[ { "id": 204465, "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": 97, "title": "RAS-1962", "content_text": "86 \n\nJ. W. HAYES \n\nDespite the presence of troops, military posts and police of two types in the Territory, besides the assistance of the local kuk, the magistrate's power to prevent crime appears to have been limited. Piracy, in particular, was rampant at different times, and ranged from the anti-dynastic activities of Koxinga in the mid-seventeenth century on behalf of his former masters the Great Ming, (which occasioned the removal from the coast) through the widespread depredations of large pirate bands at the beginning of the nineteenth, to the milder but still disconcerting activities of the period under review. \n\nIt is necessary to emphasise the prevailing unrest, since until quite recently the only striking difference between the New Territory in 1898 and the territory we know to-day was the imposition of the pax britannica. Until the British Government got into the saddle and established its police stations and patrolling launches, the people were subject to piracy, robbery and other forms of violence as from time immemorial. The Governor mentioned specifically in a despatch to the Secretary of State in April 1899 that “the (Tai Po) district is well known in Canton (i.e. to the Viceroy) to be turbulent, that to the N.E. of Mirs Bay being noted for piracy, and so ill-disposed that I am informed no Customs Official dares to land there except with the support of a revenue cruiser”.30 He probably had this from \n\nLockhart, his main source of reliable information at this time. Of course, the local population were sometimes not averse to such efforts themselves, and as a British Consul wrote at the time \"The old free-booting spirit still survives among many who are now apparently peaceful traders and fishermen [of which] we occasionally get startling proofs in some unexpected daring act of piracy on the high seas or along the coast\".31 Smuggling was also common, whether of salt or opium.** \n\nLooking outside the district to the province and its capital city Canton, the political scene, as revealed by the Trade Reports to the Foreign Office of consuls in the several British treaty ports of Canton, Amoy, Samshui and Pakhoi was the reverse of satisfactory. Though written by a succession of men of obviously varying temperament and outlook they reveal a sad state of affairs. Everywhere there were disturbances which the civil authorities were slow, or incapable to correct, and clear signs that the dynasty was held to have exhausted its mandate from", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1962.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9s166f47f", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204607, "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": 88, "title": "RAS-1963", "content_text": "BRITISH LEGATION AT PEKING\n\n77\n\nQueen. While we were waiting for our examiner, a sudden desire seized Gordon to show his loyalty, after the custom of the country; so he dropped down in front of the portrait, and solemnly knocked his head nine times on the floor, kotowing in proper form. He seemed much inspirited by it, and had a feeling that he was now in some way under the special tutelage of Her Majesty, and could be trusted to floor the paper.\n\nThe impression given by Wilkinson's account is that student life in Peking at that period held much that was enjoyable.\n\nHowever, there was plenty of work for them to do on being sent to their posts. As one observer wrote in 1900 \"Our Legation ... is a bigger establishment than that of any other country, owing to the fact that the British Consular Corps in China has exceptionally large requirements. In the Legation the Student Interpreters, who subsequently become Consular Assistants and Consuls, learn the language of their adopted country and to some extent their future political, judicial and commercial work. After two years at Peking they move on to a Treaty Port and begin to put theory into practice. There are often as many as twenty of them in Peking at a time, besides an efficient staff of older men who act as the Chinese Secretaries.”21\n\nMeanwhile trouble was imminent and another visitor at this same period mentions the marines. Describing the Legation Quarter he wrote: \"The familiar redcoats of British marines drilling on the lawn lent perhaps an extra touch of homeliness to the well-kept grounds. For in view of possible troubles, most of the foreign legations were provided last winter [1895- Ed.] with a special guard drawn from the fleets in the Gulf of Tchih-li. They have since been for the greater part withdrawn. ... As if to heighten the contrast, the Chinese authorities had also assigned to each legation a special guard of their own braves who were encamped along Legation Street.\n\nIn 1900 the marines were to lend a more than homely touch to the scene inside the Legation. By mid-May of that year the anti-foreign massacres inspired by the Boxers had alarmed the Europeans, who were coming into Peking for protection.