible. There was a certain broadening of the Executive Council by greater community representation soon after the first war, and significantly, as Mr. Endacott points out, what had been the continuous representation on the Council since 1850 of Jardine, Matheson was interrupted in 1921. But the slump in Europe, its effect on the Colony's trade, and the rising militarism of Japan all discouraged progress.\n\nIt is true that the Colony has gained some measure of independence over the years from control from London. It is financially self-supporting, and since 1958 the annual estimates have no longer been submitted to the Secretary of State. Representation on the two Councils, Legislative and Executive, has been broadened, though there is still no elected element. Furthermore, an effort has been made to bring local people into the ranks of the Civil Service, though it has not met with the success of similar efforts in, for example, former African colonies.\n\nMr. Endacott notes that in 1952 for the first time a locally recruited officer was promoted to be the head of a government department; unfortunately, he does not tell us which department, or how often this has happened again in the succeeding thirteen years. For many and various reasons, the recruitment of Chinese to the Administrative Service in particular has been slow. At first sight, though a self-governing Hong Kong is an impossibility in view of the international situation, a largely Chinese territory might", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1965.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s752cj653", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206011, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1970", "page_number": 91, "title": "RAS-1970", "content_text": "86 \n\nA. D. BLUE \n\n1860's, cannot have been much worse than those experienced by contemporary European emigrants to America and Australia; and may have been better than those experienced by many thousands of Irish emigrants to America during the famine years of 1846-48. In her book \"The Great Famine\", Cecil Woodham-Smith gives horrifying details of the sufferings of these unfortunate people. Two of the most tragic cases concerned the British ships Larch and Virginius, which left Sligo and Liverpool respectively for Quebec at this time. Of the Larch's 440 passengers 108 died at sea, and 150 of the remainder were landed sick; while of the Virginius' 476 passengers 158 died at sea and 106 of the remainder — including the master and mate — were landed sick. At that time American ships were superior to British, and their fares were higher than on British ships, because they applied the Passenger Acts more strictly. Also during this same summer of 1847 German ships were constantly arriving at Quebec with hundreds of healthy, robust, and cheerful passengers. It was surely a mastery of British understatement for Earl Grey, Secretary of State for the Colonies, to write that \"the desire to reach America being exceedingly strong, many emigrants are content to submit to very great hardships during the voyage\". Nor is it to be wondered that fully 90% of these emigrants later crossed over into the United States, among them the father of Henry Ford. The greatest hardships during the famine emigrations took place on ships chartered by landlords anxious to clear their estates of impoverished tenants, and some of the worst cases are said to have involved Lord Palmerston's own tenants. Lord Palmerston, who was Foreign Secretary or Prime Minister for most of the 1840's, and prominent in the campaign against the African Slave Trade, probably knew little about his tenants' misfortunes, in itself one of the most telling indictments of the Irish land system. \n\nIn all the long period of Chinese emigration and until the early years of the 20th century, very few Chinese women emigrated, a factor which has had an incalculable effect on South-east Asian history. It is said that the Chinese authorities, while comparatively lax in preventing the emigration of men, took great precautions to prevent women emigrating, and it was not, for instance, until the mid 1920s that the authorities in Hainan Island allowed women to emigrate. A Chinese woman was a rare sight in the streets of Bangkok until about 1910, but within twenty years", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1970.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ww72j0241", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206355, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1971", "page_number": 172, "title": "RAS-1971", "content_text": "156\n\nJAMES HAYES\n\nthe regular army and militia during the South African War 1899-1902 and was reorganised as the Territorial Force (TA) in the Army Reforms of 1908. This movement influenced events in many colonies, and in the future Dominions of Canada and Australia. Hong Kong was thus no exception to the rule, particularly as, in her case, there were recurrent times of insecurity and uncertainty in the years to come.