[ { "id": 204502, "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-1962", "page_number": 134, "title": "RAS-1962", "content_text": "BRITAIN AND CHINA\n\n119\n\nBut only once, in September 1950, has Britain voted for a resolution in the General Assembly calling for the admission of Communist China. From June 1951 the British representative has continued to vote in favour of postponement of discussion of the question, even when, on conclusion of the Korean war, the argument that China was participating in aggression against United Nations forces no longer held good. Mr. Luard well brings out, though unfortunately he does not try to explain, the expediency which guided western policies; how one argument was produced after another when the old ones went out of date; how the British government allowed itself to be swayed in this matter by the wishes of the Americans. He does not go into the intricacies of American internal politics, which are at the root of this matter—obviously he could not in a book about Britain and China—but without some understanding of them, Britain's behaviour, somewhat unfairly, seems feeble and misguided. Britain could have done more than she has to influence American public opinion, but to have brought China into the UN against the wishes of numerous Americans would only have devalued the institution in their eyes, and might even have resulted in earlier days in an American withdrawal of funds (upon which the U.N. is very dependent) or even, disastrously, of membership.\n\nSuch a criticism does not affect the discussion of Hong Kong, which is a matter purely for the British and the Chinese. As in the rest of the book, the historical background is only sketched in; the interest is all concentrated on wartime and post-war developments. Hong Kong is unique among British colonies in that since the war it has made no progress towards independence; having narrowly escaped being \"liberated\" by Kuomintang armies at the end of the war, the prospect of a more democratic constitution was shelved when the Communists overran neighbouring Kwangtung. As Mr. Luard points out, the constitution of the Colony remains, in all essentials, exactly what it was in 1843.\n\nAnd this is where the British government's devotion to commercial interests in its relations with China again becomes apparent. Now that Hong Kong has found a new lease of economic life in manufacturing, neither the British nor the Hong Kong government are prepared to do anything which may upset the present favourable climate for investors. It is generally", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1962.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9s166f47f", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204536, "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-1963", "page_number": 17, "title": "RAS-1963", "content_text": "12\n\nLINDSAY RIDE\n\nas the season was over all foreigners had to leave Canton and return to their barbarian homes. It mattered not to the Chinese officials that it was a physical impossibility for the foreigners to go to their homes on the other side of the world and be back again in time for the next trading season. When the ships sailed from Whampoa, the Factories at Canton closed, and the merchant staff called Writers, Factors and Supercargoes, all left too. They went as far as Macao, and while the cargo laden ships sailed on to Europe, the merchants waited there for the coming of the next season's ships.\n\nOne other restriction that we must mention is that no European women were allowed to go up river at all, so the annual expulsion of the men from Canton was really not so very hard to bear for most people. It meant reunion with one's wife and family for those married men whose families were in Macao, and the pleasure of European female company for the bachelors. Macao was thus the foreigners' home away from home. They worked strenuously in isolation in Canton while the season lasted, and then between seasons they repaired to the more natural abode of the families in the only equivalent of a health and holiday resort that the Far East then knew. Social life in Macao was strenuous, especially for women folk who were few in number; many of the men were either bachelors or grass widowers and for approximately six months in each year, they had very little official work to do at all; at any rate this was certainly true for the juniors.\n\nAnother significant fact which had important implications was that the Chinese, at the time of which I speak, recognized only one foreign official body other than the Portuguese- namely the British East India Company, and they made all the official contacts with the other nationalities through the controlling body of this Company in Canton -the Select Committee. As may well be imagined, this situation led to difficulties between the British and the various other foreign communities whose trade with China had increased tremendously towards the end of the eighteenth century. This was particularly true of the new maritime power, the United States of America. After their independence, the Americans were naturally no longer willing to depend on the British shipping for their foreign trade; Britain made it particularly difficult for them to retain any of their trade with their former sister colonies in the West Indies, and they were thus forced to", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1963.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/4m90m091v", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204987, "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": 95, "title": "RAS-1965", "content_text": "86\n\nTHE CHINESE UNIVERSITY OF HONG KONG\n\nSTEVE S. C. HUANG\n\nThe need for a university in Hong Kong teaching through the medium of Chinese has existed for many years. As the \"Report of the Committee on Higher Education in Hong Kong,\" published in 1952 by a group of British scholars led by Professor John Keswick and commonly known as the Keswick Report, said, \"Hong Kong is unique geographically and politically and its people have a more advanced cultural background than the peoples of most other colonies.\"\n\nThe vast majority of its inhabitants are Chinese, and the Chinese have a traditional love of scholarship, and a highly developed language, literature, and artistic sense. Hong Kong, it was thought, by reason of its location and circumstances, should certainly be a centre for the East and the West to meet, not only for commercial advantage, but also for cultural exchange. To accomplish this, a university with Chinese as the medium of teaching was considered as important as a university with English as the medium of teaching; each would make a valuable complement to the other,\n\nEver since the inception of the University of Hong Kong, even among the British residents in the Colony, there have been many who have advanced the idea of establishing a university which would teach through the medium of Chinese, or a university which would teach through the medium of both Chinese and English, in all branches of learning. The Keswick Report gave strong support to such an idea. For various reasons, however, this recommendation of the Keswick Report did not lead to immediate action.\n\nNevertheless, the need existed. Since 1949, social and political conditions in China have undergone a great change. In addition to the large number of young men and women of college age who could no longer return to China for their higher education as earlier generations did, there were thousands who emigrated from\n\nThe author, a former student of Journalism and History at the University of California, Berkeley, and City Editor of the Hong Kong Tiger-Standard, is currently Assistant Registrar of the Chinese University of Hong Kong.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1965.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s752cj653", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204998, "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": 106, "title": "RAS-1965", "content_text": "GOVERNMENT AND PEOPLE IN HONG KONG 1841 1962 97\n\npublic eye the cases of those who might otherwise have no idea how to put their case before the Government. But it remains true, as Mr. Endacott implicitly concedes, that Government has only a general idea of the currents of opinion at the lower end of the social scale.\n\nIt is generally assumed that the vast majority of Chinese are more concerned with making a regular living than with politics, and the negative evidence (for there is little positive) confirms it; but it could be that people are simply unaware of how to make their demands and needs felt and in general prefer not to tangle with officialdom. In the New Territories the representation system, the District Offices, and the relative smallness of the population means that Government and people are reasonably in touch; in town there is scarcely any way for the man in the street to make his needs and aspirations felt.\n\nAnd yet, the fact is that it does seem to work. Policy-makers in the Administration do seem by and large to be aware that colonialism is an anachronism, and their attitudes are modified accordingly. Expatriate civil servants are not immune to the currents of thought prevalent in the nineteen sixties, and for the most part are young enough to take for granted in their own country the universal franchise, compulsory free education for all, extensive social services and very considerable personal freedom. And these are generally regarded as the ideal, if unlikely ever to be possible in the context of Hong Kong. Post-war trends of thought have produced a rather different type of colonial bureaucrat from those who, for instance, reserved The Peak exclusively for European habitation.\n\nConstitutional advance in Hong Kong was originally scheduled to keep pace, more or less, with what the British Government intended in other colonies. The war would have hastened on the process, had there been no change of government in China. The U.S. Government would have preferred Hong Kong to be restored to Chiang Kai-shek, and the Chinese themselves hoped that this might be the case. In the event, the surrender was accepted by both Chinese and British, but Britain, under the Charter of the United Nations, was committed to leading colonial territories towards self-government. It is rather a pity that no", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1965.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s752cj653", "rank": 0 }, { "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": 205198, "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-1966", "page_number": 154, "title": "RAS-1966", "content_text": "148\n\nBOOK REVIEWS\n\nAs he very aptly writes in the 'Author's Note', the book describes the voyage which \"starts in Hong Kong and ends there; the ports visited are those colonies in which I served: Bermuda, Jamaica, Nigeria and Fiji and the Western Pacific, as well, of course, as Hong Kong\". Even more appropriate for this review, however, is his comment: \"I did not keep a diary and I made no notes. For my story I have relied mainly on my memory which, at times, may be at fault, but only, I believe, on points of detail. I have recounted, and commented on, those happenings that remain foremost in my mind.\" The memory of the author is indeed faultless: he can remember all the trivials, but in doing so, he has left out (very painstakingly, it seems) the really important events that happened during his various tours of duty. In this connection, the subdivision of the chapters into Pre-War Days 1922-41, War Years 1942-45 and Post-War Hong Kong 1947-57, becomes extremely misleading. To cite only two examples of exclusion: the reunification of China (1926-28) and Jamaican attempts at self-government prior to and during his term of office. Perhaps most disappointing is the chapter which is burdened with the heading of 'Communist China'. The chapter indeed starts off with pomposity: \"On 1st October 1949, the Chinese communists declared themselves to be the lawful government of China. Why did China go communist? This is a question to which different answers are given. Some say, because China was betrayed... betrayed by whom?... the United States, the Kuomintang.\" But then, this is all there is to it. After a brief account of the 'history' of China's struggles since the days of the treaty ports, we are treated to a narration of 'incidents' (for example, the exploits of the HMS Amethyst and the Kashmir Princess) in fact, well-known events, which unfortunately provide no new information. It is only in the last chapter titled 'Retrospect', that we glimpse the author's own political viewpoint. He only superficially analyses the political situation in Asia and we conclude that he is anti-communist.\n\nTaking the book as a publishable autobiography, however, it becomes more satisfactory. We can perceive, reading somewhat between the lines, the mentality of a British civil servant, struggling from the lowest offices to the highest one in the Colonial Service. It is a picture of loyalty to one's country, diligence in one's duties and opportunism in one's promotions. In other words, it is the", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1966.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/bz60k0811", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205961, "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": 41, "title": "RAS-1970", "content_text": "HONG KONG CADETS, 1862-1941\n\nH. J. LETHBRIDGE*\n\nThe British Civil Service contains administrative, executive and clerical classes. The administrative class in Britain and the colonies was an elite generally recruited directly from the universities. The term 'cadet officer' denotes the administrative grade of officer in the Hong Kong Government Service in the period under review. It remained in official use for almost a century, until 1960.\n\nAltogether 85 cadets were appointed in the period 1862-1941. 9 died in office, 12 transferred or were seconded, and four resigned or retired on medical grounds. Three became governors of Hong Kong - Sir Francis Henry May (1912-18), Sir Cecil Clementi (1925-30), and Sir Alexander Grantham (1947-1957); and five became Governors or High Commissioners of other territories - Sir Cecil Clementi Smith (Straits Settlements), Sir James Haldane Stewart Lockhart (Weihaiwei), Sir Reginald Fleming Johnston (Weihaiwei), Sir George Murchison Fletcher (Fiji, Western Pacific, Trinidad) and Sir Alexander Grantham (Fiji, Western Pacific). Two became Chief Justices of Hong Kong - Sir James Russell (1888-92) and Sir Joseph Horsford Kemp (1930-33). Four others attained the rank of Colonial Secretary, Hong Kong before retirement - Norman Lockhart Smith (1936-41), David Mercer MacDougall (1946-49), Claude Bramall Burgess (1958-63) and Edmund Brinsley Teesdale (1963-66).\n\nThe number of cadets on the establishment in any one year was never large: only 7 in 1880, 13 in 1900, 31 in 1920, and 37 in 1941. Even these figures are deceptive: they report the strength on the books but not the strength in the field. We must deduct from such totals the number of 'unpassed' cadets2 (cadets engaged in the full-time study of the Chinese language)\n\n* Mr. Lethbridge is Senior Lecturer in the Department of Sociology, University of Hong Kong. He is the author of several articles on Hong Kong subjects. His \"Hong Kong under Japanese Occupation: Changes in Social Structure\" appeared in I. C. Jarvie and Joseph Agassi, Hong Kong, A Society in Transition — contributions to the study of Hong Kong Society (London, Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1969) pp. 77-127. Another article, on the Tung Wah Hospitals 1870-1970, will appear in a second volume edited by I. C. Jarvie and Marjorie Topley to be published soon. Ed.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1970.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ww72j0241", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205962, "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": 42, "title": "RAS-1970", "content_text": "HONG KONG CADETS, 1862 - 1941\n\n37\n\nand those on leave, in order to discover, at any moment in time, the actual number of cadets administering the affairs of the colony. However, they formed an administrative corps d'élite: a minuscule band of officials with the same values and from the same social background. They were always in short supply: but in time they changed the style of government in 19th century Hong Kong and routinised its operations. The object of this paper is to examine some changes brought about by the introduction of Sir Hercules Robinson's cadet scheme in 1861,3 and to explore the lives of a few expatriate officials, those who formed the apex of a colonial society with its complicated gradations of race, caste, class, occupation and office.\n\nSuch a research task is not a supererogatory one: Sir Ralph Furse, Director of Recruitment, Colonial Service 1931 - 48, affirms that 'in most colonies the Civil Servant is the Government, and not the servant of Government'24 Sir Ralph's obiter dictum is particularly applicable to Hong Kong in the late nineteenth century. At that time it was a small territory with a population squeezed into a few urban enclaves, where everyone lived cheek by jowl and officials were highly visible and often met in the street. In such a constricted society the quirks of an official, given the system of government, often influenced important administrative decisions, over which the general public could exercise little control. The inclusion of the New Territories in 1899 within the administrative framework of Hong Kong did not substantially alter these facts of life; for a long time, certainly until the re-establishment of British rule in 1945, the New Territories remained curiously peripheral to the older, established areas of Hong Kong Island and the Kowloon peninsula.\n\nThe cadet scheme instituted by Sir Hercules Robinson, Governor of Hong Kong from 1859 - 1865, grew out of a pressing need for correct interpretation and translation in government, especially in the courts. For the first twenty years of its existence, the Colony had very few officials apart from the notorious and devious D. R. Caldwell (at one time General Interpreter to the Government and Registrar-General) who had adequate command of Cantonese and were able to communicate with the mass of the immigrant Chinese population, most of whom were Punti and Hakka. The actions of government were stultified by the", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1970.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ww72j0241", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206006, "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": 86, "title": "RAS-1970", "content_text": "CHINESE EMIGRATION AND THE DECK PASSENGER TRADE 81\n\nUntil the treaty port era that began with the Treaty of Nanking 1842, most Chinese emigration was voluntary, and mainly to South-east Asia. Then the situation changed. Almost coincident with the opening of the treaty ports and the expansion of foreign shipping on the coast, a widespread demand for cheap labour arose in many parts of the tropics, to replace the recently emancipated slave labour, and also to supply the additional workers required for the increased agricultural and industrial development which followed the establishment of European administrations. In many of these places contract labour from China provided the solution.\n\nMuch of the contract labour was voluntary; but many thousands of the Chinese emigrants to the Spanish and ex-Spanish colonies of South America and the West Indies were kidnapped, abducted by unscrupulous crimps, or sold by cruel or poverty-stricken relatives. The coolies themselves were not always blameless, and many accepted engagement money and then failed to turn up at the collecting centres, or absconded before joining the ship. The labour agents employed by the centres received a capitation fee for every coolie they delivered at the coast, and were specially active during famines and depressions. In 1853 the capitation fee was three dollars per head, but in addition these agents often appropriated any money advanced to the coolies on the score of defraying expenses, and also charged them with the capitation fee, maintenance costs at the depot, and other expenses. As a result the unfortunate coolie often found himself saddled with a heavy debt which might amount to several months' wages before he ever set foot on the promised land. But whether voluntary or forced, the coolies were herded into wretched barracoons at the coast while waiting for their ship, and then suffered great hardship and cruelty on the voyage. In spite of repeated protests, British ships and Hong Kong played an invidious part in this infamous traffic in the early treaty port years.\n\nHowever, the British government soon made attempts to ameliorate the abuses of the emigrant trade but only succeeded in diverting much of it to other ports such as Whampoa, Macao, Cumsingmoon, Amoy, and Swatow. The Chinese Passengers' Act, passed in 1855, prescribed certain standards of food, accommodation, medical attention, and so on; and two years later a", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1970.