\n\n20 Ibid., 266-7.\n\n21 Clive Bingham, A Year in China 1899-1900 (London, 1901), 47-8.\n\n22 Valentine Chirol, The Far Eastern Question (London, 1896), 42-3.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1963.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/4m90m091v", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205795, "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-1969", "page_number": 101, "title": "RAS-1969", "content_text": "KING MONGKUT AND THE KINGDOM OF SIAM\n\n95\n\nSiamese were willing to have a treaty which would open up trade and increase Western influence. They had some anxiety, however, about what the Cochin-Chinese, the Vietnamese would think about the treaty. Would they conclude that the Siamese had surrendered to the British? King Mongkut asked Bowring time and again to go to Cochin-China to make a similar treaty. The King was also anxious about the kind of man who would be chosen as British Consul, if this article of the treaty were accepted. Would he be as much a gentleman as Sir John? Bowring assured him that only the best man would be appointed and that he hoped to go to Cochin-China.\n\nThe whole business for this momentous treaty was transacted in the most felicitous manner. King Mongkut and his equally intelligent Prime Minister, Praya Suriwongse, understood the issues at stake; these were not merely the details of imports and exports, the appointment of Consuls and the rights of foreigners, they were no less than the independence of Siam and the beginning of her modernization. It was much to Bowring's credit (and to Harry Parkes and young Bowring) that he was able to gain the confidence of the King, to allay his fears, and to assure the Siamese that the new policy that the treaty was launching was greatly to their own as well as to the British advantage.\n\nThe Treaty of Friendship and Commerce was signed on 18th April, 1855, less than a month after the arrival of the mission. Its first article pledged perpetual peace and friendship and the protection of the two nations' subjects in each other's countries. Article 2 provided for the appointment of a British Consul at Bangkok who would have jurisdiction over British subjects in Siam. The third article was an extension of the second, requiring that Siamese offenders should be given up to Siamese justice and British offenders to British justice, that is, the Consul. This was the system of extra-territorial rights which had recently been obtained from the Chinese after the Opium War. It was an infringement of Siam's sovereignty but it gave assurance to British subjects that they would not be exposed to the severity of Siamese justice and encouraged the setting up of business houses. This right was given up in 1909, long before its withdrawal in China, in return for the independence of Kedah and the other northern Malay States from Siam. The next three articles of the treaty were all concerned with the rights of British subjects. They could", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1969.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9g553n20d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205797, "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-1969", "page_number": 103, "title": "RAS-1969", "content_text": "KING MONGKUT AND THE KINGDOM OF SIAM\n\n97\n\nceremonies, audiences and banquets. A white elephant had been captured the previous year, the most auspicious of auguries for the new reign and now its presence seemed to be bringing the expected good fortune. Mongkut seemed to enjoy the company of the Englishmen, particularly Bowring whom he called “my friend”. As a parting gift he offered Sir John two elephants, but they were gracefully declined owing to transport difficulties. But Bowring did accept two tufts of hair from the white elephant's tail, which he later presented to Queen Victoria.\n\nThe gates were open. Within a year the Americans and the French had signed their own versions of the treaty with King Mongkut. In the next three years half a dozen European nations had similar agreements with the Siamese. By April, 1856, Harry Parkes returned with the Queen's instrument of ratification and a personal letter from Her Majesty. King Mongkut was delighted with this royal favour from mighty Britain and ordered a procession for formal delivery of the letter. In fact these ceremonies infuriated Townshend Harris, the newly-arrived American envoy, as he had to wait many days before he could begin discussions on his own treaty.\n\nThe effect of Mongkut's treaties with the West were far-reaching. Trade increased rapidly and had more than doubled by the time of the King's death in 1868. The character of the trade changed. There was virtually no export of rice before 1855, and by the end of the century rice accounted for nearly seventy per cent of Siam's exports. Bangkok grew rapidly, foreign merchants set up offices in the capital and there was an increase in the number of Chinese entering the country. The King's fiscal system had to change. Instead of royal monopolies of imports, taxes were charged at an agreed level.