\n\n—\n\nAnother factor in the emergence of Hong Kong Volunteers at various times, and especially in its continuous manifestation from 1893 onwards, was the concern shown for Imperial Defence. Besides being an important port for the trade of and with China, Hong Kong was a naval base for coaling and refitting warships and was considered to be a vital link in the defence and maintenance of communications with the eastern parts of Britain's far-flung empire. In the 1880s there was much talk of its security which led first to the construction and arming of new batteries for coast defence at much cost—the Lei Yue Mun Fort dates from this time—and in the late 1890s the demand for the lease of the New Territories was made partly on defence grounds. This concern is reflected in the 1893 Volunteer Ordinance which made provision for two different bodies, the ordinary Volunteers—already well known to Hong Kong—and the Coast Defence Volunteers, who are here mentioned for the first time. (This Act also made the Hong Kong Volunteers subject to the Army Act whilst on active service in the same way as the Volunteers in England, and placed the Corps under the supervision of the Military Authorities).12 Imperial Defence was also later responsible, in 1902, for the conversion of the Corps, then comprising a field battery, machine gun and infantry companies, into garrison artillery which led to dissatisfaction among members and some resignations.13\n\nThe final stimulus at the end of the century was the enthusiasm and inspiration derived from being part of the British Empire which reached its emotional and material zenith in the decade between Queen Victoria's Silver and Diamond Jubilees in 1887 and 1897. An echo of this time remains in the Great Queen's\n\n11 S.P., 1884-85, p. 83.\n\n12 Section 18 of No. 6 of 1893 and Han., 1893, p. 70,\n\n13 Twentieth Century Impressions, p. 277.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1971.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/z029vt43g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211808, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1989", "page_number": 223, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "198\n\nT: Farce (1 act) C: Amateurs\n\nF: Music\n\nTh: D\n\nR: This was the last theatrical entertainment organised by Horatio BUSKIN and he could look back on a successful \"career\" as manager. Only the music had flagged of late (tonight \"a buzz in a box near the proscenium represented the music — we were ten feet away from it and it was therefore lost upon us\" the days of \"Sir George Smart and Messrs Thalberg\" and \"Koenig\" were over).\n\n—\n\nTo make up for these shortcomings \"Mr. CLAY as Honeybun (in the Infanticidal Farce) was, as he always is, first rate\". In Slasher and Crasher the public witnessed the debut of \"Miss Polly DEXTER as Rosa, affording hope of a new evening star of the first magnitude\" (NCH 23.2.1856).\n\n14.8.1856 (Thur)\n\nN.N.: The Nigger Doctor and his Patient Patient or the First Lesson in Surgery\n\nT: Negro farce\n\nC: Travelling American Company (Messrs Baker, Woodward and Montgomery) Th: Old Theatre (C)\n\nN: The whole evening was announced as a \"Grand Ethiopian Musical Soirée\"\n\nR: An advertisement only was published in the NCH of August 9. In it the above mentioned gentlemen (formerly of the New York Serenaders) praised their performances as having been \"the theme of universal admiration during the past four years throughout the East Indies as well as the Australian Colonies\". In addition to the farce, the programme consisted of \"Negro songs, interspersed with willy saying and doings peculiar to the African race in America\".\n\n19.9.1856 (Fri)\n\nConcert by Ali Ben Sou Alle and some local amateurs.\n\nInstruments: Turkophone, \"Turkophonini\", clarinet, piano.\n\nProgramme:\n\nG. ROSSINI: Two overtures. V. BELLINI: Selections from \"La Sonnambula\". F. MENDELSSOHN-BARTHOLDY: \"The Fairest Flower\" (song). Some German songs, The \"Shanghai Redowa Walse\", Medley of English, Scottish and Irish airs. Th: N.N. (C)\n\nR: Tonight was the occasion of the first real concert in the Settlement's history. It was given by Mr. ALI BEN SOU ALLE, a Turk who, after a study at the Conservatoire de Paris, had been appointed Directeur de Musique de Marine in Senegal (which had been French since 1871) in 1844. In 1847 he returned to Paris to enter the orchestra of the Opéra Comique, but the following year he went to London where he found employment in the orchestra of Her Majesty's Theatre at the Haymarket. He learned to play some instruments that had been invented by Adolphe Sax, the Belgian musician (1814-1894) and thereafter he made an extensive tour to Australia, Java, Singapore, Manila and China (CM 16, 10, 1856). In Hong Kong and even Canton he had appeared in August and October 1856 (CM 7.8. 14.8. 21.8. 