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ww72j0241", "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": 206121, "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": 201, "title": "RAS-1970", "content_text": "194\n\nNOTES AND QUERIES\n\nThe map was clearly of potential value for any persons travelling in or having business with the District, and Colonial Office documents now in the Public Record Office, London show that it was, in fact, used by British diplomats and administrators during the important negotiations following the Convention of Peking of 6 June 1898, which leased the present New Territories to Great Britain, and before the take-over of the leased area in March-April 1899.\n\nOn 10 February 1899 the Governor of Hong Kong, Sir Henry Blake, sent a telegram to Sir Claude Macdonald, the British Minister at Peking urging him to secure the important market town of Shum Chun, just north of the leased area (an afterthought on the part of local Hong Kong officials) and advising that it could be located on the Missionary map of 1866'. This is clearly a reference to Mgr. Volontieri's map, which includes the date (May 1866) in the descriptive lettering.\n\nAgain, when Governor Blake wired to the British Secretary of State for the Colonies, Chamberlain, on 10 March 1899 he advised, in an accompanying 'Memorandum regarding the proposed survey of the Territory in Kwang Tung Province leased by Great Britain from China' (being Enclosure 1 to telegram No. 53): 'There is available a fairly correct map of the country, on a scale of an inch to the mile, prepared by the Jesuit missionary (sic). It shows the coast line correctly; the position of all villages, streams, roads, etc., approximately'. This memorandum was drawn up by the Director of Public Works in Hong Kong with the assistance of Colonel Elsdale, R.E.\n\nThese passages make it fairly clear that Mgr. Volontieri's map-making efforts in the early 1860s were of considerable assistance to British officials nearly forty years later.\n\nThe documents quoted above are in CO129/290 in the Public Record Office, London.\n\nHong Kong, 1970.\n\nPostscript\n\nJAMES HAYES\n\nThe notice that follows came to my attention recently. It appeared in the Hongkong Government Gazette, 26th May 1866 and is an interesting and valuable addition to our knowledge of this subject, being the original announcement of the project to the Hong Kong public.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1970.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ww72j0241", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206225, "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": 42, "title": "RAS-1971", "content_text": "36\n\nCHIU LING-YEONG\n\nAfter giving his reader a vivid picture of China in her sleep, Tseng then urged the public to watch closely for China in her awakening. The awakened China, he said, would not be aggressive or dangerous to any of her neighbouring countries. China, after all, was not a land-hungry nation. Hungering for land was only the affair of the European powers. China was under no necessity of finding in other lands outlets for her surplus population. A considerable number of Chinese had, at different times, been forced to leave their homes and try their fortunes in Cuba, Peru, the United States and the British colonies, on account of the Taiping Rebellion. The Chinese emigrated to these countries of their own free will, and their movement and activities had nothing to do with the Chinese Government. The Chinese in these countries, however, unlike the Europeans who had settled in the East, had no political nor territorial ambitions.\n\nReturning to the internal affairs of the awakened China, Tseng stressed:\n\n• Great efforts are being made to fortify her coast and create a strong and efficient navy. China will proceed with her coast defences and the organisation and development of her army and navy, without, for the present, directing her attention whether to the introduction of railways or to any of the subjects of internal economy; the changes which may have to be made when China comes to set her house in order can only profitably be discussed when she feels she has thoroughly overhauled and can rely on the bolts and bars she is now applying to her doors. The general line of China's foreign Policy will be directed to extending and improving her relations with the Treaty Powers, to the amelioration of the condition of her subjects residing in foreign parts, to the placing on a less equivocal footing of the position of her feudatories, as regards the suzerain power, to the revision of the treaties, in a sense more in accordance with the place which China holds as a great Asiatic power\" \"China has decided on exercising a more effective supervision on the acts of her vassal princes and of accepting a hostile movement against these countries or any interference with their affairs will be viewed at Peking as a declaration", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1971.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/z029vt43g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206351, "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": 168, "title": "RAS-1971", "content_text": "152\n\nJAMES HAYES\n\nin 1859 and spread outwards through the self-governing and other territories of what became the Commonwealth and Empire. It extended to Britain's Eastern Colonies and to the foreign communities of the treaty ports of China and Japan where, from time to time, various alarms and excursions added self-preservation to the list of factors motivating the continuance or periodic resuscitation of volunteer corps.\n\nIn Hong Kong the Laws of the Colony early provided for their existence as a constitutional force. A succession of Ordinances established volunteers on a proper basis. The earliest of these was No. 2 of 1862, which was repeated with slight variation in No. 18 of 1882. An important re-modelling was carried out by No. 6 of 1893. This was followed by a Volunteer Reserve Ordinance No. 25 of 1910. Both these Ordinances were replaced by a further Volunteer Ordinance No. 2 of 1920, still modelled largely on the important 1893 Ordinance.\n\nVolunteer forces were the rule in the various foreign concessions in China, though save in the larger ones local volunteer forces tended to be formed and reformed whenever events seemed to warrant it. For example, the Shameen Defence Corps was formed after a serious riot in 1884 and was reformed from time to time, e.g. in May 1911 due to the unsettled state of affairs in Canton (see Diary of Events and the Progress on Shameen 1859-1938 compiled by H.S.S. and privately printed about 1938, pp. 19-26).\n\nThe largest of the China volunteer units was, in time, the Shanghai Volunteer Corps. This originated at two public meetings held in April 1853 and its early doings are described in Chapter XXXV of Lanning and Couling's The History of Shanghai, Part I (Shanghai, Kelly & Walsh, 1921).\n\nInteresting details of its development are given here and there in Brigadier J. V. Davidson-Houston's Yellow Creek, The Story of Shanghai (London, Putnam, 1962). As in Hong Kong, the passing of the first emergency resulted in the demise of the Corps. \"Enthusiasm for the Volunteer Corps sank to a low ebb, members neglected to turn up for training and it was soon practically defunct\" (p. 58). The Corps was again raised in August 1860 with the onset of the Taiping rebels, when 107 volunteers came forward for enrolment (p. 65). However, after the successful operations against the rebels the Corps \"wilted and died\" and was wound up in 1867 to \"pay for its debtor's balance by selling its rifles\" although the rifle club continued to function (p. 90). The Corps was again formed in 1870 following the Tientsin massacre and continued in being thereafter, its numbers fluctuating between 250-350 for the rest of the 19th century (pp. 92-93). It then continued to grow in size, like the Hong Kong Volunteer Defence Corps, to meet the difficulties of the troubled 1920s and the war with Japan.\n\nThe number of foreign residents in China is relevant to the size and location of Volunteer Corps. Some figures are given at pp. 292-295 of J. Dyer Ball's Things Chinese or Notes Connected with China, 4th edition, Hongkong, Kelly and Walsh 1903. There were, for instance, 4,424 foreigners in Shanghai (exclusive of those living in the French Settlement) in 1895 and 6774 in 1900. The Hong Kong Census of 1891 listed 10,446 British and foreign residents.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1971.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/z029vt43g", "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": 206525, "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-1972", "page_number": 73, "title": "RAS-1972", "content_text": "SIR JAMES HALDANE STEWART LOCKHART\n\n67\n\nthe charge of the North Division magistrate, who was also Secretary to Government. The Secretary held a dormant commission to administer the affairs of the Territory in the Commissioner's absence. The South Division contained all the rest of the leased Territory, i.e., seventeen out of the twenty-six districts, and it was presided over by the South Division Magistrate, who also acted as District Officer. This gentleman controlled a diminutive police force of a sergeant and seven men, all Chinese; all his other staff were Chinese. Apart from the District Officer, there was only one other European official resident in the South Division, which contained 231 out of the 315 villages of the Territory.\n\nUntil 1906, however, Lockhart as Commissioner could call upon the services of the Chinese Regiment in any emergency which the police were unable to cope with. This Regiment was raised in early 1899 and owed its origin to a suggestion made by Field-Marshal Sir Garnet Wolseley, the Commander-in-Chief, that Chinese troops could be organised at Weihaiwei for use in other places. According to R.F. Johnston: 'They did good service in promptly suppressing an attempted rising in the leased Territory, and on being sent to the front to take part in the operations against the Boxers in 1900, they behaved exceedingly well, both during the attack on Tientsin, and on the march to Peking.' Johnston, it seems, over-praised their contribution for between 1899 and 1901 over 800 deserted and many of them moved straight into Chinese service after having passed through what came to be known as \"the Wei Hai Wei Military School\". As the India Office pointed out, Great Britain was in effect furnishing a \"steady annual supply of trained soldiers\" to China. At its greatest strength the Chinese Regiment numbered 1,300 officers and men but in 1906, the year the Regiment was disbanded, their numbers had fallen to about 600. A few picked men were retained as a permanent police force, and three European non-commissioned officers were provided with appointments on the civil establishment as police inspectors. In 1910, therefore, the entire Territory was policed by only fifty-six Chinese constables and three inspectors. There was no permanent garrison of British troops.\n\nWeihaiwei was officially designated not as a Colony but as a Territory, which meant that Lockhart as Commissioner was head of the local government and subject only to the control of His Majesty exercised through the Secretary of State for the Colonies in", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1972.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gm80qf99h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207344, "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-1975", "page_number": 112, "title": "RAS-1975", "content_text": "104\n\nH. J. LETHBRIDGE\n\nrecommend that the remedy for Hong Kong destitution be left in the main to private charity and to private effort, but that the Government should do everything in its power to organize by law private charity which may then be supplemented by State aid.25\n\nThe government's main contribution was the burial of defunct paupers and the shipping home of destitute British seamen. As Dr. Eitel concluded in 1880, all that the law offered European destitutes was 'fine or imprisonment, with or without hard labour'.26\n\nThe Europeans who worked as overseers in the dockyards, factories and other industrial enterprises, the ships' captains, mates and engineers, all led more circumspect lives in their Kowloon terraced homes than the soldiers, sailors, and merchant seamen. They looked down on the destitute, improvident, or wandering portion of the European community with all the fierce contempt of the British lower middle classes. Their values were those of the skilled mechanics and clerks of Greenwich, Woolwich, Portsmouth, and Plymouth. Their wives entertained other wives and their families to high tea, the table set with fish-paste sandwiches, jellies, custards and cakes; they attended religious services regularly, though usually at a nonconformist chapel, and if Scots, at the Presbyterian Union Church. Their children went to the Kowloon British School (for foreign children only).27 They looked forward to retirement, a pension, and return to the homeland, having bettered themselves in the colonies. They formed the elite of the European lower classes in Hong Kong; but they were excluded, nonetheless, from the grander world of Taipan, administrator, and professional man.\n\nThe question why lower class Europeans came to, or remained in, Hong Kong is not difficult to answer. Some, such as beachcombers, were at the end of the line, at the end of their tether; they were trapped there (temporarily at least) by poverty, circumstance, and character. Soldiers, sailors and merchant seamen were transients or temporary sojourners; and the decision to come to Hong Kong was made not by them but by their superiors. Inspectors, supervisors and overseers stayed in Hong Kong primarily because most experienced a degree of upward mobility. They formed an intermediary class—an amorphous middling class—between the Chinese masses and the Taipans and officials. In Hong Kong, they were no longer at the bottom of the pecking order. Some, of course,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1975.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207345, "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-1975", "page_number": 113, "title": "RAS-1975", "content_text": "EUROPEAN WORKING CLASS IN 19TH CENTURY\n\n105\n\nhad married, or lived with, Chinese, Eurasian or Portuguese women and for that reason stayed on.\n\nThe decision to remain in employment in Hong Kong was also related to the level of wages in Britain and to depressions and unemployment in the mother country. Most felt that they were better off, if only marginally, in Hong Kong. Lastly, many inspectors had served in the army, navy or merchant marine; the jobs they took in Hong Kong usually satisfied their instinct for hierarchy, order, and discipline. As Dr. Topley writes:\n\nIn Hong Kong, unlike in some British colonies and ex-colonies, two social classes of westerners are recognized. Chinese divide westerners into the taai-puân (bosses) and pong-paân (help-manage). The latter category includes most people who are in uniformed supervisory jobs. The former term has been romanised by westerners in Hong Kong as \"Taipan\" and is used commonly in conversation and in the English press to refer to wealthy westerners.28\n\nThose in uniformed supervisory jobs—members of what one may call the 'inspectorate'—were in nearly every case former servicemen. There was thus no radical break in their lives when they stayed to work in Hong Kong in the dockyards, Marine Department, Sanitary Department, P.W.D., police, or prisons.\n\nTAIPANS AND THE EUROPEAN LOWER CLASS\n\nVisitors to Hong Kong were always startled by the extent of conspicuous consumption found there. Typical are these comments by a seasoned traveller in the 1860s:\n\nEuropeans in Hongkong live in a very expensive style; much more expensively, one would think, than they need do, when we consider that many of the necessaries of life are to be had at prices very little in advance of our market rates at home. Nothing surprised me more in Hong Kong than the expensive way in which English assistants were housed, and the luxuries with which they were indulged. Indeed few more luxurious quarters were anywhere to be found than the 'junior messes' of the wealthy British firms. There the unfledged youth, coming out from the simplicity of some rural home, was apt to develop into a man of epicurean tastes, a connoisseur in wines, and to become lavish in expenditure...29", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1975.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207723, "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-1976", "page_number": 111, "title": "RAS-1976", "content_text": "96\n\nTIN-YUKE CHAR\n\ncountries in the hope to find suitable people to replenish our population. We have the productive land. Sugar and rice are our main and most profitable crops.\" The letter also mentioned that the Chinese did not bring their women and that it was dangerous to give them franchise because their numbers would be a threat to the Kingdom. The suggestion was to try India where the British had been successful in using their coolies in agricultural development of the colonies. Armstrong, however, later sent a report that the East Indians were not suitable nor desirable as immigrants to Hawaii. Minister Green had also written on January 18, 1881 to William Keswick, Hawaiian Consul General in Hong Kong to expect King Kalakaua's arrival and to assist Armstrong in obtaining a good class of Chinese immigrants to be accompanied by wives and children.\n\nFrom Hawaii the party first started for San Francisco where the Chinese Consul General entertained the Royal party at Hang Fen Lou Restaurant and took the occasion to thank the King for his kind treatment of the Chinese in Hawaii.\n\nSailing for Japan on the Oceanic, the Royal party arrived after twenty-four days at the Bay of Yedo on March 4, 1881 and landed at Yokohama. King Kalakaua wrote back from Tokyo on March 15, 1881, “Our reception has been most cordial and pleasant with the Emperor [Meiji]. He extended the hospitality of being his guest during our stay in the City of Tokio, occupying the same buildings that General Grant did when he was here and other distinguished guests, Prince Henri of Germany and the Duke of Genoa.”\n\nThe subject of possible Japanese emigration to Hawaii received some consideration by the Japanese officials. And on February 8, 1885, the first group of Japanese immigrants (676 men, 159 women, and 108 children) came to Hawaii. Major credit for this successful endeavor was due to \"the personal friendship of the Emperor of Japan for King Kalakaua.\" commented the editor of the Pacific Commercial Advertiser.\n\nTo proceed to China, the party sailed on the Tokio Maru. Upon arrival at Shanghai, they were furnished the Pautah by the China Merchants Steam Navigation Company to take the Royal group to Tientsin. They had hopes of being received at Court in", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1976.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/hq382988q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209183, "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-1981", "page_number": 86, "title": "RAS-1981", "content_text": "72\n\nAJ DIAMOND\n\nofficial publications and of United Kingdom and other publications bearing on Hong Kong. The P.R.O. receives copies of all local official publications and has acquired an extensive microfilm coverage of Colonial Office and other records relating to Hong Kong.\n\nThe scope of the library's holdings has been adjusted mainly to the needs of those engaged in research among primary sources and policy in the matter of acquisition has been influenced by the nearness and adequacy of other local libraries.\n\nThe library includes large collections of photographs, maps and press cuttings as well as files of thirteen local English language newspapers the earliest of which dates from 1842.\n\nThe P.R.O. is equipped at present with an office copying machine, two planetary and two hand-fed rotary microfilm cameras. Two microfilm readers are available for public use. The cameras are employed mainly in the production of security back-up film for government departments, the filming of selected classes of records held by the P.R.O. to enable destruction of the originals and the copying of out-of-print back issues of official publications and other items for the library. However the facility is also available at a fee for the copying of documents on behalf of individual research workers and non-government institutions.\n\nRecords\n\nOfficial records transferred to the P.R.O. at present occupy 17,080 linear feet of shelving and comprise 363 series received from over 100 government offices. The earliest documents held by the P.R.O. date from 1831, but due to the extensive loss of government records resulting from the Japanese invasion and occupation of Hong Kong during the Second World War the bulk of the P.R.O.'s holdings date from the post-war resumption of British administration.\n\nThe loss occasioned by the war has been in some measure redeemed by the acquisition of the wide coverage of pre-war Colonial Office records relating to Hong Kong, already mentioned above. The most important of these record series, CO 129 Original Correspondence, consists of despatches exchanged between the Governors of Hong Kong and the Secretaries of State for the Colonies during the period 1841 -- 1943, together with their enclosures, Colonial Office minutes and memoranda and correspondence between the C.O. and other ministries and private individuals and institutions.