\n\nThe political effects were even more important. Foreign consuls lived in the capital and Siam sent embassies to Europe for the first time. The King took the initiative in employing foreign experts in his civil service. This practice was greatly extended in the next reign, that of his son, King Chulalongkorn. British officers were employed in the police force. A Belgian advised on legal reform. Germans were invited to plan the building of railways. Americans and Danes were appointed to civil and military duties. Most notorious of these appointments was that of Anna", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1969.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9g553n20d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207061, "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-1974", "page_number": 132, "title": "RAS-1974", "content_text": "126\n\nHe went on to say,\n\nJAMES HAYES\n\nDuring my time in Kowloon territory, i.e., from 1893 to 1901, piracies were so common that we regarded it as extraordinary if a day passed without one. Indeed, it was the daily routine for junk masters to report at the Customs Station that they had been pirated and all of their cargo looted.\n\nCustoms duty was 'practically confined to chasing pirates and smugglers', and Arlington states that 'at one time I had no less than sixty pirates chained to old cannon to prevent them from escaping pending their transfer to Canton for trial'.*\n\nWhilst some villages were blameless and the victims of raids and assaults, there were others whose innocence was doubtful. Arlington mentions one case in which pirates had disappeared with an entire cargo consisting of 250 huge vats of indigo weighing as much as 500 lbs each vat, besides 100 head of cattle and 500 pigs, of which there was no trace when a Customs cruiser arrived on the scene only two hours after the piracy was reported by signal at Cheung Chau. It was, he says, 'a safe bet that the pirates came from these villages, and had secret places to hide their booty where it was safe from discovery'.2 The villages in question were on the mainland but he does not say where.\n\nIn the wider area, the reports of the British Consuls on the trade of Canton, Amoy, Sam Shui and Pak Hoi in the 1890s—all save the second within the Kwangtung Province—reveal a disturbed situation. One Canton report comments, \"The old free-booting spirit still survives among many who are now apparently peaceful traders and fishermen, of which we occasionally get startling proof in some unexpected daring act of piracy on the high seas or along the coast.3 His colleague's report from Pak Hoi was more down-right. 'Piracy\n\n'Piracy is in the blood of the race. A glance through the year's diary shows a monotonous record of petty coast raids, hoverings of pirate junks (which still terrorise the neighbouring coastline) and robberies of every degree of dignity from the sacking of the larger pawnshops to the plunder of a returned emigrant from the Straits or Sumatra',4\n\nArlington's evidence shows that the Hong Kong region was scarcely better in these respects than any other. Thus it is not\n\n1 Arlington, p. 171. 2 Arlington, p. 163. 3 FO Report 1606. 4 FO Report 1983.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1974.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/x633mp077", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207805, "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": 193, "title": "RAS-1976", "content_text": "178\n\nA. D. BLUE\n\nBIBLIOGRAPHY\n\nParliamentary Papers — Reports from the British Consuls at the Treaty Ports of China (various dates)\n\nUnpublished Theses for Degree of Master of Arts at London University\n\na) British Interests in Trans-Burma Trade Route to China 1826-76 by MA THAUNG 1956\n\nb) Anglo-Chinese Relations in the Provinces of the West River and the Yangtze River Basin between 1889-1900 by L. R. MARCHANT, 1965\n\nFive Months on the Yangtze T. W. BLAKISTON\n\nThe Royal Navy and the Sino-Japanese Incident M. BRYCE\n\nChina in Turmoil G. H. GOMPERTZ\n\nThe Irrawaddy Flotilla Company M. J. GRUBB and G. L. D. DUCKWORTH\n\nGleanings from Fifty Years in China A. LITTLE\n\nThe Yangtze Gorges A. LITTLE\n\nRiver Road to China\n\nGlimpses of the Yangtze Gorges\n\nTo the Snows of Tibet through China\n\nYangtze Reminiscences\n\nThe Making of Modern Burma D. WOODMAN\n\nSpecial Mission up the Yangtze Kiang R. SWINHOE\n\nM. OSBORNE\n\nC. PLANT\n\nA. E. PRATT\n\nG. R. TORRIBLE", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1976.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/hq382988q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209403, "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": 60, "title": "RAS-1982", "content_text": "38\n\nJ. H. HAAN\n\nPublic Meetings and the voters\n\nI have already quoted some of the articles from the 1845 Land Regulations which dealt with the meetings of landrenters.