16.10.1856). In between he gave two recitals in the Yangtze port. In the Survey it has already been stated that the soloist entertained the public with performances on several instruments that had been rechristened Turkophone and Turkophonini: in reality they were the Saxophone and (probably) the soprano saxophone. Well may we ask how these instruments, which were only of recent origin (1840s), were received by an audience completely unused to their sound. The artist interpreted a selection from Bellini's \"La Sonnambula\" on the \"Turkophone\" and the critic wrote that \"the compass of the instrument is very great but we confess to some disappointment as regards its quality of tone, and correctness of tone also, in some few notes, and altogether we think it an imperfect instrument", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213968, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1997", "page_number": 37, "title": "RAS-1997", "content_text": "2\n\nCouncillors (of whom 20 would be elected from both Chinese and expatriate jurors, or property-holders of a certain value with residential qualifications), and potentially extendible functions. However Young's successor, Sir Alexander Grantham, soon had second thoughts which were warmly shared by his Executive Council (Exco) advisers, and the plans were put into cold storage, to be quietly forgotten. They had seemed to reduce the wholly centralised powers of the Governor-in-Council, besides being of apparently little interest to a mobile and volatile Cantonese population, passing by customary right freely to and fro across the international border, and more concerned with rebuilding their lives after the war's privations. Besides, the Communist victory over the Chiang Kai-shek Nationalists, and the declaration of the People's Republic in 1949, created a new set of problems. It became common parlance that Hong Kong was \"different.\" Unlike African, Caribbean, Asian and Pacific colonies, it could not be built into a Nation.\n\nIn facing such a novel threat there were cultural divisions within Hong Kong's administration in the 1950s and 60s that commentators have often overlooked. The most obvious was that between those prisoners-of-war or internees during the Japanese occupation who had been judged physically fit to return to post-war duties, and their colleagues who either had fought throughout (in China or in other theatres) or had been recruited subsequently but had served in no other territory. They might differ in their views of what threatened stability, but were in agreement that nothing should, in the cant phrase of the time, \"rock the boat.\" All tended to accept what is now dubbed the economic 'trickle-down' theory, that what was good for the businessmen who dominated the Colony's appointed Councils was good for their employees - and equally for a large proportion of the population that had voted with its feet by flooding into Hong Kong to escape Communism, and also to find employment until it might seem safe to exercise their right to cross the border again and go home. But it seemed to some observers that those who claimed to understand and to love the Colony best had least faith in its unsinkability.\n\nA smaller but growing subset consisted of those colonial servants who had been transferred to Hong Kong within Her Majesty's Overseas Civil Service (HMOCS) from other territories, usually upon the grant of independence, or who had accepted fixed renewable contracts as mature entrants (\"retreads\"). Such officers might well have learnt in", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1997.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/wp98g7579", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215291, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-2001", "page_number": 68, "title": "RAS-2001", "content_text": "16\n\nsufficient to qualify for preference in colonial 'native' markets then it is a very bad outlook for us as I cannot see how the growing population of Victoria and Kowloon are going to find employment without industrial development,\n\nI therefore consider it as politically important as it is, from our point of view, economically advantageous to give the Hong Kong Chinese a commercial attachment to the empire. Our military and naval defences are designed against external aggression, but if relations with China ever became antagonistic there would be an enemy totalling over one million within the fortress gates, unless their bread is liberally spread with Empire butter.\n\nThe governor's plea for Hong Kong's manufacturing industry was warmly supported by all the Colonial Office officials who wrote minutes on this despatch. It was quickly passed up to the colonial secretary, W. Ormsby-Gore, who endorsed it as 'an admirable letter' and gave instructions for copies to be sent to the Foreign Office and the Board of Trade.\" Officials made frequent use of Caldecott's argument of imperial interests when attempting to repulse proposals from the Board of Trade and other departments to place further restrictions on Hong Kong's manufactures in the years that followed.