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1981.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ff36bt18m", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209206, "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-1981", "page_number": 109, "title": "RAS-1981", "content_text": "THE CHINESE CHURCH, LABOUR AND ELITES AND THE MUI TSAI QUESTION IN THE 1920'S 95\n\ndiscussion as to whether the mui tsai system was a form of slavery.\n\nThe case awakened the conscience of several expatriates. Among these were Colonel John Ward and Lieutenant Commander Haselwood and his wife. Col. Ward on his return to England was elected a Member of Parliament. He used his position to bring the question before the House of Commons. The matter roused the interest of liberal groups in England. Not satisfied with the answer given by the Government spokesman that there was no slavery in Hong Kong, the question continued to be raised in 1920 and 1921.\n\nParliamentary Questions and Answers\n\nIn November 1920, Sir Alfred Yeo and Mr. Myers raised the question in the House of Commons. In reply, Col. Amery, the Under Secretary of State for the Colonies stated,\n\nSlavery does not exist in Hong Kong. The Colony's law does not recognise the custom whereby girls are transferred on payment from parents and guardians to another household, usually for purposes of domestic service, as conferring any right or title on the employer against the girl. There was evidence that girls were frequently ill-treated, in which event, they would be protected by the law in the same way as children living with their parents.\n\nHe said he thought it best to aim at gradual reform in cooperation with enlightened Chinese. It was suggested that the Hong Kong Governor \"should persuade prominent Chinese to form a Society for the protection and improvement of the condition of these girl domestics\". This was considered a much better way to deal with the problem than introducing a system of compulsory registration. The Hong Kong Government had advised the Colonial Office that it regarded registration as impracticable.2\n\nIn January 1921 a question was again raised regarding \"this nefarious traffic in human beings\". The questioner was referred to the answer given in the previous discussion in November that \"there is no slavery in Hong Kong\". Another Member then asked, \"Is the honourable Government aware that answer given on November 4th was very unsatisfactory to those people who have information on this matter, and would he make inquiry into the allegation that slavery is carried on under British rule?”\n\nThe Under Secretary was adamant, \"I have made full inquiry.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1981.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ff36bt18m", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209716, "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-1982", "page_number": 373, "title": "RAS-1982", "content_text": "BOOK REVIEWS\n\n351\n\nstudy of revolts, reforms and revolutions in the South East Asian region is of particular interest and relevance for the outside world. This is because the variety of its component races, religions and political systems, before and after the colonial period, are paralleled by the diversity of situations experienced in revolution, reform and revolt. They are as diverse in kind as the very varied social, cultural, economic, historical context will allow, whether in or outside the colonial period, whether the colonial power was French, British or Dutch, whether a communist party was present or not. They are also, they claim, made the more interesting through the variety of \"models,\" outside assistance and influences available to the leaders of its governments and insurgent movements alike.\n\nThe authors state that, out of the total of twelve articles, five study revolts, three reforms and four revolutions. Five of the nine new states are represented (Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Singapore and Vietnam), with the former colonies of French Indo-china making up three quarters. Two articles concern events before 1914, three take place between 1914 and 1945 and four after the Second World War, and three span several of these periods. Neither the early period of colonial penetration nor the contemporary scene have been neglected, though by choice the authors have generally not gone back beyond 1850.\n\nGenerally speaking, the essays illustrate the theme of the Introduction, and they do cover a most diverse and interesting set of events. This is a stimulating collection of essays which will certainly be of value to serious students of South East Asia. Also, they bear out the authors' claim that they have a wider relevance than the region in which they are set.\n\nJAMES HAYES\n\nChinese Festivals Joan Law and Barbara E. Ward, South China Morning Post, Hong Kong, 1982, 95pp, including Bibliography, Index. 85 Colour plates\n\nIt is surprising that no-one produced a book like this long ago. Of course, this superb volume is no less welcome for that. The book consists of a short introduction, followed by brief", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1982.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mk61z420p", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210166, "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-1984", "page_number": 137, "title": "RAS-1984", "content_text": "116\n\nJAMES HAYES\n\nThis did not mean, however, that local villagers were not averse to minor piracy and smuggling, and generally to taking advantage of opportunities for gain. There are too many accounts of villainy from the surrounding waters for us to rule out the occasional initiative. In this connection, the remarks of a Chinese brigade general ordered by his superiors to cooperate with two young British naval officers against pirates thought to belong to villages in the present day Yuen Long area of the New Territories, has to my ears the ring of truth to it:\n\n\"Having seen these eighteen villages we have, becomingly and properly, together admonished the people thereof, and I think that they will be compliant and obey our orders. But this is merely an affair of vagabonds who rob with violence and make forays, who are not in the same category with confirmed rebels and pirates.”37\n\nThe English officer in charge commented:\n\n\"It must clearly be borne in mind that piracy in China differs from piracy elsewhere in this respect that there the pirates live on the land and only put to sea occasionally to carry on their depredations... Nor is this state of things confined in this vicinity to the neighbourhood of Deep Bay. Piratical villages exist along the whole coast wherever the native traffic is sufficient to render such an occupation remunerative.\"38\n\n+39\n\nWriting specifically of Hong Kong itself on 11th April 1846 to the Secretary of State for the Colonies in his annual despatch on the state of the Colony, Sir John Davis observed that “A principal obstacle to the Chinese commerce of the place is the system of piracy which infests the approaches from the east and west. In another despatch dated 26 February 1848, Davis commented on the subject as follows: \"The former prevalence of piracy has been checked (as appears best proved by the increase of native trade) through the active exertions of Captain Loring of HM's ship 'Scout', by whom nearly 300 pirates were captured in the last year, and delivered over to the Chinese government.\n\n1540\n\nWhether the Hong Kong villagers joined in such behaviour", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1984.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/5h73wh572", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210201, "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-1984", "page_number": 172, "title": "RAS-1984", "content_text": "151\n\nHong Kong authorities saw no need to take active steps to improve the situation.\n\nParliamentary pressure over social hygiene in Hong Kong largely lapsed after 1894 once the legal framework for the licensing of prostitutes and the registration of brothels had been repealed by the Legislative Council and thereafter Hong Kong was left free to set up its new extra-legal system of control without further interference from London. But after the end of the First World War agitation on the subject revived. The League of Nations appointed an Advisory Committee on the Traffic in Women and Children which published reports highlighting the connections between state regulation of prostitution and the procurement of women. The first warning to Hong Kong of the revival of concern in Britain was the arrival in the colony in 1921 of a Commission from the National Council for Combating Venereal Disease which had been sent out to report on conditions in the Far Eastern Colonies. The Governor, Sir Edward Stubbs, had objected to any such visit and forbade government officials to give the commissioners any assistance; he also informed them when they arrived that they were not to hold any public meetings or advertise their presence in the press. In spite of this studied discourtesy the commissioners, Mrs. Neville-Rolfe and Dr. Hallam, set out upon a thorough exploration of the seedier areas of the city and various medical institutions, and were able to make contact with some business and religious groups and with some of the leading Chinese. On their return to London they submitted a scathing report to the Colonial Office on medical and social conditions. According to the commissioners, no serious attempt had been made by the government to improve the standard of health of the native population in 85 years of British rule; the infant mortality figures were disgraceful; the Tung Wah hospital was very dirty and badly equipped; the Po Leung Kuk, a place of refuge for Chinese girls, was largely used as a recruiting ground for cheap supplementary wives by members of the committee. The Colonial Office was given its first description of the working of the system of tolerated brothels, which Mrs. Neville-Rolfe dismissed as ineffective in preventing the kidnapping of girls into brothel slavery; on the contrary it was alleged that the artificial value put on the Chinese girl by the system of recognised brothels is the main inducement to the kidnappers.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1984.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/5h73wh572", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210726, "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-1986", "page_number": 77, "title": "RAS-1986", "content_text": "60\n\n—\n\nD.A. GRIFFITHS AND S.P. LAU\n\nand it is to be got through the Press early in the issuing year. It will form one of the series of Floras of the British Colonies published under the sanction of H.M. Government and the general superintendence of Sir W.J. Hooker.\n\nFurther, and perhaps of more relevance in getting the gardens established, it is boldly stated in answer to Query no. 4 of June 28th 1860 \"No Botanical Garden exists in the colony\".\n\nThus although the scheme to establish a public Botanical Garden had been sanctioned by the Secretary of State in 1856, the proposal was held in limbo until Nov 30th 1861 when a sum of £269..10..6 was approved \"for the formation of Public Gardens”. A further sum of £4,371..2..6 was approved by the Governor, Hercules Robinson who explained the justification for such a large sum on the difficult topography of the chosen site.\n\n\"The amount proposed to be expended in this service is large, but the only ground available for a Public Garden in a suitable locality is situated on such a steep incline as to call for very special arrangements for carrying off the water from the hills. Drainage and a boundary wall constitute the chief items of the Estimate\".\n\nIt is obvious that Governor Robinson considered the formation of a public garden both an added attraction to the rapidly expanding city and, in addition, well within the financial resources of the Colony. He continues:\n\n\"I am of opinion that a portion of the large surplus revenue at present in hand, cannot be better expended than in carrying out this undertaking, which will contribute to the embellishment of the City of Victoria and the health and enjoyment of its inhabitants.”\n\nThe Duke of Newcastle's scribbled note appended to Robinson's submission on its arrival in London states:", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1986.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/jq08c7063", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211022, "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-1987", "page_number": 84, "title": "RAS-1987", "content_text": "59\n\n30\n\nPope Hennessy. This was the Normal School, which was opened in Queen's Road East, Wanchai, on 12th September, 1881, under the headmastership of A.J. May, previously Acting Third Master at the Central School. Partly because Hennessy had not taken the precaution of gaining the prior approval of the Colonial Office in London, and partly because several members of the Education Commission then sitting to consider the elevation of the Central School to collegiate status were unconvinced of the necessity for separate provision of teacher education, the scheme failed. On the recommendation of Dr. George Bateson Wright, the Acting Inspector of Schools who, as Headmaster of the Central School, was normally in a state of dispute with the substantive Inspector, E.J. Eitel, the Wanchai Normal School was closed in October 1883. A.J. May returned to his ordinary teaching duties at the Central School, at first as merely an “extra-master” and, according to Gwenneth Stokes, “always very much on his dignity.”\n\n31\n\nAnd of the original 1881 intake of ten students, only two eventually became teachers. Meanwhile, the failure of the Normal School project led to a resumption of the pupil teacher scheme at the Central School. To avoid the problems faced earlier, first by Stewart and then by May, the revised pupil-teacher scheme gained additional stability by the requirement that each pupil-teacher articled had to deposit $100 with the Government Treasury. Further progress in the field of teacher education in Hong Kong was slow, the next major step being the establishment of “evening extension courses” in 1906, the formalization of these under the aegis of the newly established Technical Institute in 1907, the running of teacher education courses as a part of the Arts Faculty curriculum at the University of Hong Kong from 1916 onwards, and, finally, the establishment of the first permanent training college for teachers in Hong Kong in 1939.\n\n32\n\nAlthough the Normal School was shortlived and made only a minimal contribution to the teaching supply of Hong Kong schools, it was an interesting experiment. Comparable British colonies in Asia, the Straits Settlements and the Federated Malay States launched no such experiment to supply teachers capable of using English as the medium of instruction. Instead, for these colonies, a Select Committee of 1870 recommended reliance on", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1987.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/rx919b522", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211091, "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-1987", "page_number": 152, "title": "RAS-1987", "content_text": "127\n\ncame Governor in 1877. It was rumoured that the law was to be repealed. This created uneasiness among the foreigners and a discussion concerning the unfairness of class legislation among the Chinese.\n\nBy 1877 a new type of Chinese had arisen in Hongkong. There was an ever-increasing group of wealthy merchants, compradores, landowners, and professionals. These men had a financial stake in the welfare of Hongkong. A few had been born and educated in Hongkong and regarded it as their permanent home.\n\nThis new class became increasingly aware of the contribution the Chinese were making to the growth and prosperity of Hongkong. They resented being looked down on as inferiors and being victims of discriminatory treatment. Some, such as Ho A-mei, were not afraid to voice their opinion on these matters.\n\nIn 1857, this type of Chinese resident could almost have been numbered on a person's two hands. Twenty years later, they were of a quantity and quality that could not be ignored. This contrast between 1857 and 1877 is set forth in a series of rhetorical questions asked by a writer to an English-language newspaper using the pseudonym \"1850.\" He asked: \"Where (in 1857) was the rice trade in steamers? Where was trade in steamers to California and Australia, who carried it on in sailing vessels? Where were Chinese directors of insurance and steamboat companies?\"\n\nHe then answers his questions with another set: \"And what changes time has since brought. Are our Chinese fellow citizens of the present day nothing more than shopkeepers? Is it at all compatible with the position of those who are directors and managers of companies, with large interests in real estate, to carry a pass with them after nine o'clock?\"\n\nThese questions were asked at the time rumours circulated that the light and pass regulations were to be repealed. A discussion about them was carried on in the press. This was soon after John Pope Hennessy became Governor. Even before his arrival in Hongkong, he had a reputation for advocating equal treatment of the local population in British colonies.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1987.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/rx919b522", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211108, "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-1987", "page_number": 169, "title": "RAS-1987", "content_text": "144\n\nHo A-mei, of course, was no novice at the game of political pressure. He had been acting in public affairs for nearly thirty years. Ho Tung, a younger man, had not yet so much experience in the public arena. But as the years passed, he would outshine Ho A-mei as a public figure. Neither, however, was given the honour to represent his community on the Legislative Council.\n\nIn spite of all the Governor's threats, a compromise was reached. The regulations were not repealed, but the Governor issued a statement in answer to the Chinese petition.\n\nHe stated that in view of the advice given by the Registrar General and by other leading European residents, thus implying that Chinese opinion was of little value in the matter, \"I have out of consideration for the comfort and convenience of the orderly Chinese community issued the following instructions to the Police.\" His instructions said the regulations were not to be enforced except in case of persons abroad after midnight whom the police might have reason to suspect criminal intent.\n\nThe China Mail, true to form, deplored this compromise and was sure that the Chinese would view it as vacillation and weakness.\n\nThe Telegraph was for strength but also for freedom of speech. It stated that if anyone stirred up or incited \"the ignorant masses\" to resistance or disobedience, it would be the first to call for the deportation or punishment of the guilty party.\n\n\"We advocate strong and decisive measures whenever the need arises, but there must also be in all British colonies the right of freedom of speech.\"\n\nIt called for an immediate repeal of the objectionable regulations: \"We repeat that the Light and Pass Ordinance is an insult to the intelligence and honesty of any community and is a slur on the Chinese that ought to be wiped out of the Colony's records.\"\n\nThe suggestion, however, was not acted on and the law remained.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1987.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/rx919b522", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211112, "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-1987", "page_number": 173, "title": "RAS-1987", "content_text": "148\n\ngrievance in regard to smuggled opium. The geographical position of Hongkong immediately adjacent to the coast of China made it difficult for China to control the contraband trade.\n\nTo do so would require patrolling all the rugged coastline and its thousands of inlets and navigable streams, or, as an alternative, to place a cordon of Chinese ships around Hongkong. They could patrol within Chinese waters the entrances and exits of Hongkong.\n\nIn view of the alternative, Sir Rutherford proposed that \"it would seem reasonable that the Emperor of China should have the same right to appoint a consul to reside in Hongkong as all other Treaty Powers have, and to enjoy the same rights and exercise the same authority in matters connected with the trade of Chinese subjects as any other nation in treaty with Great Britain may claim in British Colonies.\"\n\nThe proposal was received as worth consideration by the British Government and the item was put on the agenda for the formal negotiations regarding treaty revision which were to begin soon.\n\nIt is not surprising that a cry of alarm arose in Hongkong over the suggestion.