\n\nThese provisions were still rather crude, but in the 1854 Land Regulations they were refined in the tenth article, and in those of 1869 in articles IX, X, XV, XVIII and XIX. Moreover to the 1869 Land Regulations were added \"Rules of Procedure to be observed at Meetings of Ratepayers\". In article IX it was laid down that \"it being expedient and necessary for the better order and good government of the Settlement that some provision should be made for the appointment of an executive Committee or Council, and for the construction of public works and keeping the same in repair the Foreign Treaty Consuls,\n\nL\n\n1\n\nP\n\nor a majority of them, shall, during the month of February or March in each year, and so early in the same as possible, fix the date for the election of the Executive Committee or Council and shall also during the said months give notice of a public meeting to be held within twenty-one days of such notice, to devise ways and means of raising the requisite funds for these purposes\"; and article XV provided that \"it shall be competent for the Foreign Consuls, collectively or singly, when it may appear to them needful, or for the electors, provided not less that twenty-five agree in writing so to do, to call a public meeting at any time, for the consideration of any matter or thing connected with the Municipality”.\n\nMost Public Meetings up to 1896 were probably held at the British Consulate, although a small number were convened elsewhere. The very first one was in Richard's Hotel on December 22, 1846; later some were held at the Shanghai Library (on April 8, 1861 and August 18, 1864). In 1896 a Town Hall was completed (a new one being opened in 1922) and from that date most meetings took place there. Most of the time the British consul was in the chair.\n\nEarlier we saw that foreign residents thought that municipal government ought to be based on mutual agreement and consensus; but, it might well be asked, whose agreement? In other words: who were allowed to participate in the elections and discussions at Public Meetings?\n\nPage 60\n\nPage 61", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1982.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mk61z420p", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209405, "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": 62, "title": "RAS-1982", "content_text": "40 \n\nJ. H. HAAN \n\nIt was one of the first manifestations of the fact that after all the land-renters were not sovereign in taking their own decisions and that for important measures the consent of one or more consuls was necessary. \n\nFor the time being the matter was allowed to rest, but the fact of tenants not having the franchise was again broached in the mid-1860s. Amidst numerous other signs of civic disobedience, a number of tenants refused to pay taxes which they themselves had not voted. Some of them were prosecuted before their respective Consular Courts with the result that in some cases the Municipal Council was proved right and sometimes wrong.23 \n\nThere was a widespread feeling that tenants could no longer be barred from attending Public Meetings; this feeling was expressed at the meeting of April 15, 1865, by the chairman of the Municipal Council, Henry Dent: \"Hitherto the practice has been of only land-renters voting. That this system is wrong in principle can hardly admit of doubt. Ratepayers contribute largely to the taxes and ought certainly to have a voice in matters of taxation. (...)\"24 \n\nApart from the principle involved, it was doubtless also an effort to muster support for the Municipal Council from the tenant-ratepayers. \n\nThe way seemed open for a wider franchise and indeed the new Land Regulations provided for the vote by some tenants (article XIX). The basis was rather restricted, however, and during the deliberations about the Land Regulations on March 12 and 13, 1866, it became clear that many land-renters who until then had exercised sole power—wished to limit the franchise even more than had been foreseen by the Commission which had drawn up the new Constitution. \n\nThe minimum rent which gave a tenant the right to vote was, therefore, eventually put at 700 taels. The only person who pleaded the cause of the tenants was the British consul, Charles Winchester, whose opinion was \"that the article just read (XIX) did not by any means come up to his idea what the franchise should be. One description of right should not alone", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1982.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mk61z420p", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210258, "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": 229, "title": "RAS-1984", "content_text": "208\n\nJ.H. HAAN\n\nThese were the following:\n\nI.\n\nII.\n\nA Committee (the Defence Committee) \"to consider any propositions laid before them for the defence, draining, lighting and general improvement of the Settlement\", appointed on January 3, 1862.