\n\nBritish textile manufacturers continued to protest that they were suffering from unfair competition in the British and colonial markets and demanded that Hong Kong exports should be excluded by tariffs or quantitative restrictions. In order to fend off these pressures the Colonial Office suggested to the governor of Hong Kong that all cotton and artificial silk piece goods exported to Britain and the colonies should be accompanied by a certificate that they had been made from cloth which had been spun, woven and finished within the empire. This proposal posed difficulties for Hong Kong. There were no spinning mills in the colony and more than half the cotton yarn used in the production of piece goods and hosiery was imported from Japan and Shanghai. In order to continue to enjoy the benefits of imperial preference, the Hong Kong General Chamber of Commerce secured the manufacturers' agreement to switch their purchases of yarn from China and Japan to cotton mills in India which were within the empire. But the manufacturers of goods made from artificial silk protested strongly that the only alternative to yarn from Japan was British yarn which was double the price ($1.70 a pound compared to 85c). This would destroy their competitiveness with Japanese products in British Malaya, the African colonies and the West Indies and drive them to bankruptcy. The Colonial Office put its case to the Board of Trade which refused to compromise, asserting that if Hong Kong was to continue to enjoy the advantages of the", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215295, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-2001", "page_number": 72, "title": "RAS-2001", "content_text": "20\n\ntax incentives and other government assistance? Apart from its superb harbour Hong Kong had no natural advantages. Almost all the raw materials for industry had to be imported. The population (840,000 at the 1931 census) was wretchedly poor and could not provide the purchasing power to support large-scale industry. But Hong Kong was well-placed to export cheap manufactured goods to the vast market of China and the neighbouring countries of Asia where until the 1930s tariffs on imports were low. The world depression led China and other Asian countries to erect high tariff barriers which threatened to cripple Hong Kong's burgeoning industry. The colony was saved by the decisions taken at the Ottawa conference to adopt the policy of imperial preference. This handicapped its main competitor, Japan, by imposing high tariffs and later quotas designed to exclude Japanese manufactures from markets in the British empire. This created a vast imperial free trade area embracing Britain, its colonial territories and New Zealand. Traders and businessmen in the African or Caribbean colonies could have seized the opportunity to exploit it, but it was only the energetic and adaptable Chinese entrepreneurs of Hong Kong who did so. The decisions taken at Ottawa which were designed to help industry in the dominions gave an unintended boost to Chinese factory owners in the back streets of Kowloon.\n\nUniversity of Hong Kong\n\nNOTES\n\n1. M. Havinden and D. Meredith, Colonialism and Development: Britain and its tropical colonies, 1850-1960 (London, 1993), 1. D.K. Fieldhouse, Colonialism 1870-1945: An Introduction (London, 1981), 51–108. David Meredith, \"The British Government and Colonial Economic Policy 1919-1939', Economic History Review, 28 (1975), 484-99. Louis Nthenda, 'From Trade to Manufacture: Britain's Dilemma in the Face of Colonial Industrialization 1931-1938', Journal of Social Sciences, 1 (1972, University of Malawi), 95-112.\n\n2. Leo Amery in 1926, quoted by Meredith, 495.\n\n3. Meredith, 494. The only supporting evidence for this theory in the Colonial Office files is a letter from the governor of Uganda, 22 Dec. 1934, who warned that any large-scale industrial development which caused rural depopulation would result in a serious increase in sleeping sickness. CO323/1298/10, Public Record Office, London (PRO).\n\n4. See for example J. Riedel, The Industrialization of Hong Kong (Tubingen, 1974), 5-6; F. Welsh, A History of Hong Kong (London, 1993), 451; D. Lethbridge, The Business Environment in Hong Kong (Hong Kong, 1980), 1–2. A contrary view is given by Frank Leeming, \"The Earlier Industrialization of Hong Kong', Modern Asian Studies, 9 (1956), 337-42, who cites evidence from Hong Kong and Macao Business Classified Directory (1940, in Chinese).\n\n5. Minute by G.L.M. Clauson, 7 Nov. 1933, CO323/1232/8. Memoranda and Draft Report of Interdepartmental Committee 1937, CO852/164/6 and T160/763/F14811/1 and 2, PRO.\n\n6. According to D.J. Morgan, The Origins of British Aid Policy 1924-1945 (New Jersey, 1979), 9, the proportion of general revenue in the colonies derived from customs duties in 1933 was:", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g", "rank": 0 } ]