\n\nSir Rutherford was a diplomat and not a trader. He viewed the problem as one to be resolved according to diplomatic usage. The Government officials in Hongkong were eager to protect its commercial interests.\n\nThey viewed the problem from a financial and not a diplomatic stance.\n\nSir Rutherford looked at the request within the enlarged context of Britain's total relation to China, of which Hongkong was only a part.\n\nHongkong, on the other hand, related the problem to its own peculiar position and the difficulty of governing a population it regarded as a potential threat to its security.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1987.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/rx919b522", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211113, "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-1987", "page_number": 174, "title": "RAS-1987", "content_text": "149\n\nThese local views were expressed in the dispatch of the Governor, Sir Richard MacDonnell, to the Colonial Office in London and in a memorial from the Hongkong General Chamber of Commerce. Both reflect, as we shall see, the uneasiness underneath the comfortable life of the expatriate in nineteenth century Hong-kong.\n\nCOLONIAL PRESSURE STOPS CONSUL MOVE\n\nIn 1891, Ho A-mei wrote to the newspapers supporting a proposal of the British Foreign Office that a Chinese Consul be appointed for Hongkong. It was an issue which in the past had sharpened differences between Hongkong and the Home Government.\n\nThe matter had first been raised in 1868. When news reached Hongkong at that time that it was being considered by the Foreign Office in London, there was an immediate outcry.\n\nThe Governor, Sir Richard MacDonnell, rushed off a protest to the Colonial Office. He objected not only to the proposal, but also to the manner in which the British Minister at Peking had ignored Hongkong.\n\nThe Governor was not on good terms with the Minister, Sir Rutherford Alcock. He complained that it had been his experience that Sir Rutherford was not concerned about the interests of Hongkong and in his negotiations with China paid little attention to Hongkong opinion.\n\nThe Governor wrote to the Secretary of the Colonies that it was no surprise to him that Sir Rutherford had sent the suggestion of a Chinese Consul to the Foreign Office without consulting or informing the local government, nor had he given Hongkong an opportunity to register its opinion on the matter.\n\nWhen the Governor had eventually heard the British Minister's suggestion, he immediately called together his Executive Council to consider the issue. At that time all the members of the Council were Government officials.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1987.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/rx919b522", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211115, "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-1987", "page_number": 176, "title": "RAS-1987", "content_text": "151\n\nplace, its very peculiar inhabitants, and most peculiar geographical position.\"\n\nEven today the “special situation\" of Hongkong is still advanced as a reason for making it an exception.\n\nBut these considerations, as important as Hongkong's spokesman felt them to be, were not the major ones. What was greatly feared was the influence a representative of the Chinese Government might have on the residents of Hongkong.\n\nSir Richard informed the Secretary for the Colonies that most of the influential Chinese merchants owned property on the mainland and members of their family were living there, and that, therefore, they would easily become the victims of “squeezing.”\n\nThe Hongkong Government held that any influence Chinese officials might exert on their countrymen would seriously undermine the Colony's ability to control its Chinese population.\n\nThe foreigners in Hongkong regarded the presence of Chinese among them as a necessary evil. They were needed as labourers and household servants. Without their services life would have been most difficult.\n\nFurthermore, the regular supply of fresh fruit, vegetables, fish and poultry depended on them, and a substantial part of the business of Hongkong was conducted by and through the Chinese.\n\nHongkong could not exist without the Chinese, but their presence was a source of uneasiness. They did not readily acknowledge British sovereignty.\n\nThe Governor pointed out that due to the power exercised by the officials and guilds of Canton over nine-tenths of the residents, they \"regarded the Viceroy of the Two-Kwangs as their ultimate chief who they can be forced, sooner or later, to obey.”\n\nTherefore, he advised the authorities in London that it would be \"most unwise to permit an accredited official as spy and", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1987.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/rx919b522", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211149, "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-1987", "page_number": 210, "title": "RAS-1987", "content_text": "185\n\nrally round the local representative of the Celestial Empire, both he and they are subject to the laws of the Colony, which we can safely rely upon as being sufficient to meet any possible attempt at unlawful combination amongst the native section of the community.\"\n\nA Chinese consul resident in Hongkong could be very useful to the Hongkong Government. He could be a means to preserve law and order, for through his office the Hongkong authorities could avoid delay in communication with their Chinese counterparts in Canton about problems affecting the two parties.\n\nThe process of extradition should become easier. Direct relations would bypass complicated procedures. Such evils as the gambling dens at Kowloon City and Shamshuipo on Chinese soil just beyond the Kowloon boundary could at once be brought to the attention of the Viceroy “in a more effectual manner than by the circumlocutory methods to which red-tape official elements are so firmly attached.\"\n\nThe consul would be able to check on the criminal element who fled from Chinese jurisdiction to Hongkong and then used it as a base for their operations. Thus the resident criminal class would be decreased.\n\nA frequent object of scorn for the editor of the Telegraph was Hongkong officialdom. The consul question provided him an opportunity to express it.\n\nThe editor believed that the presence of a Chinese official in Hongkong would have a salutary effect, for \"it cannot fail to subject the shortcomings of our official element to the scrutiny of a class specially practised in the arts of discrimination, and, for that matter, dissimulation.”\n\nIn the editor's opinion the manner in which the Hongkong Government was being administered created a bad impression upon the Chinese residents: “It is lamentable to ponder over what any intelligent Chinese must think of the vaunted administrative capabilities of British colonies, when he comes to study the intelli-\n\nPage 210\n\nPage 211", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1987.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/rx919b522", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211177, "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-1987", "page_number": 238, "title": "RAS-1987", "content_text": "213\n\na hall for a Chinese Chamber of Commerce which was eventually opened by Ho A-mei in 1896.\n\nTHE JUBILEE SQUABBLING GOES ON AND ON . . .\n\nHongkong got itself into a muddle attempting to decide on a permanent memorial to mark the celebration of Queen Victoria's golden jubilee year.\n\nA public meeting was held at the City Hall on March 2, 1887, to formulate plans for the celebration. At the meeting it was decided to create a park in the Wongneichong valley to be named after the Queen. Both before and after the meeting many objections were raised to the scheme, which was eventually abandoned.\n\nAt the meeting, the chairman, Sir George Phillippo, in his introductory remarks mentioned a number of proposals that had already been put before the public.\n\nHe referred to an institution to be located in London to display and promote the products of the Empire. A year or so before the Indian and Colonial Exposition had been held. The various possessions of Great Britain had sent examples of their natural resources and products to it.\n\nIt was such a success that plans were put forward for something more permanent. The jubilee seemed an appropriate time to promote such an undertaking.\n\nAt the time, the British people were basking in the extent and importance of their empire. Its many colonies and dominions were rich in raw materials to feed the industries of the United Kingdom.\n\nThe multitude of people of different races under its rule were regarded as an inexhaustible market for the manufactures of the home country.\n\nIn recognition of the financial importance of Britain's possessions the plan for an Imperial Institute in London was launched.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1987.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/rx919b522", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211181, "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-1987", "page_number": 242, "title": "RAS-1987", "content_text": "217\n\nA letter appeared in the Daily Press endorsing the idea of a contribution to the Imperial Institute. The correspondent claimed that a contribution from Hongkong could benefit both the donor and the project: \"If Hongkong can help to prevent (the institute) being a failure, it would be rendering an invaluable service to the Empire, and a double service to the Colony.\"\n\nThe double benefit, for Hongkong would be that of promoting the Colony's trade and of “getting us out of our mess.\" The mess, of course, was the inability of the community to express common agreement on a memorial. It was making the people of Hongkong look foolish.\n\nHe suggested to the proposer and the seconder of the park project that they withdraw their motions, for surely “they will not miss the chance that withdrawing their proposal would give them of making a friend of the Queen as well as remaining (signed) 'Friends of the Governor'.”\n\nAgain, the proposal met little response, but Hongkong's lack of interest did not materially impede the project. Other sections of the Empire were more liberal and enthusiastic.\n\nIn May, 1888, the Queen granted a charter of incorporation to the Imperial Institute of the United Kingdom, the Colonies and India and the Isles of the British Seas. A building was erected in South Kensington.\n\nIt served as a centre for scientific research and a bureau of economic resources for the Empire. In 1962 a new building was erected and the name changed to the Commonwealth Institute.\n\nHOW SPORT CAME TO THE VALLEY\n\nIt was usual for a planning committee to predetermine the agenda for public meetings in the Hongkong of the nineteenth century.\n\nIt was decided that at the public meeting on March 2, 1887, to plan Hongkong's observance of Queen Victoria's Golden Jubilee a", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1987.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/rx919b522", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211183, "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-1987", "page_number": 244, "title": "RAS-1987", "content_text": "219\n\nand not the mists rising from the swampy areas.\n\nThough the cause of the fever had not been identified properly, the drainage of the valley was a way to remove it. If the valley was to be drained it meant that the rice growing must stop.\n\nFor generations the valley had been cultivated by the Ng and Yip families. They lived in the village at the head of the valley. Their village and that of the Chau family at Little Hongkong near Aberdeen were the oldest agricultural settlements on the Island.\n\nOver the years the villagers had built up some resistance to malaria, but the newly-arrived Europeans were easy victims. To safeguard the health of the foreigner the villagers were told they must give up their ancestral fields. The Government notified them of this in March 1844.\n\nTo justify this expenditure when the British Government was begrudging every penny spent on Hongkong unless it was for military purposes, the Governor informed the Secretary of State for the Colonies that it was expedient to drain the valley, \"as its vicinity to the town, and the natural advantage of this spot make it not only desirable as a residence, but likewise as a place of recreation for the inhabitants.\"\n\nIts use for recreation is still of great importance. The air of death still lingers, however. The hillsides to the west of the valley were laid out as cemeteries for the Moslem, Roman Catholic, Protestant and Parsee communities.\n\nBehind the village of Wongneichong, near the present stables of the Jockey Club, was the Jewish Cemetery, and on Caroline Hill to the east was a very large Chinese cemetery.\n\nIn 1844, the major improvements proposed were the raising of the level of the lower portions of the valley which were covered with water at high tide, enlarging the course of the stream which flowed through the valley and digging suitable ditches to facilitate drainage.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1987.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/rx919b522", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211359, "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-1988", "page_number": 75, "title": "RAS-1988", "content_text": "51\n\nOfficer, Dr. Hickling, replied that the matter needed a full investigation, and for a beginning certain broad lines might be laid down. She suggested as such (1) the conditions which would constitute overcrowding in work places, (2) the ages at which children be admitted to factories, and (3) regulation of the hours children worked.\n\nAt a meeting of the Sanitary Board on 2 April 1919 Mr. Bowley said that though previous to the meeting he had submitted his intention to place before the Board resolutions concerning overcrowding in factories and child labour, he thought it would be better if the Board first appointed a sub-committee to investigate conditions and thresh the problem out before definite suggestions were placed before the full Board.\n\nMr. Bowley was the natural Chairman for the committee as he had shown special interest in the problem and was acquainted with the corresponding legislation on the subject in England, America and the British Colonies, and as the Chinese section of the community would be chiefly affected by such regulations, Mr. Chan Kai-ming and Mr. S. W. Tso were appointed along with the Sanitary Department's Medical Officer, Dr. A. D. Hickling. As the regulations would be dealing with the working conditions of women and children, it was appropriate that Dr. Hickling, a woman, be on the committee.\n\n―\n\n―\n\nAt a meeting on 27 May, the sub-committee submitted its recommendations. An amendment was proposed to Section 16 of the Public Health and Building Ordinance of 1903 that children under the age of fourteen be prohibited from working in any factory for more than ten hours a day exclusive of meal times and that children under thirteen not be employed in any occupation likely to be injurious to their “life, limb or health, regard being had to his or her physical condition”. The committee also proposed an addition to Bylaw sub-section 13 of Section 16, that factories be regarded as overcrowded and therefore a danger to health if there was less than 250 cubic feet for every person employed, or during overtime after six p.m., 400 cubic feet per person.\n\nThe Sanitary Board had the power to require factories to provide adequate ventilation, cleanliness and latrine accommodation. There was no statutory definition of what constituted overcrowding hence the resolution included such a definition.\n\nPage 75\n\nPage 76\n\n52", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1988.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211366, "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-1988", "page_number": 82, "title": "RAS-1988", "content_text": "58\n\nGovernment, but the Government had not at present a plan to create a post of Factory Inspector.\n\nThe Problem publicised in Britain\n\nMiss Pitts and Mr. Bowley both left Hong Kong for leaves in England in June 1919. During their stay they might have pushed the matter of child labour in Hong Kong, for in May 1920 there was published an article in the Child Guardian setting forth the situation of children in Hong Kong. This magazine was the organ of the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children. The recommendations proposed by Mr. Bowley at the meeting of the Church of England Men's Society already referred to were published on the first page of an issue of the magazine. These were accompanied by the comment, “Judging from the necessity of bringing such proposals forward, it may be imagined this British Colony is a long way behind in its treatment of children”. It was noted, however, that a great many influential people in Britain were worrying the Colonial Office on the subject. The editor surmised, \"the Governor must be having quite a busy time answering the inquiries of the Colonial Office in regard to these questions“.\n\nIn November 1920 a Director of the British National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children asked the Secretary for the Colonies for an interview with Mr. Claude Severn, the Hong Kong Colonial Secretary who was on leave in England, to discuss with him the matter of the welfare of children in Hong Kong.\n\nParliamentary question\n\nDecember 1920\n\nMr. A. Davies in December 1920 asked in a Parliamentary Question if there was any legislation in Hong Kong controlling the type of work done by children, the hours they worked, or their employment in work injurious to their health. The Government spokesman replied that there was none, but the Governor was being asked for a report on the subject of child labour.\n\nAnother question was raised at a session soon after. Mr. Cope asked if the Secretary of State for the Colonies was aware that the resolution of the Sanitary Board passed in May 1919 regarding child labour had", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1988.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211620, "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": 35, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "10\n\n16\n\nnot the temper to speak. He had the Chinese at his feet, and might have had what he wished; and what has he got? A few paltry dollars and a barren island... The Chinese are already chuckling, and say they have got the best of it. It makes me quite sick to think of it, and there are not half a dozen people on shore or afloat who are not quite furious'. The alleged sentiments of the Chinese in this letter are in direct contrast to those reported by James Matheson in a letter to William Jardine of 11 February: 'The cession of Hong Kong to the British is what most mortifies the Canton folks with Ki Shen's proceedings. They cannot bear to speak of it with composure'.\" It seems that a portion of the British community in the Pearl Delta area (the author of the letter wishes to appear to have as large a constituency as possible, not only within the merchant community) may have presupposed that their feelings of failure with regard to the acquisition of Hong Kong meant a corresponding sense of triumph for the Chinese.\n\nThe second letter to The Times was equally scathing as it claimed that the British negotiators had been tricked because 'Hong Kong was virtually ours, for it is the place which the opium ships have used as a rendezvous for years'. It was only to be expected therefore that the Chinese would choose to cede that island rather than any other.\n\n19\n\n18\n\nOf the acts of soldiers in the expeditionary force, it might have been expected that the formal taking of possession of Hong Kong would have been worthy of mention even if the author had not been present in person, but it seems that this is not the case. Neither Duncan McPherson nor W. W. Mundy refers to it. Nor did soldiers such as A. Cunynghame20 or Alexander Murray21 who became involved just after the cession of Hong Kong refer back to the ceremony. There is only one reference to the taking of Hong Kong in the official mouthpiece for the forces, The United Service Journal of 1841, and that was in a general article entitled 'The British colonies considered as military posts' written by Lieutenant-Colonel Wilkie. He complained in July 1841 that the rationale for his inclusion of Hong Kong in the article was threatened because arrangements between the British and the Chinese had collapsed, ‘and consequently it is more than doubtful whether I shall have any more authority for treating of this island as a British colony, beyond the simple fact that it has been formally taken possession of as such',22\n\nContemporary press notices of the event, again in direct contrast to news of the opium war and the expedition to the Bogue, are terse and rudimentary. The Chinese Repository of February 1841, edited by the", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211827, "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": 242, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "217\n\n2.3.1864 (Wedn)\n\nPerformance by the amateurs of the Royal Artillery.\n\nNo plays are mentioned in the announcement (NCH 27.2.1864).