\n\nA Committee (the Assessment Committee) \"to assess the value of foreign property in concert with the Municipal Council\", appointed September 8, 1862.\n\nIII. A subcommittee of members from the Defence Committee and the Assessment Committee \"to consider the modifications (of the Land Regulations which had been proposed by the foreign consuls — JH) and to report upon them to the community\", appointed September 8, 1862.\n\nIV. A Committee \"to confer with the Treaty Consuls, and recast the Land Regulations in some such form as may meet the support of the foreign and Chinese authorities\", appointed March 31, 1863.\n\nV.\n\nThe \"Hongque Provisional Committee of Roads and Sanitary matters\", appointed May 29, 1863 (Hongque, or Hongkew, was what was briefly called the American Settlement until it was merged with the British Settlement in 1863).\n\nVI. The \"Hongque Provisional Committee of Ways and Means\", appointed May 29, 1863.\n\nVII. The \"Hongque Committee of Assessment\", appointed September 21, 1863.\n\nVIII. A Committee to study the possibilities of a Charter of Incorporation; appointed June 29, 1864.\n\nIX. A Committee \"to consider the method of government best adapted to the requirements of the community and that the interests of all classes be taken into consideration\", appointed...", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1984.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/5h73wh572", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210790, "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": 141, "title": "RAS-1986", "content_text": "124\n\nD.L. MICHALK\n\ntheir work, but owing to intense persecution they either left peacefully or gave their lives in martyrdom (Dehergne, 1940). Towards the end of the eighteenth century, Chinese priests were sent by the Bishop of Macao to rekindle the Catholic influence and in 1849 these priests were replaced by French missionaries (Swinhoe, 1872a). The reception of the foreigners was not friendly, the first who arrived was so badly beaten by the people that he died of his wounds (Henry, 1886). The mission never regained its former size, and in 1919, consisted of little more than an orphanage near Haikou run by several nuns and a few priests scattered throughout the island (Moninger, 1919).\n\nIn spite of their long association with Hainan, Catholic priests proved to be a poor source of intelligence concerning the island and its inhabitants, and it was not until Hainan was opened to foreign trade that thorough exploration was undertaken by Europeans. Although James Purefoy (1825), a British sea-captain, described parts of the east and north coasts through which he passed when shipwrecked in 1804, it was the British Consuls, Robert Swinhoe and Frederick Mayers, who unmasked much of the mystery of Hainan by their authoritative writings on its zoology, geography, history and ethnology based on their extensive excursions through the island in 1871 and 72.\n\nThese pioneering observations paved the way for more extensive reconnaissance of the unknown interior of Hainan by the Protestant missionaries, B.C. Henry and Carl Jeremiassen in 1883 (Henry, 1886), which in turn, led to the birth of the American Presbyterian Mission on the island in 1885 (LaTourette, 1929). Like their Catholic contemporaries, however, the Protestant missionaries were viewed with suspicion by the local inhabitants who frustrated all attempts by the Americans to purchase land or secure suitable lodgings.\n\nIt was the medical work of the mission which provided the catalyst for acceptance, and by 1919 there were 32 American missionaries on Hainan, including five qualified doctors. In that year, membership in the 29 churches exceeded 5,000, while 1,500 pupils attended mission schools and 3,000 patients sought treatment at the Presbyterian Hospitals in Haikou and Nada (Moninger, 1919).", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1986.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/jq08c7063", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211111, "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": 172, "title": "RAS-1987", "content_text": "147\n\nHongkong opposed the request for two basic reasons. Any check to smuggling would deprive opium importers of substantial profits. This reason was seldom openly acknowledged. The other reason was frequently stated.\n\nIt was the ever-present fear that the Chinese population of Hongkong would be influenced or controlled by the officials in China and British prestige and sovereignty would be affected.\n\nThe dispatches, memorials and letters of the Hongkong Government, the General Chamber of Commerce, the Foreign Office, the Colonial Office, the representatives of the Chinese Government, the British Consul at Canton, and the British Minister at Peking, as well as the editorials and correspondence in the local papers, such as the letter of Ho A-mei in 1891, point up the issues involved.