\n\n4.3.1864 (Fri)\n\nPerformance by Mrs. Greig: \"dramatic reading and English ballad music” with the cooperation of Mr. Marquis Chisholm, piano, and the Rhenish Band.\n\nN.N. (H)\n\nR: This was an evening at which the Herald predicted that \"ladies may without impropriety be present\". Mrs. GREIG had had “a most successful career in India and the colonies\" and it was the first time she had come to Shanghai (NCH 27.2.1864).\n\n28.3.1864 (Mon)\n\nT. KORNER: \"The Governess\" (“Die Gouvernante')\n\nT: Farce (1 act)\n\nA.F.F. Von KOTZEBUE: \"The Harvest at Home\"\n\nN.N.: Bullrick at Kroll\"\n\nC: Amateurs of His Prussian M.S. Gazelle\n\nTh: On board ship(?)\n\nN: It is not recorded in which language these pieces were played: titles and authors are those given by the Herald. Of Kotzebue's play I have not been able to find a German equivalent. HED, however, mentions some plays with the same title by British authors: Thomas Parry (1848) and Charles Dibdin (1787), as well as some by unknown playwrights.\n\nR: Perhaps in some fear, the Herald noted with a sigh of relief that \"the evening passed off without a single contretemps\" (NCH 2.4.1864). Curiously enough the only ship in port with the name \"Gazelle\" was a British merchantman which had arrived there from Hankow on the 22nd.\n\n30.3.1864 (Wedn)\n\nM.W.B. JERROLD: \"Cool as a Cucumber\" (1851)\n\nT: Farce (1 act)\n\nJ. KENNEY: \"Raising the Wind\" (1803)\n\nT: Farce (2 acts)\n\nJ.S. COYNER: \"Duck Hunting” (1862)\n\nT: Farce (1 act)\n\nC: Amateurs of the Shanghai Volunteer Corps\n\nF: Prologue, spoken by Commm. R.C. Antrobus\n\nTh: N.N. (H)\n\nN: First performance of the season\n\nR: After a brief period in which the actual names of resident-amateurs had been published, there was a reversion to the old practice of stage names, at least probably for most actors. A whole list was printed in the Herald (Messrs Talbot, De Jones, Robinson (were these latter two the same as those active in 1858?), Carnegie, Coke, Dolittle, Smith, Blister, Buttons, Bellingham and John; and Mesdemoiselles Olivia, Pipchin, Robinson and Sally), of whom only Mr. Talbot may have been genuine. As usual the female characters of the farces were played by men (\"prettier and more graceful amateur ladies than we have ever seen before\"), a generally horrid sight for the serious theatregoer. Not so for Shanghailanders for \"large numbers of residents who were desirous of obtaining admission were excluded for want of room” (NCH 2.4.1864). A detailed review had appeared in the Daily Shipping News of 31.3.1864, no longer available. Increasingly, instead of full reports, summaries from the daily edition were published until one has to resort entirely to the Daily News; of Survey).", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212193, "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-1990", "page_number": 135, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "112 \n\nto walk along the paths which follow the mountain slope, when it began to rain heavily. Spying close-by a house, with an attractive green-tiled roof, we approached proposing to ask permission to 'phone for a taxi. \n\nI rang the bell and put my request to the Chinese boy who opened the door. He showed me in, leaving the door ajar, so that my wife, who remained outside, should not feel shut out; and led me to the 'phone in the hall. He was about to dial for me, when a voice in the distance asked, curtly as I thought, who I wanted. We were by then pretty well soaked and I suppose we did look rather like tramps. It was the lady of the mansion. I explained our predicament. She motioned to the instrument, then moved to the far end of the room, without inviting in my wife, whom she saw waiting outside. The boy got busy on the 'phone and eventually connected me, when the voice was heard instructing him to \"close that door\". He was most embarrassed and apologetically shut it on my wife. The taxi firm having promised to send for us, I rejoined her outside in the rain, where we remained for ten minutes until the car arrived. \n\nI would not have the reader think that such behaviour was typical of British manners in Hongkong. It was not, but it was characteristic of a small clique, which is found in most British colonies, courting a reflected lustre on the fringe of the official hierarchy. \n\nI think possibly its geography explains to some extent the notorious snobbery of Hongkong. Living, say, in Victoria, an invitation to dinner on the Peak was of doubtful attraction. It meant starting off in a taxi to the higher level, where there would only too probably be a heavy mist, and perhaps rain as well. You would have to leave your taxi to walk up several hundred steps to the house, built on the steep hillside, arriving with wet feet and, if wearing a raincoat, probably also drenched in sweat. \n\nOn another occasion the invitation might be to dine in Kowloon. That would involve going down to the jetty, crossing the harbour in the ferry, picking up a taxi on the other side, and so reaching your host's house without too much difficulty; but, unless you left in time to catch the last return ferry at midnight dinner in the Far East \n\n― \n\nyou would have to \n\nseldom starts before nine, or half past nine search for a walla-walla boat, a small type of taxi motor-launch; there \n\n! \n\n! \n\nPage 135\n\nPage 136", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213207, "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-1994", "page_number": 29, "title": "RAS-1994", "content_text": "8\n\n00\n\nuntil the outbreak of war in 1914. During the period when the congregation met in the Union Church Hall, the community also conducted a school there. The group meeting there was called the Deutsche Kirchen und Schulegemeinde (Rev. Albert Plag, \"Bethesda and the Berliner Frauenverein Für China”, Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, 1969, v. 9: 149-150, Carl T. Smith, “The German Congregation in Hong Kong until 1914\", ibid, 1975. v. 15: 292-295).\n\nIn the 1896/97 the Hildesheim Mission opened the Ebenezer Home for the Blind. There were two homes, one on Hong Kong Island and one in Kowloon. During the First World War they were placed under the supervision of the Church Missionary Society, though the Sisters in charge were allowed to continue to care for the children. Among the first Germans to return to Hong Kong after the end of the war were several deaconesses of the Hildesheim Society. The Ebenezer Home and School for the Blind is now located on Pokfulam Road.\n\nTwo German missionaries became Inspectors of Schools in Hong Kong. Rev. Wilhelm Lobscheid was sent to China in 1848 by the Rhenish Missionary Society, but in 1857 he changed his allegiance to the British-based Chinese Evangelization Society, yet another of the groups inspired by Gutzlaff. He was Inspector of Schools in Hong Kong from 1855 to 1859. He published in 1859 a valuable historical account entitled A Few Notices on the Extent of Chinese Education, and the Government Schools of Hong Kong; with remarks on the history and religious notions of the inhabitants of this island. From 1861 to 1866 he acted as an emigration agent, recruiting labour for British colonies in the West Indies. His labours in this endeavour again produced a book which contains much of interest as its title suggests, Chinese Emigration to the West Indies: A Trip through British Guiana undertaken for the purpose of ascertaining the condition of the Chinese who have emigrated under Government Contract With Supplementary Papers Relating to Contract Labour and the Slave Trade.\n\nAnother German, Rev. Ernest J. Eitel was Inspector of Schools from 1878 to 1896. He was influential in setting policies for the development of education in Hong Kong. He was sent to China in 1862 by the Basel Missionary Society. Three years later he transferred to the London Missionary Society. He married Miss Eaton, an agent of the Society for the Promotion of Female Education in the East. She was head-mistress of the Diocesan School for Girls. Mr. Eitel became a naturalised British", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1994.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zk522640g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213870, "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-1996", "page_number": 222, "title": "RAS-1996", "content_text": "196\n\nEuropeans believed that Africa belonged to tribes and power should be distributed among \"tribal chiefs\", so Africans constructed tribes to which to belong. Europeans believed that India belonged to religious groups and that chairs for direct election should be distributed to separate religious groups, so India became polarized along Muslim and Hindu lines, and eventually divided into Pakistan and India.\n\nIn colonies which were overwhelmingly Chinese, Malaya and Hong Kong, for instance, British administrators were struck by the fact that the Chinese had no nationalism toward the respective colony: the British feared that Malaya would be colonized by Chinese settlers and would one day be part of China. Because of a similar fear, Singapore was excluded from Malaysia.\n\nUnlike the cases of India and Africa, the concept of nationhood is readily available in China. Chinese settlers carried the concept along with them to the colonies. As a consequence, British rule in the overseas Chinese communities always faced enormous challenges which were exported from China. One of these challenges occurred at the turn of this century, when the concept of “China” and the method to present one's \"chineseness\" underwent very dramatic changes. The narrative of these changes went something like this: a Manchu China was overthrown by revolutionaries and then a Republican China was stolen by warlords. Before the Guomindang successfully promoted their ideology based upon the cult of Sun Yat-sen and unified China in 1927, China had already disintegrated into competitive regional powers. The overseas Chinese, linked to different competing groups, were drawn into this political arena in China. Their involvement was manifold. This short article deals with one aspect of this involvement - political investment in regional politics. It attempts to illustrate three points.\n\nI) The Guomindang ideology of a Chinese Republic based upon the legend of Sun was absent in this period of time. With or without this ideology, China was a political landscape with layers of national and regional networks\n\n2) British colonists commanded some, but not the final, authority over the colonial Chinese. To the overseas Chinese, the political arena that commanded their attention and participation was not in the colony, but in China.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1996.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/3n209j641", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213969, "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": 38, "title": "RAS-1997", "content_text": "Africa and South-east Asia to be suspicious of the pretensions of local leaders whose personal interests were not always easily identifiable with those of the common man—or, in their new surroundings, the worker in the plastics factory and his family. They had been conditioned by British policy and practice elsewhere to accept a goal of parliamentary democracy and self-determination as the norm; and while admitting that Hong Kong was, in the other cant phrase, “unique,” they saw no reason for it to be utterly different in ethos.\n\nSomeone who appreciated the subtle differences within colonies and between their officials was the last Colonial Service Governor, Sir David Clive Crosbie Trench GCMG MC. Trench had started his service in the Western Pacific, where as a District Officer in the Solomon Islands he had been a wartime \"coastwatcher\" in the mountains, reporting on Japanese activity, and had earned a military decoration during the Allies' reoccupation. He was one of the few Administrative Officers to benefit from the old Colonial Office's unspoken \"seven year rule.\" Under this, those who had spent that length of time in the supposedly enervating climate and mores of the Pacific should be sent to more politically and mentally bracing parts of the empire, the better to come back refreshed when more senior (determined Resident Commissioners in the Western Pacific, who thought seven years only just enough to train their juniors in the proper ways, usually managed to circumvent this best-laid plan.) Trench came to Hong Kong after the war, where he acquired a strong and popular reputation, notably in the Labour Department, as reorganiser of the Fire Brigade and as Deputy Colonial Secretary (DCS). It was no surprise when he went back to the Western Pacific as High Commissioner; there he presided over the creation for the egalitarian Melanesian society in the Solomon Islands of a novel democratic form of government based, via a constitution already adapted for Ceylon, on the pre-war London County Council, with committees instead of ministers (some of whose chairmen, however, inevitably assumed ministerial pretensions.) After three years, he returned to Hong Kong as Governor in 1964.\n\nBefore he had left, Trench had naturally always shown greater sympathy with and understanding of the \"interlopers,\" as the aforesaid subset was vulgarly known, than did some of his senior colleagues. Although relations with a governor were inevitably more remote than those with a senior secretariat officer had been, he contrived not to be", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1997.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/wp98g7579", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214431, "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-1998", "page_number": 289, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "255\n\nLaya and to assist in the Korean War. In 1957 the Royal Artillery lost one of its major stations in the colony described as \"the last of the great Gunner bastions on the island,\" when 27 Heavy Anti-Aircraft Regiment RA, which was stationed at Stanley Fort, was sent back to the United Kingdom for reorganisation. From then up to the handover to the Hong Kong Government in 1994, Stanley Fort was occupied by British infantry battalions on 2-year tours of duty. In 1997 it was handed over to the People's Liberation Army who are the present occupants.\n\nNOTES\n\n1 Lord Stanley, Edward Henry, 15th Earl of Derby, Secretary of State for the Colonies, 1845.\n\nREFERENCES\n\n\"Stanley, Hong Kong - The First Three Years\" by Lieut. G.P. Shearer, R.E., Royal Engineers' Journal, June 1938.\n\n\"British & Indian Armies on the China Coast 1795 - 1985\", by Alan Harfield, A&J Partnership, 1990.\n\n\"The Guns & Gunners of Hong Kong\", by Denis Rollo, The Gunners Roll of Hong Kong 1992.\n\n\"Eighteen Days\", by Col. D.R. Bennett, R.A.P.C., The Royal Army Pay Office, Hong Kong, 1976.\n\n\"Lyemun Barracks: 140 Years of Military History\", by Phillip Bruce, 1987.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214467, "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-1998", "page_number": 325, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "293\n\nSIR RALPH MOOR AND THE \"BENIN CANNON OF THE BRITISH MUSEUM AND THE ROYAL ARMOURIES\n\nRonald Bishop Smith\n\n(D\n\nIf might be of interest to the members of the society and to readers of the Journal to know from unpublished sources how four old cannon recovered in Benin City (in modern Nigeria) at the time of the British expedition of 1897 arrived at their present locations, that is a Portuguese swivel-gun of about 1540 in the British Museum and three rather archaic looking pieces of various precedences found in the Royal Armouries.(2) One of the Royal Armouries' cannon, curiously to note, has writing in Chinese on it. These four cannon are the only \"Benin\" cannon presently known to exist in England. Another is found in the Museum für Völkerkunde in Berlin and more may exist.\n\nIn the central Archives of the British Museum there is a document in the \"Book of Presents\" for 1899 which throws much light on the four \"Benin\" cannon in England. It is dated 30 May 1899.\n\nMr Read has the honour to report that he has received from Sir Ralph Moor H.M. Commissioner and Consul General for the Niger Coast Protectorate, through Major Gallwey D.S.O., a consignment of Benin antiquities consisting of three cannon, two of iron and one of bronze; and, in addition, a second bronze gun and a bronze plaque also from Sir Ralph Moor, through the Crown Agents for the Colonies.\n\nMr Read was somewhat doubtful whether all of the three objects in the first consignment were appropriate to the Museum, and whether they would not be more fittingly placed in the armoury of the Tower of London. He therefore consulted Lord Dillon, who confirmed his opinion that the bronze guns were not made in Europe, and are probably, therefore, of Benin manufacture; while of the two iron guns, one is doubtless of European make, and the other a copy made in Africa.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215276, "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": 53, "title": "RAS-2001", "content_text": "# ARTICLES\n\n## INDUSTRIAL DEVELOPMENT IN THE COLONIAL EMPIRE AND THE IMPERIAL ECONOMIC CONFERENCE AT OTTAWA 1932\n\n### NORMAN MINERS\n\nIt is generally agreed that the development of manufacturing industry in the colonial empire was very limited. A recent study of colonial development describes progress before independence as derisory.1 Joseph Chamberlain spoke of the colonies as a great underdeveloped estate that must be developed with imperial assistance for the sake of the local population and also for the benefit of the whole world. Similar sentiments were expressed by Lord Lugard, Lord Milner, Leopold Amery and many others. But development was seen primarily as the expanded production of foodstuffs, raw materials and minerals. Colonial governments encouraged the production of cash crops for export and built the roads, railways and harbours to transport produce to markets overseas, but they were unwilling to spend their limited tax revenues to assist the establishment of local industries.\n\nThe attitude of the British government was that the colonies were essentially agricultural and producers of primary commodities in a complementary partnership with the industrialised nations, chiefly the United Kingdom. The artificial encouragement of manufacturing was contrary to the prevailing ideology of free trade and the belief that the state should not intervene to distort the free play of economic forces. Expatriate trading firms were interested in the profits to be made from exports and imports rather than the processing of primary products or manufacturing for the local market. Indigenous businessmen were few and faced formidable obstacles such as the small size of the local market, unskilled and untrained labour, lack of access to long-term credit from foreign banks and competition from established imports from the metropolis.\n\nIt is said that the industrial development of the colonies was deliberately restrained by the British government, which was unduly deferential to commercial interests who objected to local manufacture displacing exports from Britain. It has also been claimed that colonial governors were reluctant to put forward schemes for industrial development because they believed they should act as trustees for the native peoples and avoid the disruption of traditional society by the social effects of industrialisation.3\n\nThe Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, Vol.30, No.2, May 2002, pp.53-76\n\nPUBLISHED BY FRANK CASS, LONDON", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215277, "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": 54, "title": "RAS-2001", "content_text": "2\n\nThere is one exception to these generalisations, a deviant case which has never been analysed by the economists who deplore the underdevelopment of the colonial empire. The amazing economic growth of Hong Kong since its liberation from the Japanese occupation in 1945 is well known, but it is widely assumed that before the war the Hong Kong economy was almost entirely based upon the entrepôt trade transporting goods to and from China and that its transformation from a trading mart to a manufacturing centre began with the post-war arrival of industrialists from Shanghai fleeing from the chaos of China's civil war. In fact, the development of industry had begun in the nineteenth century and by 1939 Hong Kong had built up a flourishing export trade in manufactured goods to China and neighbouring Asian countries and was even successfully competing with British firms in a few items in the British home market.\n\nThe growth of Hong Kong industry was accelerated in the 1930s by decisions taken at the Imperial Economic Conference which met at Ottawa in August 1932. The conference was called to find ways of combating the worldwide economic depression by stimulating trade between the countries of the empire after the British government had decided to abandon its long-standing commitment to free trade and to impose a ten per cent tariff on foreign imports. The conference was mainly occupied with bargaining between Britain and the dominions over the terms on which agricultural products from the dominions would enter the British market and the access of British manufactured goods to the dominions.\n\nThe ministers meeting at Ottawa also decided to impose stringent restrictions by tariffs and specific duties on imports of textiles and other goods from Japan which were beginning to penetrate empire markets, displacing British and Canadian manufactures. Chinese businessmen in Hong Kong took advantage of this attempt to exclude Japanese goods from dominion and colonial markets to export large quantities of cheap footwear and textiles to the empire. This provoked indignant complaints from industrialists in Britain and Canada who demanded that restrictions should be placed on the supercompetitive Hong Kong manufactures.\n\nHong Kong's successful penetration of empire markets forced the British government for the first time to consider what its policy should be towards the industrial development of the colonial empire. Two interdepartmental committees of civil servants were set up in 1933 and 1937, but no authoritative decision was reached by the cabinet before the outbreak of war in 1939. Officials at the Colonial Office defended the right of the colonies to diversify their economies by moving into manufacturing, but the Board of Trade and the Treasury were generally unenthusiastic about such schemes where they might result in a reduction of British exports.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215278, "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": 55, "title": "RAS-2001", "content_text": "3\n\nBefore 1932 a number of small factories had been established in the colonies. Cotton ginning factories, sugar cane crushing mills, fibre decorticating plants, tobacco grading and packing factories, saw mills and tin smelters had been constructed to reduce the bulk of primary products and make them more convenient for export. Other industries were started for the purpose of import substitution. In almost all the sugar producing colonies sugar refineries had been set up. Edible oil, lard and soap factories were established using local produce in Nigeria, Ceylon, Nyasaland, Trinidad, Jamaica, British Guiana, British Honduras and Fiji. Breweries had been established in the Gold Coast, Kenya, Cyprus, Malta, Jamaica and the Straits Settlements; match factories in British Guiana, Jamaica and Trinidad; a canned pineapple factory in Malaya. This is by no means an exhaustive list of industrial enterprises in the colonial empire in 1932. All these factories had been set up to serve the local market and had taken advantage of tariffs which had originally been imposed by colonial governments for revenue purposes. In some cases this level of protection was sufficient to make the factory viable. In other cases the company contemplating investment asked the governor for the tariff to be increased so as to exclude competitive imports or asked for a guarantee that no excise duty would be imposed or that any excise duty would be levied at a reduced rate.\n\nColonial governors showed no reluctance to grant these concessions in order to encourage the establishment of local industries in spite of the loss of customs revenue and the increased prices paid by the consumer for goods previously imported. Often governors neglected to seek specific permission from the Colonial Office to make such changes to the schedules of their customs ordinances. In a number of cases the Colonial Office heard of the new protective duties only when British manufacturers complained that they were being excluded from the colonial market. When an industrial project was referred to London governors used various arguments to support the protection of infant industries in their colonies: that the proposal was a legitimate development of local resources; that it would relieve unemployment; that a pledge of protection had already been given by government to the promoters; or that the proposals had the support of the unofficial members of the executive and legislative councils.\n\nNormally the Colonial Office did not refuse to sanction the grant of assistance to the new local enterprise. For example, in 1927 the legislative council of Jamaica passed an ordinance to increase the tariff on biscuits, soap, edible oils, cordage and matches and to remove the excise duty on soap, edible oils and matches in order to protect local industries. The Colonial Office sanctioned this ordinance without any adverse comment. Once an ordinance had been passed by a colony's legislature and had received the governor's assent it", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215279, "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": 56, "title": "RAS-2001", "content_text": "could be nullified only by the use of the crown prerogative of disallowance. The Colonial Office was most reluctant to exercise this power except in extreme circumstances since it might cause the governor public embarrassment. There are only three cases to be found in the files before 1933 where the Colonial Office was consulted about a project and imposed its veto.\n\nThe progress of industrialisation in Hong Kong was completely different from all other British colonies where factories could be established only with the aid of protective tariffs and other government assistance and manufactured goods were sold only in the local market. Hong Kong island was originally occupied because it had the best deep-sea harbour between Shanghai and Indo-China. It served as a base for the British navy and a place where merchants could store their goods and transfer them from ocean-going vessels to smaller ships to trade at ports along the China coast and inland waterways. About 80 per cent of the goods passing through the harbour consisted of re-exports destined for South China from overseas or from North China, or exports from China being transhipped in Hong Kong. Since the principal reason for Hong Kong's existence was to be an entrepôt for trade with China, it has always been a free port with no customs duties on imports or exports. Industries were established early in the colony's history to provide for the needs of the port and to process primary products for local consumption and export to China. Shipbuilding and ship-repairing yards were established soon after Hong Kong island was occupied in 1841, followed by a rope-making factory in 1851, a flour mill in 1859, a sugar refinery in 1870, a distillery in 1871, tobacco and cigarettes in 1880, a cement factory in 1897, and a cotton spinning and weaving company in 1899.\n\nIn 1911 the Hong Kong General Chamber of Commerce carried out a survey of all European, American, and British Indian firms in the colony engaged in import, export, and manufacturing. The survey listed 38 trading companies which had also set up factories. The 1931 census found that about a quarter of the working population (112,133 out of 470,794) were employed in manufacturing industries. The 1930 Blue Book listed 3,164 factories and workshops under 102 categories ranging from 124 boat builders to 116 tin beaters and 14 weaving factories. Most of these establishments were very small, situated in the back streets and tenements of the urban area. In 1932 only 586 were registered under the new Factories and Workshops Ordinance, which regulated firms that employed at least 20 persons. It is difficult to quantify the size of the manufacturing sector in the absence of detailed statistics of local consumption, but it appears that domestic exports of manufactured goods in 1932 totalled at least HK$36 million (about £2,500,000).1 The main items exported were cement, refined sugar, preserved ginger, lard, knitted singlets and hosiery, and electric torches.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215280, "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": 57, "title": "RAS-2001", "content_text": "and batteries, canvas and rubber footwear, rattan furniture, trunks, suitcases, umbrellas and rope. Almost all these exports went to China and the nearby states of the Philippines, Netherlands East Indies, Malaya, Siam, French Indo-China, Burma and India. The only significant exports to Britain were 268 tons of lard valued at £7,000 and £50,000 of preserved ginger.\n\nIn the 1930s exports to China were badly affected by a steep rise in import duties. Under the treaties imposed on China in the nineteenth century tariffs were limited to five per cent, but over the period 1926 to 1933 China achieved full tariff autonomy and soon raised its duties to gain additional revenue, and also to protect its own industries and substitute local manufactures for foreign imports. For example, the duty on rubber-soled shoes remained at five per cent until 1931 when it was raised to 17 per cent and then to 30 per cent in 1933. Similar protectionist moves were made by neighbouring countries in an attempt to combat the world depression of the 1930s. The Philippines raised its tariff on rubber shoes from 25 per cent to 100 per cent in 1933. This escalation in tariff barriers affected Hong Kong's trade and economic prosperity in two ways: the entrepôt trade through Hong Kong was reduced since China was deliberately seeking to curtail foreign imports; and Hong Kong's domestic exports of manufactured goods to China were also affected. A number of factories were forced to close having lost their markets in China. The value of imports and exports passing through the harbour dropped by 40 per cent between 1931 and 1934. Hong Kong's economy was saved from ruin by the amazing growth in its exports of manufactured goods to empire markets. This was an unintended consequence of the decisions taken at Ottawa to erect trade barriers to exclude Japanese exports.\n\nPage 17\n\nII\n\nWhen the colonies of European settlement had advanced to internal self-government it was no longer politically possible for Britain to exercise control over their trade and tariff policies. The dominions wished to protect their infant industries against imported manufactures, including imports from Britain. At imperial conferences the dominion premiers offered to grant a preferential rate of duty to British goods and asked that Britain should reciprocate by granting a tariff preference to empire produce over foreign goods. Britain refused this offer and remained committed to free trade. The dominions then acted unilaterally to make Britain a beneficiary of their tariff policies. Canada was the first to grant tariff preferences to Britain in 1897, followed by South Africa, New Zealand and Australia. In 1907 the preferences granted to Britain by Canada were extended to the West Indian colonies, South Africa, New Zealand, India, Ceylon and the", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215281, "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": 58, "title": "RAS-2001", "content_text": "6\n\nStraits Settlements, but not to Hong Kong. The governor protested to the Colonial Office at Hong Kong's exclusion in 1907, 1910 and 1912 but the Canadian government refused to include Hong Kong within its preferential tariff on the grounds that goods from China might be shipped through Hong Kong's open port and fraudulently obtain the benefit of Canada's preferential tariff.\" So Hong Kong's exports of cement and refined sugar were taxed at the highest rate and soon lost their market in Canada. In 1912 a trade agreement was negotiated between Canada and the West Indian colonies whereby Canadian exports were granted preferential tariffs in return for Canadian preferences on Caribbean cane sugar, cocoa beans and lime juice. The West Indian colonies negotiated this trade agreement directly with Canada and the secretary of state for the colonies raised no objection. These preferences were increased by a new trade agreement in 1920 and were generalised to benefit goods from all empire sources.20 The Colonial Office invited all colonies and protectorates to consider the practicability of introducing preferential rates of duty for goods of imperial origin. But most of the colonial empire was prevented by international treaties from imposing discriminatory tariffs. Northern Rhodesia, Kenya and Uganda, being part of the Congo Basin, were forbidden to discriminate by the Convention of St. Germain (1919); Nigeria and the Gold Coast by the Anglo-French treaty of 1898; and Tanganyika, Togoland, Cameroons and Palestine were mandated territories of the League of Nations which prohibited discrimination. By 1932 the only colonies which were free to adopt imperial preference but had not done so were Somaliland, Ceylon, the Straits Settlements, Hong Kong and certain islands in the Pacific.\" Canada and New Zealand were the only dominions which granted any preferences to the colonial empire before 1932. Australia, South Africa, Newfoundland, Southern Rhodesia and India granted none.\n\nThe world trade depression which began in 1929 convinced British politicians that the liberal principles of free trade which had been followed for the past 70 years must be abandoned. The National government elected in 1931 quickly passed the Import Duties Act which imposed a general duty of 10 per cent ad valorem on all imports. Section 5 of the act granted an entire exemption from the general duty to imports from all colonies, protectorates and mandated territories, provided that at least 25 per cent of the value was derived from materials grown or produced or from work done within a part of the empire.\" Imports from the dominions and India were exempted from duty only until November pending the outcome of an Imperial Economic Conference.\" A circular despatch was sent by the Colonial Office to all colonies and protectorates drawing attention to the great advantages extended to the colonies by the Import Duties Act and inviting them to give similar preferences to United Kingdom manufactures", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215282, "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": 59, "title": "RAS-2001", "content_text": "where the territory was not debarred from doing so by treaty. In preparation for the negotiations at Ottawa the colonies were also asked to consider what preferences might be accorded them by the dominions and what preferences they might give to the dominions in return on the lines of the Canada-West Indies agreement.”\n\n34\n\nThe governor, Sir William Peel, discussed Hong Kong's position while visiting the Colonial Office in June 1932. Officials agreed with him that Hong Kong's status as a free port made it impossible to impose anything like a general tariff. Any such tariff would ruin the entrepôt trade which was vital to Hong Kong's existence and no practicable means could be devised of landing goods in bond for re-export without involving so much inconvenience as to drive the entrepôt trade to other neighbouring ports. Peel was prepared as a gesture to give a preference to empire products on articles such as spirits and tobacco which were subject to excise duty and to impose a higher rate of first registration tax on foreign motor cars than on cars imported from Britain and Canada. He did not ask for any preference from the dominions in return since in his view the bulk of Hong Kong exports consists of foreign goods the proportion of the cost of which, due to treatment in Hong Kong, was not large enough to secure a preference...” This showed a surprising ignorance of Hong Kong's growing trade in domestic manufactures which were largely exported to neighbouring Asian countries.\n\nThe Ottawa conference convened in July 1932. The British delegation was led by Stanley Baldwin, the former prime minister, and four other cabinet ministers. Canada, Southern Rhodesia and Newfoundland were represented by their prime ministers; Australia and New Zealand by former prime ministers; South Africa and the Irish Free State by their finance and trade ministers. India, which had been given the freedom to establish protective duties in 1923, was represented by Sir Atul Chatterjee and other members of the Viceroy's Council. The interests of the colonial empire were safeguarded by the secretary of state for the colonies, Sir Philip Cunliffe-Lister and one civil servant from the Colonial Office, G.L.M. Clauson.\n\nThe conclusions of the conference were embodied in agreements between the United Kingdom government and the governments of the dominions and India. Britain consented to continue the free entry of goods grown, produced or manufactured in any part of the empire, and to impose additional duties on specified foreign goods which would give empire produce a preferential margin higher than the 10 per cent tariff already imposed by the Import Duties Act. Britain also agreed to 'invite' the non-self-governing colonies and protectorates to extend to all the dominions any preference at present extended to any part of the empire, and to increase the margin of preference or impose specific duties on a long list of items requested by the dominions. In return the dominions confirmed the existing", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215283, "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": 60, "title": "RAS-2001", "content_text": "preferences granted to British goods, to increase the margin of preference on a few specific items and to review the level of existing tariffs which protected dominion manufactures against British goods. The dominions approved tariff preferences on specified colonial goods, mostly tropical agricultural products, asphalt, rum and cigars. Each dominion offered a different list of concessions to the colonies and not all were equally generous. South Africa granted preferences only on raw coffee and asphalt. Canada gave little more than the preferences already embodied in the 1920 trade agreement with the West Indian colonies.\" New Zealand was the only dominion which agreed to grant preferences at the same rates as were accorded to Britain to all the colonies and protectorates. The agreements with the dominions provided that the preferences accorded to British goods might be extended to the colonies, protectorates and mandated territories ‘if His Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom so request'. All these preferences were for British manufactured goods. The development of manufacturing industry in the colonies was not anticipated by the governments represented at Ottawa. If it had been foreseen it is probable that the dominion governments would have raised strong objections to admitting goods manufactured under oriental conditions to their markets under a tariff designed to benefit British manufacturers.28\n\nAfter the Ottawa conference a circular despatch was sent to all colonies and dependent territories setting out the tariff preferences which would be granted by the dominions to colonial exports of foodstuffs and raw materials.\" These preferences would give the dependencies a reasonable prospect of replacing foreign imports by imports from empire sources in the dominion markets concerned. In return the dependent territories were 'invited' to grant to the dominions the preferences which the colonial secretary had negotiated at Ottawa. Cunliffe-Lister made clear that it was a matter of the highest importance that the Ottawa settlement should be put into effect as an integral whole.\n\nI should feel that I had been guilty of a breach of faith if the legislature concerned refused to grant the preference in question, unless I could put to the dominion government concerned clear evidence that there were really substantial reasons for not granting the proposed preference. It would not be an adequate ground of objection to say that the desired preference might increase the local cost of living, so long as the increase was only moderate and did not cause hardship to a particularly poor class of the community.\n\nGovernors prepared the necessary legislation for introduction into the colonial legislatures, but a number warned the Colonial Office that they\n\nPage 60\n\nPage 61", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215284, "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": 61, "title": "RAS-2001", "content_text": "faced serious opposition from the unofficial members. Except in the case of Ceylon, where the elected unofficials had a majority in the legislature, governors were able to ensure the enactment of the new customs schedules by the votes of the officials and the nominated unofficial members, but they were reluctant to do so against popular opposition. The Colonial Office warned the recalcitrant colonies that if legislation were to be delayed or amended the dominions might refuse to implement the new preferences agreed at Ottawa or withdraw existing preferences; the British parliament might also withdraw the preferences granted to the colony under the 1932 Import Duties Act.\" So the legislation was eventually passed in all the colonies in spite of great popular opposition. In the Leeward Islands there were shouts of 'What happened to Judas?\" at the end of the meeting, and the residence of a nominated unofficial member who voted for the bill was destroyed by fire.