\n\nThe matter was first raised in 1868. At that time, Prince Kung on behalf of the Chinese Government was discussing the revision of the 1858 Treaty of Tientsin with the British Minister at Peking, Sir Rutherford Alcock.\n\nThe Prince asked Sir Rutherford if China would be permitted to station one of its officials in Hongkong to look after the collection of duties China levied on goods conveyed in junks from Hongkong to the mainland. Much revenue was slipping away because of the ease by which Hongkong exporters could evade the custom taxes. China wished to plug the leak. The simplest and least expensive method was to check it at its source.\n\nSir Rutherford thought that Britain should not permit a Chinese Government official to reside in Hongkong in any official capacity other than that of consul. This would bring his position in line with general diplomatic usage.\n\nIt was the practice for consuls of foreign nations to reside in British possessions to look after the interests of the country they represented.\n\nThe British Minister in Peking was aware that China had a real", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1987.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/rx919b522", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211118, "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": 179, "title": "RAS-1987", "content_text": "154\n\nin Britain and China to submit their views on the document. The Hongkong Chamber of Commerce responded with a memorial in 1870.\n\nOne of the items the chamber found objectionable was Article II. It stipulated that China might appoint consuls in all ports in British dominions.\n\nThe chamber admitted that for ports distant from China the provision was fair, but it should not apply to Hongkong. The port was peculiar and existed in a special relation to China. Nothing should be done that might endanger the dreams of its founders and the hopes of the memorialists.\n\nThey submitted that, \"this Colony was originally established as an experiment, and the views of its founders have been fully realised by its progress and growth. . . Its geographical situation, and its magnificent harbour mark it as admirably adapted to become the emporium of foreign commerce in this part of the world, and the headquarters from which the large financial and commercial transactions of British and Foreign Merchants in China could best be carried out.\" Its location ensured its prosperity.\n\nSuccess, however, may produce envy. The chamber believed that Hongkong's prosperity and its status as a free port “have long been regarded with jealous displeasure by the Chinese Government which has done all in its power to interfere with its trade, especially that carried on by native merchants settled in Hongkong.\"\n\nThe memorialists contended that China could not claim the diplomatic privileges of other nations because it did not qualify as a civilised country. China's capricious legal system disqualified it from acceptance within the community of nations.\n\nIn the opinion of the Hongkong merchants, all governments worthy of being recognised \"find a common unity in their provisions for securing the life, the liberty and the property of all foreigners as well as natives.” This security is rooted in a dependable", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1987.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/rx919b522", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211332, "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": 48, "title": "RAS-1988", "content_text": "24\n\nlife of the city was clearly grinding to a halt. Moreover the British, French and American consuls had withdrawn from the city. The French, seeking to demonstrate strength, had gone on the offensive, burning nearby suburbs. Undeterred, the Chinese forces continued to lob bombs at allied positions during the hours of darkness.\n\n44\n\nAs the summer proceeded the attacks became ever commonplace. Real antagonism had developed between the allied forces and the local population. Attacks on foreigners by armed braves were occurring daily, often in broad daylight, so brazen had the population become. Especially at risk were the British sepoys whom the Chinese had taken to carrying off at the rate of one or two a day,\n\n45\n\nIt was becoming an open state of siege. Many of the local Chinese, no doubt seeking to save themselves, had begun to abandon the city. In early July word came to Baron Gros that the Governor-General had put out a circular calling for the complete annihilation of the foreigners.\" It now seemed likely that a full-scale attack against the allied positions might soon take place. The allied leaders had certainly come to regret their decision to have the Chinese administer the city for them. Elgin was convinced that the arrangement had given a false impression of allied weakness and furthermore discouraged those who might have been willing to co-operate. It was clear in the opinion of Elgin and Gros that martial law needed to be proclaimed and the Chinese administrators removed from power. However, for reasons that are not clear, it does not seem that such martial law was ever proclaimed even temporarily. Again, language problems may have made such a decision impossible.