\" \n\n... \n\nIn the West Indian colonies opposition focused on the clause in the United Kingdom-Canada agreement which obliged the colonies to impose a duty of one shilling per pair on rubber boots and shoes and rubber-soled canvas boots and shoes in addition to the general preferential ad valorem rate. Hosiery of cotton or artificial silk (rayon) was to be charged an additional duty of sixpence a pair and silk hosiery an additional duty of ninepence a pair. These massive tariff increases were designed to exclude Japanese competition from a market which had been a Canadian monopoly until 1929. The governor of Barbados protested that Japanese shoes were sold at one shilling and eightpence a pair with the result that many were now shod who had previously gone barefooted, reducing the incidence of ankylostomiasis (hookworm infestation); if a specific duty of one shilling were imposed the resultant price would be beyond the reach of the poor, while being still much below the price at which Canada could supply footwear.\" The governor of the Windward Islands protested that stockings from Japan cost only fourpence a pair and would rise threefold to 13 pence a pair if the new tariffs were imposed.\" Other governors of the West Indian colonies made similar complaints, but the Colonial Office was obdurate that the preferences granted to the colonies by the dominions on their exports of primary products were conditional on the full implementation of the Ottawa agreements by the colonies. \n\n13% \n\nIII \n\nThe swingeing increases in duty on Japanese canvas and rubber footwear did not achieve their intended effect of restricting the market to Canadian manufacturers. Within months of the implementation of the Ottawa agreements, canvas shoes with rubber soles produced by a factory in", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215285, "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": 62, "title": "RAS-2001", "content_text": "Singapore were being exported to the West Indian colonies. In November 1932 a Canadian manufacturer of rubber shoes complained to the Canadian minister of trade and commerce that in the last two months 15,000 pairs of rubber shoes had been imported into Barbados from Singapore at prices far below that of shoes produced in Canada. The Canadian minister wrote directly to Cunliffe-Lister asking for his help. He expressed the fear that unless something was done additional factories would be erected in Singapore and Hong Kong to take advantage of the new tariff and cheap Asiatic labour. The colonial secretary replied that it would be impossible to introduce in any colony legislation discriminating against goods produced in another colony; this would cut across the principle of solidarity between various parts of the empire which had been accepted at Ottawa and would inevitably cause a serious revulsion of feeling in these colonies.35\n\nExports of rubber boots and shoes to the West Indian colonies continued to increase at an alarming rate throughout 1933. They even penetrated the Canadian home market. Factories in Hong Kong which had previously exported their boots and shoes to China and the Philippines found themselves priced out of these markets by new protective tariffs and turned to export their products to the West Indies and Britain. Canadian and British footwear manufacturers faced with the loss of markets which they had formerly monopolised claimed that the Singapore factory was owned by Japanese interests who were seeking to evade heavy duties by setting up factories within the empire. In fact all the factories in Singapore and Hong Kong were owned and managed by Chinese businessmen. The empire content of the shoes was over 90 per cent since they were made from Malayan rubber and British canvas by British subjects working in a British colony and carried to Britain in British ships. There were no grounds for denying imperial preference to Hong Kong products in accordance with the Ottawa agreements. The Canadian prime minister, R.B. Bennett, complained to Cunliffe-Lister that the importation of rubber shoes was utterly demoralising the Canadian industry; thousands of workers would lose their jobs unless action was taken to prevent the continuation of this destructive and unfair competition.\" The colonial secretary replied that it would obviously not be politically possible to invite the legislative council of the Straits Settlements to pass legislation prohibiting the manufacture of rubber shoes in Singapore or their export to markets overseas.\" \n\nMeanwhile another industry long established in Hong Kong was causing embarrassment to the Colonial Office. The governor sent a telegram to London complaining that the Hong Kong and Whampoa Dock Company had tendered to build a 500 ton coaster for Australia but had discovered that it was liable to a 15 per cent duty and could not claim exemption since imperial preference was granted only to ships built in Britain. The governor", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215286, "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": 63, "title": "RAS-2001", "content_text": "II\n\nasked that Britain should approach Australia to secure for Hong Kong the same tariff preference as Britain enjoyed, in accordance with article 15 of the Ottawa agreement. He pointed out that Hong Kong had granted Australian brandy a preference in the excise duty of three dollars a gallon and had received nothing in return. Cunliffe-Lister refused to take any action minuting that he was not prepared to press for equal treatment in the dominions for British and colonial industries like shipbuilding in which owing to different standards of living the levels of cost were necessarily different. This attitude shocked the civil servants in the Colonial Office. One senior official minuted, 'I have always assumed that the Secretary of State would be the advocate of colonial interests.' The matter was not allowed to rest there in spite of the views expressed by Cunliffe-Lister. Officials consulted the Board of Trade and when that department raised no objection a letter was sent to the Australian High Commission asking for the grant of preference. The Australian government was most unwilling to extend preference to a territory with oriental wages even though it was part of the empire, but eventually granted all the colonies preference at the same rate as Britain in respect of vessels over 500 tons only.\n\nIn 1933 Hong Kong manufacturers followed the lead of the Singapore factory in vigorously expanding their exports. Sales to Britain grew from HK$16,190 in 1930 to HK$454,252 in 1933 and to HK$1,823,874 in 1934. British manufacturers protested to the Board of Trade about this competition in their home market and the Board of Trade passed on their complaints to the Colonial Office. Cunliffe-Lister suggested that Britain should confine its preference to primary products and that entry free of duty should be refused to colonial manufactured goods which could compete with an efficient British industry. This proposal did not find favour with the civil service. Instead officials proposed that an interdepartmental committee should be set up to consider the whole question of the industrial development of the colonial empire. The committee was composed of officials from the Board of Trade, the Department of Overseas Trade, the Dominions Office and the Colonial Office. The first meeting was held in January 1934. R.V. Vernon of the Colonial Office was the chairman and was said to have been largely instrumental in drafting the committee's report.\n\nThe committee concluded that industrial development in the colonial empire was an inevitable contingency which could not be prohibited or indefinitely retarded; but the committee saw no reason why a conscious policy of the artificial encouragement of industry should be undertaken by the institution of a tariff high enough to protect the products of local industry from imports from Britain or elsewhere. The interests of British manufacturers and of colonial consumers who would have to pay a higher price for products previously imported should also be considered. So the", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215287, "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": 64, "title": "RAS-2001", "content_text": "creation of protected local industries could be justified only where the colony had natural advantages for the development of an industry and where it was likely eventually to be profitable without protection. However, regard should also be paid to the principle of trusteeship and where the commercial interests of Britain and the general economic well-being of the colony were in conflict, colonial interests should prevail. These ambiguous recommendations gave the Colonial Office a considerable area of discretion to determine whether or not a colony should be allowed to institute a protective tariff or provide other assistance to a proposed new industry.\n\nThese recommendations did not affect the situation in Hong Kong and Singapore, where Chinese entrepreneurs were successfully exporting shoes and other goods manufactured from imported raw materials without the assistance of any protective tariff. Their home market was small compared to their export markets and they could easily undercut any foreign competitors. The committee regarded the invasion of the British and dominion markets by cheap rubber shoes produced by oriental labour as an evil, but it opposed the imposition of import duties on colonial manufactures since the Ottawa agreements had granted entry free of tariffs to all imports from the dominions and India; discrimination against colonial products would undermine the principle of free trade within the empire and call into question the preferences and privileges which the colonies had extended to imports from Britain. Instead of tariffs on colonial manufactures the committee recommended that efforts should be pursued to assimilate conditions of employment and factory and workshop regulations to those in force in Britain by the adoption of the International Labour Conventions by the colonies. The committee also suggested the encouragement of negotiations between manufacturers in Britain and in the colonies to divide the market by the assignment of quotas between them.\n\nCunliffe-Lister welcomed the report in spite of the rejection of his idea of protection for British manufactures against colonial competition. The report was circulated to the cabinet for the information of ministers but objections were unexpectedly raised by the secretary of state for India and the chancellor of the exchequer. The main doubt was whether the report went far enough in recommending the discouragement of new industries in the colonies. So the report was remitted for further consideration by another committee, but nothing was done for three years. In the meantime the Colonial Office proceeded to act on the principles recommended in the report. Instructions were sent to all colonies that any proposal to protect a local industry must be referred to London at the earliest possible stage and no bill to impose or increase a protective tariff should be introduced into the legislative council without prior authorisation by the colonial secretary. Telegrams were sent to the governors of Singapore and Hong Kong asking\n\nPage 46", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215288, "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": 65, "title": "RAS-2001", "content_text": "them to call a meeting of the manufacturers and seek a voluntary agreement to limit their exports to Britain as the committee had recommended.\" This was not an easy matter. If the industry in Hong Kong had been established by Jardine Matheson, Swire or one of the other leading British trading firms, the governor could have spoken personally to the directors and appealed for restraint; but the rubber shoe manufacturers were small Chinese firms which were most reluctant to co-operate.\" Before they would agree to limit their exports they demanded guarantees that the quota would be large enough to keep their factories operating at a profit; that no new footwear firms should be allowed to open in Hong Kong; and that there should be a comprehensive agreement between Canadian, British, Singapore and Hong Kong manufacturers to divide up the British market and exclude any new entrants from India or elsewhere. The British manufacturers suggested a quota for Hong Kong of 1,500,000 pairs. Hong Kong said this was far below the current rate of exports to Britain, and asked for at least 2,500,000 pairs. Negotiations between the British and Canadian manufacturers to divide up the British and Canadian markets between them broke down when one of the largest firms, Bata, refused to join the cartel.\n\nThis failure left Hong Kong manufacturers free to expand their exports to Britain without a limit. The largest manufacturer in Singapore went bankrupt in 1935, enabling Hong Kong firms to penetrate further the British market. They exported 2,403,900 pairs of canvas and rubber shoes to Britain in 1935, 3,309,088 pairs in 1936, 4,849,324 pairs in 1937 and 7,007,604 pairs in 1938. These figures do not include exports to British colonies, which were also substantial. In 1939 a representative of the British manufacturers went out to Hong Kong to negotiate directly with the Chinese firms before going on to Canada. Agreement was reached for Hong Kong to have a quota of 6,600,000 pairs in the British market provided that the colony agreed to raise its prices to British levels. The Hong Kong government foresaw considerable administrative difficulties in implementing such an agreement. Legislation would need to be enacted to licence factories and to regulate exports, which would be extremely unpopular. The outbreak of war in September 1939 caused the agreement to be suspended indefinitely.\n\nPage 50\n\nIV\n\nThe imperial preferences agreed at Ottawa and the additional specific duties on footwear, hosiery and textiles failed to achieve their intended objective of excluding Japanese competition and leaving the colonial markets free for British and Canadian textile manufacturers. The Japanese had little difficulty in absorbing these additional costs and undercutting British and", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215289, "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": 66, "title": "RAS-2001", "content_text": "14\n\nCanadian products. To counter this competition the British government in 1934 instructed the colonies to institute a system of quotas for 'piece goods containing 50 per cent or more of cotton or of artificial silk, or of cotton and artificial silk combined'. The annual quota allowed in any colony should be the average imports over the years 1927 to 1931.\" This covered the period before Japanese textiles began to flood into colonial markets. British textiles and empire textiles were excluded from quota, provided that they had 50 per cent imperial content. This measure aroused considerable opposition in many colonies since the poorest customers would be deprived of their only source of cheap clothing for the benefit of the British textile industry. The official majority was used to carry the bill through the colonial legislatures in the face of opposition from the unofficial members. In Ceylon, where elected unofficials had a majority in the legislative council, quotas were imposed by an Order in Council issued by the British government. In spite of its long history as a free port Singapore agreed to impose quotas on imports retained in the colony. Hong Kong refused because of possible damage to its entrepôt trade, much to the annoyance of the colonial secretary, Cunliffe-Lister.52\n\nIn 1936 the Colonial Office asked for reports from all colonies on the effects of the quotas imposed two years earlier. The replies from governors indicated that quotas had been generally successful in excluding Japanese and foreign textiles, but this had had very little effect in increasing the trade of Britain and Canada. As happened when discriminatory duties were imposed on rubber shoes the chief beneficiary was Hong Kong. Imports of shirts, singlets and hosiery from Hong Kong had made their appearance for the first time and were now the dominant supplier at the cheaper end of the market.\" The governor of Jamaica complained that imports of ready-made apparel were driving the local garment industry out of business and suggested specific duties or quotas on Hong Kong textiles on the same lines as the restrictions against Japan.\n\n34\n\nAfter the Ottawa conference other Hong Kong goods besides rubber footwear began to appear in the British market. The Import Duties Act 1932 had allowed free entry into Britain to imports provided that at least 25 per cent of their value was derived from materials grown or produced or from work done within a part of the empire. This provision enabled a number of small manufacturers in Hong Kong who had previously exported their products to China and Asian countries to turn their attention to the British market. Exports of wearing apparel to Britain increased from HK$2,000 in 1932 to HK$498,000 in 1933, and HK$1,169,000 in 1935. Exports of electric torches went up from none in 1932 to HK$30,000 in 1933, HK$128,000 in 1934, and HK$131,000 in 1935.\" The Board of Trade feared that foreign manufacturers such as Japan were shipping goods substantially", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215290, "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": 67, "title": "RAS-2001", "content_text": "15\n\nmanufactured in foreign countries to factories situated in the empire for the completion of the manufacturing process in order to become eligible for imperial preference. So in 1933 new regulations were issued which required most manufactured goods to show 50 per cent empire content of materials and labour in order to qualify for preference. A circular despatch was sent to all colonies requiring them to do the same and a model ordinance to effect this was enclosed. The 15 torch factories in Hong Kong used foreign brass to make the torch casing since it was cheaper than brass exported from Britain. The British Customs and Excise Department ruled that since brass constituted at least 40 per cent of the value of the finished product, unless British brass was used, torches should be classed as foreign and so be ineligible for admission to Britain free of duty. In 1935 the British Customs imposed a specific duty of 14 pence per pound on flashlight torches. This roughly doubled the cost of Hong Kong torches making it difficult for them to compete in the British market. Protests were made, but the British Customs refused to trust the costings supplied by Hong Kong showing a 50 per cent empire content and suggested that the factories should use empire brass exclusively for certain months of the year; if this was satisfactorily authenticated by an accountant's certificate Customs were prepared to allow Hong Kong torches to enter free of duty. Such arrangements were too complicated and expensive for most of the Chinese workshops involved, so they decided to do without imperial preference. Exports to Britain constituted less than 6 per cent of their total production.\n\n58\n\nThese and other moves to limit Hong Kong's manufacturing exports provoked the governor to make a strong plea in unusually forthright terms to the Colonial Office for favourable treatment on the ground of Britain's imperial interests.\n\nWe are a tiny place and have no sufficient home market to support industrialization on any large scale. Between us and China there is a customs barrier and I do not see (with the rising tide of Chinese nationalism) any chance of their lowering the barrier for Hong Kong products. So if there is to be future for industrialization in Hong Kong its market must be a cheap and distant one, a protected market within our colonial empire. From an imperial point of view the question boils down to this. Is Hong Kong to be left just as a fortress port with a dwindling entrepot business or is it to be allowed to make up for what it loses on the entrepot swings by its takings on the industrial roundabout? Hong Kong has (except in the case of rubber) no near or cheap source of empire raw material, and so the empire content of its products will generally not greatly exceed the percentage which the cost of manufacture bears to the cost of material. If this is not", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g", "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": 215293, "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": 70, "title": "RAS-2001", "content_text": "Though the 1934 interdepartmental committee report had not been officially approved by the cabinet, the Colonial Office regarded it as an authoritative guide to policy. Governors were instructed to refer all proposals for industrial development to London before any changes to tariffs or excise duty were submitted to legislative councils, or any promises of financial or other assistance were made to the promoters of the project. Entrepreneurs also approached the Colonial Office directly with their own schemes for industrial development. Officials examined the proposal to see if it was economically sound. Normally the Board of Trade was consulted for advice as to whether British exports would be adversely affected. Expert advice was sometimes obtained from outside government. If the colony was receiving a grant from Britain to balance its budget, the views of the Treasury were sought. The general attitude of the Colonial Office was an exceedingly cautious one, but if the project appeared to be economically viable, officials did not feel justified in preventing its development.\n\nWhen a proposal was rejected by the Colonial Office, a governor could still protest at the decision, arguing that the special circumstances of his colony should be taken into account. Governors often submitted counterproposals suggesting a lower protective tariff or a different mix of financial incentives to enable the project to go ahead. Governors were insistent on the need for industrial development, and the Colonial Office was always very reluctant to overrule a governor who persisted in pressing his views on what was in the best interests of his colony. In 1936, the colonial secretary wrote to the chancellor of the exchequer suggesting that the cabinet should reconsider the 1934 Report, so that when writing to governors, he could refer to the principles laid down in the report as having the authority of the whole government. The Federation of British Industries had also written to the Treasury complaining about competition from dominion and colonial manufacturers which enjoyed free entry into the British market. Treasury officials believed that the Colonial Office was too ready to sanction the establishment of industries in the colonies which might adversely affect British exports, ignoring the fact that Britain bore the whole cost and responsibility for the Royal Navy and colonial defence.68\n\nA new committee was set up, which, unlike the 1933 committee, included representatives from the Treasury and the Bank of England. It met for the first time in February 1937. The committee tried to formulate general principles, but found that in every case they examined, special considerations could be adduced to justify the new industrial development. For example, a brewery in the Gold Coast which competed with imported British beer was defended by the governor as a means to turn the natives away from gin and neat drinks to (cheaper) beer; the capital investment of £250,000 would be", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215294, "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": 71, "title": "RAS-2001", "content_text": "19\n\nvery useful in the depression, and the factory would provide employment for 100 Africans.\" Hong Kong was also seen as a special case where the decline of the entrepôt trade with China justified the policy of fostering industrial development. After much discussion the only specific recommendation made by the committee was that when a protective tariff was granted an excise duty equivalent to the import duty should always be imposed. The final report of the committee was never published and apparently was never considered by the cabinet.\n\nSo the Colonial Office continued to vet proposals for new industries according to the guidelines laid down in the 1934 Report, that manufacturing should not be 'artificially encouraged'. Officials were concerned to safeguard colonial revenues at a time when most colonies were in financial difficulties as a result of the world depression. The Colonial Office insisted that budgets must be balanced, to avoid the need for a grant from the British government and the consequent Treasury control of the colony's finances. The Colonial Office had no money available in its own account to subsidise ingenious schemes, such as a project put forward by an entrepreneur from Trinidad to produce newsprint paper from bagasse and to power the factory with anhydrous alcohol distilled from sugar cane juice.70 Governors could apply for funds from the Colonial Development Advisory Committee which provided £36,500,000 for development assistance from 1929 to 1939. But this fund was originally set up to alleviate unemployment in Britain and no application for industrial development would be entertained which would be likely to compete with British industry.? Officials believed that by discouraging uneconomic industrial development they were acting in the best interests of the native inhabitants. An assistant secretary minuted, 'Manufacturing industry, which can be established in a colony only at the price of a monopoly protected by a high tariff, ends in producing a locally manufactured article which is too expensive for the primary agricultural producers to buy.' Governors were more suspicious of the motives of Colonial Office officials. The governor of Sierra Leone complained that any industrial project was approached from the standpoint that British trade interests must rank first, dominions' interests second and those of the colonies last. Perhaps the fairest summary of Colonial Office policy was made by a junior official: 'Generally speaking we do not want to encourage industrial development in the colonial empire, but we are reluctant to go so far as actually to prohibit it.'\"\n\nWhy then was it that Hong Kong was able to develop a flourishing export-oriented industry without any subsidy or assistance from the colonial government whatsoever when in all the other dependent territories the development of manufacturing industry was derisory, and the few factories that were established were heavily dependent on protective tariffs, special", "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 }, { "id": 215296, "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": 73, "title": "RAS-2001", "content_text": "21\n\nKenya 33 per cent, Nigeria 58 per cent, Ceylon 52 per cent, Jamaica 60 per cent.\n\n7. For example Nyasaland in 1929 raised the duty on imported soap from 5 shillings to 7 shillings to protect a newly established factory. In 1931 the duty was increased to 8 shillings a cwt. The Colonial Office first heard of these increases in 1932 when Unilever complained. Memo IDC(37)No.7, T160/763/F14811/2.\n\n8. CO137/780. Georgina Waylen, 'Colonial Policy towards industrialisation between the wars: the case of Jamaica', Manchester Papers in Politics (University of Manchester, Nov. 1987, mimeo).\n\n9. In 1931 a local company proposed to establish a cement factory in Kenya which required a protective tariff and a guarantee that a very high anti-dumping duty would be imposed on Japanese cement which dominated the market. The Colonial Office refused the request for protection on the advice of the Board of Trade because the local factory if successful would take over government orders, depriving British cement manufacturers of the last remnant of the market. CO533/417/18. In 1933 the Colonial Office rejected a scheme to erect a cotton spinning and weaving factory in East Africa which required a capital subscription of £500,000 from the governments of Kenya, Uganda and Tanganyika. IDC(37)No.8, T160/763/F14811/2. A proposal for a soap factory in the Windward Islands was disallowed because it involved the colony being given a preference over the UK in other colonies from which the copra was to be exported. IDC(37)No.7, T160/763/F14811/2.\n\n10. Hong Kong Blue Book 1846 (PRO, CO133/3), 226, stated ‘A large number of Chinese are employed in their respective shops and houses in the exercise of industrial trades and manufactures and there are scarcely any ordinary wants of the inhabitants which do not meet with a ready supply within the town.'\n\n11. These dates are taken from the Return of Manufactures, Mines and Factories in the Blue Books compiled every year for submission to the Colonial Office. Not all the manufacturing enterprises were successful: the cotton spinning factory closed in 1914 and removed its machinery to Shanghai. But new manufacturing ventures soon took their place. Sir William Robinson (governor 1891-98) in his first address to the legislative council spoke of the advantages that would accrue from a further encouragement of local industries. 'The community may rely upon my aid and assistance in fostering in every legitimate way the development of such enterprises.' Hong Kong Legislative Council Debates, 25 Jan. 1892, 97. This was done by selling public land by private treaty at a discount for industrial development, H.K. LegCo. Deb., 4 Dec. 1893, 1–2.\n\n12. CO129/379, 377-384 and 392-755.\n\n13. Hong Kong Blue Book 1930. Blue Book 1932. The largest factory was that of the Green Island Cement Company which could employ 1,470 men when working at full capacity.\n\n14. Statistics on imports and exports were first collected in 1918. Publication was discontinued in 1925 and resumed in 1931, but no distinction was made between re-exports and domestic exports until 1959. Estimates of gross domestic product were not made by government statisticians until 1961. Domestic exports have been calculated from Hong Kong Trade Returns 1932, compiled by the Imports and Exports Department (Hong Kong, 1933), CO133/103, by identifying all categories where exports exceeded imports, on the assumption that the surplus must represent Hong Kong domestic production. This calculation certainly understates local production since it does not take account of manufactures consumed locally. Also the trade figures do not include the very large volume of goods smuggled into China to avoid payment of customs duty.\n\n15. Memorandum in Clementi to Cunliffe-Lister, 20 Sept. 1933, CO323/1232.\n\n16. Report of the Commission appointed by the Governor to Enquire into the Causes and Effects of the Present Trade Depression in Hong Kong, February 1935 (Hong Kong, 1935), 88-89, CO129/554/5.\n\n17. Trade Depression Report, 75.\n\n18. W.K. Hancock, Survey of British Commonwealth Affairs Vol II, Problems of Economic Policy 1918-1939, Part 1 (Oxford, 1940), 87.\n\n19. CO129/344. CO129/370. CO129/392.\n\n20. F. V. Meyer, British Colonies in World Trade (Oxford, 1948), 9–11, 18–19.\n\n21. Hancock, 125. Meyer, 10-11.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215297, "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": 74, "title": "RAS-2001", "content_text": "22\n\n22. The requirement of an empire content of 25 per cent to qualify for preference was set in consultation with the Board of Trade, which pointed out that some British manufacturers using foreign sources of raw material would not qualify for preference if the empire content was set at 50 per cent. CO323/1192/11.\n\n23. L.M. Drummond, British Economic Policy and the Empire 1919–1939 (London, 1972), 92; Report of the Interdepartmental Committee on the Industrial Development of the Colonial Empire, Colonial Office Confidential Print 445, CO885/40.\n\n24. Secretary of State to all colonies and protectorates, 4 Feb. 1932, DO35/242/4, PRO.\n\n25. Minutes of a conference at the Colonial Office, 27 June 1932, CO323/1193/2.\n\n26. The texts of the agreements are in Imperial Economic Conference at Ottawa Cmd4175 (London, 1932), 19–76.\n\n27. Canada agreed to extend to the colonies and protectorates the preferences accorded to Britain, but in practice raised objections when requested to do so by the British government. See for example CO323/1099/16, CO852/51/9 and CO852/251/10. Cunliffe-Lister minute, 22 Oct 1933, CO323/1232/8, 'Canada has done less than nothing to implement the most essential part of the Ottawa accords.'\n\n28. See the comments in paragraphs 18 and 30 of the Report of the Interdepartmental Committee.\n\n29. Confidential Circular Despatch, 29 Sept. 1932, CO854/174. Sir Philip Cunliffe-Lister is better known by his later title, Viscount Swinton.\n\n30. Secretary of State to Governor of Ceylon, 27 Sept. 1932; S. of S. to High Commissioner, Federated Malay States, 30 Sept. 1932; S. of S. to Barbados, 24 Oct. 1932; S. of S. to Jamaica, 10 Oct. 1932; S. of S. to Windward Islands, 24 Oct. 1932, CO323/1188/5. A clause was drafted for inclusion in the 1933 Finance Bill to allow Britain to withdraw preferences from any colony if it did not grant the Ottawa preferences to empire products, CO323/1230/3.\n\n31. Officer Administering Government, Leeward Islands to Secretary of State, 19 Oct. 1932, CO323/1188/5.\n\n32. Governor Barbados to Secretary of State, 17 Oct. 1932, CO323/1188/5.\n\n33. Governor Windward Islands to Secretary of State, 21 Oct. 1932, CO323/1188/5.\n\n34. Stevens to Cunliffe-Lister, 17 Nov. 1932, CO323/1193/11.\n\n35. Cunliffe-Lister to Stevens, 8 Dec. 1932, CO323/1193/11.\n\n36. Hong Kong Trade Returns show exports of rubber shoes to the British West Indies as follows: 1932 - HK$4,894; 1933 - 116,670; 1934 - 643,337; 1935 - 574,376; 1936 - 1,071,932; 1937 - 1,427,634.\n\n37. High Commissioner for Canada to Cunliffe-Lister, 15 Nov. 1933, CO323/1232/8.\n\n38. Cunliffe-Lister to High Commissioner, 27 Nov. 1933, CO323/1232/8. Canada later succeeded in excluding Singapore shoes by setting a fictitious high rate of exchange for the Singapore dollar. See minute by Calder, 8 June 1933, CO323/1232/8.\n\n39. Peel to Cunliffe-Lister, 13 Nov. 1933, CO323/1231/16.\n\n40. Minute by Vernon, 21 Dec. 1933, CO323/1231/16. R.V. Vernon was an Assistant Secretary who joined the Colonial Office in 1900. He had previously expressed his disapproval when Cunliffe-Lister refused to approach India and South Africa to ask for imperial preference for Hong Kong's rubber shoes: 'The Secretary of State is placed practically in the position of a trustee who is bound to act with the sole regard to the interests of the colonies and is not at liberty to abstain from any claim on the account of the interests of U.K. industry or the susceptibilities of dominion industrial interests.' Minute, 9 Nov. 1933, CO323/1232/3. The attitude of Cunliffe-Lister may be contrasted with that of Alan Lennox-Boyd (Colonial Secretary 1954-59) who threatened to resign if Hong Kong was forced to accept a limitation on its textile exports to Britain. Harold Macmillan, Riding the Storm, 1954–1959 (London, 1971), 739-43.\n\n41. CO323/1294/3.\n\n42. Hong Kong Trade Returns 1932, 1933, 1934.\n\n43. Minute by Cunliffe-Lister, 7 June 1933, CO323/1232/8.\n\n44. Edgcumbe (Department of Overseas Trade) to Eastwood (Colonial Office), 18 April 1936, CO323/1298/10.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215537, "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": 314, "title": "RAS-2001", "content_text": "264\n\n10. Chekiang and Kiangsu\n\n11. Hopeh and Shantung\n\n12. Pentecostal\n\n13. Christian\n\n2. Distribution of lots at Wo Hop Shek Cemetery:\n\nCoffin section:\n\n1. General\n\n2. Chiu Chow\n\n3. Fukien\n\n4. Yan Ping\n\n5. Wai Hoi Wai\n\n6. Pentecostal\n\n7. 7th Day Adventists\n\nUrn section:\n\n1. General\n\n2. Chiu Chow\n\n3. Toi Shan\n\n4. Hoi Ping\n\n5. Ka Ying\n\n6. Tung Kwun\n\nThe very large number of indigenous villagers' burial sites/graveyards, some of considerable size, will not be dealt with in this study.\n\n2 Prior to 1926, Hong Kong's official spelling was 'Hongkong.' In September 1926, under instructions received from the Secretary of State for Colonies, 'Hong Kong' was adopted as the official form. See Hongkong Government Gazette (hereinafter HKGG) Notification 479 of 3 September 1926.\n\n3 The name of Wan Chai was not in use in the early 1840s, the area around the burial ground was described as 'that part of the town fronting upon Howwan Bay' in Friend of China of 19th May 1842.\n\n4\n\nOxley, D.H. (ed) (1979), Victoria Barracks 1842-1979. Hong Kong: Headquarters British Forces Hong Kong, p. 25.\n\n5 The barrack area of the present Hong Kong Park site.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215941, "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-2002", "page_number": 240, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "174\n\nwhich the Police Commissioner handed over $20,000 without question when advised of the plot, though it was claimed that the bribe money came from the Shanghai triads leader Tu Yueh Sheng, then a refugee, albeit wealthy, in Hong Kong. Whatever the truth behind the story, it gained currency as it made the escape of General Yee and Admiral Chan Chak palatable to colonials by portraying it as an honourable act by the British to reward Yee for his assistance in saving them.\n\nIt was almost certainly also a smokescreen to disguise the removal from Hong Kong of something important to the British. MacDougall claimed in 1942 that he had not planned to go but had been persuaded at the last moment by senior government officials. MacDougall however was circumspect, careful not to betray sensitive information in an open letter. He could, however, say that during the last two years his work had 'become increasingly political in character. Officially neutral in the Sino-Japanese War, I had nevertheless behind the scenes consistently exerted what influence I possessed toward blocking and hampering the propaganda and other activities of the Japanese and the adherents of the Wang Ching Wei....I had worked very closely with Chinese organisations and did all in my power, consistent with the interests of the Colony, to aid them.' It should also be noted that he was not an officer of the colonial establishment but belonged to the Ministry of Information. He was to return to Hong Kong on liberation to reinstate the administration. While no high-profile officers escaped with the Chan Chak group, it is probable that some were carrying information. There were men from Army, Navy, and Air Force, and they were chosen for the mission, only one man being a \"guest.\"\n\n* xviii Major Goring was to spend much of the war attached to various strategic planning groups in the China theatre.\n\nThe extent of KMT activity in Hong Kong was considerable. Hong Kong was a sort of open house where all factions of Chinese politics from left to right could operate, as long as they were discreet. Overt acts of terrorism and subversion in other colonies, like the Malayan federation, were suppressed. The territory was also the port through which arms and armaments flowed into China. Technically this was in breach of the Hague Convention as Britain was supposed to be neutral, but there were ways of smuggling and circumventing the system. Baileys, the Hong Kong shipyard, built river gunboats that were outfitted with guns once they entered China. The same technology that enabled\n\nPage 240\n\nPage 241", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215950, "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-2002", "page_number": 249, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "183.\n\nNOTES\n\n1 Quoted in Endacott and Birch, Hong Kong Eclipse, Hong Kong 1978 p 56\n\nTM Grimsdale Thunder in the East MSS\n\nibid\n\niv FO 371/22153\n\n*FO 371/23573\n\nvi Urban warfare and underground resistance: Heroism in the Chinese secret service during the war of resistance. Wen Hsin Yeh, in Wartime Shanghai ed Wen Hsin Yeh, Routledge 1998\n\nvii WO 208/2049A\n\nviii ibid\n\nix private diary CO129/23\n\n* Endacott's notes, HKPRO.\n\n* WO 208/716\n\n* WO 208/457, 12th July 1944\n\nx ibid Bunny Hide's report, www.hamstat.demon.co.uk\n\nxi ADM 199/1287\n\nxii \"Police Files G56(4)\n\nxvi Although there are rumours of an incident in which some 400 fifth columnists were reported killed.\n\nxvii Letter to SS colonies 3/2/42 WO 208/733A\n\nxviii Alfred Peveril Guest who attached himself after hearing about the mission from an unknown source.\n\nxix FO 371/22160\n\n** WO 311/543\n\n*** CO129/591/23\n\nxxi WO 208/727\n\nxxii ADM 199/357\n\nxxiii ibid.\n\n***WO 208/3260 p 41, also Ride, British Army Aid Group, Hong Kong 1981 p 44\n\nxxiv CO129/590/23\n\n* WO 208/3260 appendix 1\n\nxxvi ibid, appendix 2\n\nxxvii ibid. appendix 4", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 216091, "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-2002", "page_number": 390, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "324\n\nold Colonial Office in Great Smith Street. Sir Christopher Cox, who headed the interview panel, said: 'Waters, you would be more suitable teaching building subjects in Hong Kong than in Trinidad. Go away and think about it!'\n\nRose, Rose I Love You was the first song originating in the People's Republic of China to become popular in Britain. Yet the composers never received royalties. They could not afford to be seen drawing money from a capitalist country. And as I listened to the refrain in Merry England, it all tied in. Serving in the Colonial Service in Hong Kong seemed terribly exciting and romantic. It made me think of Camp Coffee, Zam Buk ointment and other similar branded goods with scenes of Empire on bottles and tins which I grew up with as a child.\n\n'You're not going to the Far East?!' an acquaintance exclaimed. 'The Communists have just acquired half Korea. There's fighting in Vietnam and Malaya. Hong Kong will be the next to fall!”\n\nIn spite of adverse comments I accepted the offer from the Colonial Office which was shortly to become Her Majesty's Overseas Civil Service. After all a considerable amount of a map of the world was still coloured red. Hadn't Winston Churchill proclaimed: 'I have not become the King's first minister to preside over the liquidation of the British Empire'? At the time I could have been posted to any one of something like 55 different colonies or dependent territories within the British Commonwealth. For me, 'Go East young man!' was the watchword. Nevertheless, some said that the Hong Kong Royal Naval Dockyard was shortly to be closed down.\n\nSo, in spite of discouraging remarks, I \"burned my boats,” sold the family business as a going concern, and went shopping. I spotted cabin trunks made of sheet metal. 'Oh no,\" the shop assistant exclaimed, 'you only need those, Sir, if you are going to some humid place like Hong Kong!' 'I'll have two!' I replied.\n\nShipboard\n\nIn the early 1950s, if one flew to Hong Kong, one normally went by seaplane, landed on water and slept the night in a hotel. The journey took five days. But up until 1959 most of us travelled by sea. The\n\nPage 390\n\nPage 391", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 } ]