\n\n49\n\nBy late July a full scale Chinese attack was launched against the city walls. Encouraged by provincial Chinese officials, the Kwangtung Militia even attempted unsuccessfully to retake the city from its captors. A large body of Chinese braves attacked the Eastern Gate, the very area the allies had successfully assaulted the previous winter. Unfortunately for the Chinese they were less successful. They took several hundred casualties and inflicted no allied wounds. In the immediate aftermath of the efforts to retake the city, the assaults diminished and it appears that the Chinese abandoned their effort to challenge the occupation seriously. 50 Nevertheless, harassment of individual foreigners continued to be quite", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1988.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212213, "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": 155, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "132\n\nrates and land taxes which work out at only 7.50 dollars per capita, compared with an average assessment in Great Britain of over 17 dollars.\n\n\"The work of the Council, and especially of the Foreign Members thereof, has been largely political, as well as administrative. Since the development of Nationalism in China, it has had to wage an incessant struggle to maintain, and to prevent encroachments upon, its privileges, especially in such matters as taxation, and interference with the administration of justice and the police. In the last resort, of course, controversial issues have to be adjusted between the Chinese authorities and the Consular Body, and the success of the Council in upholding the status of the Settlement depends upon the support accorded to it by the Foreign Consuls. But unless the Council had taken the initiative and watched very jealously over its privileges, the administration would have taken a very different form from what we see today. It must be considered remarkable, when you come to think of it, that from the early eighteen-sixties a succession of men — mostly merchants with little or no municipal experience, should have administered the Settlement in an honorary capacity, in such a manner as to develop a huge, well-governed, and normally peaceful city out of an area of marshy ground. Although for political reasons the Council has not been popular with Chinese officialdom, the presence within its boundaries today of nearly three million Chinese is evidence of the confidence reposed in it by the ordinary Chinese.\n\n\"Anglo-American interests still predominate in the Settlement. Ever since the amalgamation of the American and British areas in 1863 there has been the closest co-operation between the American and British communities. An American has on several occasions been Chairman of the Council. An American citizen has for the past ten years occupied the highest executive post in the Council, that of Secretary-General. Until comparatively recently the Foreign Councillors were invariably Europeans or Americans. In addition to Americans or Britons, Germans, Russians, Scandinavians, and others have at various times served upon the Council. The growth of the Japanese population, which increased from 736 in 1900 to 7169 in 1915, made it only reasonable that there should be a Japanese representative on the Council, and the first Japanese Councillor, Mr. Ishii, took his seat in the latter year. As the Japanese population continued to increase it was well over 20,000, compared with 6,700 British in", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213204, "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": 26, "title": "RAS-1994", "content_text": "As a chartered monopoly the East India Company had the right to exclude British subjects who were not members of the company from residing permanently in China. Their presence was tolerated for only the few months of the trading season. Consuls representing a foreign country could claim exemption from this rule. In 1783, John Reed was commissioned as head of the Austrian Imperial Factory at Canton - the trading establishments were called factories. He had been born in Britain but subsequently became a naturalised subject of the Austrian Emperor. Another Englishman, a subject of Austria, arrived in Canton in 1787, carrying a certificate of naturalisation from Austria. There was, however, a dispute about the national status of Edward Watts and the British East India Company demanded he leave at the end of the trading season, but he stayed on for several more years ignoring the attempt to get rid of him.\n\nDaniel Beale, a British subject who had been in the employ of the East India Company, in 1787 was appointed the Prussian Consul at Canton. This post was held by subsequent partners of the firm of which Beale was a member. The firm eventually became Jardine, Matheson and Co. The present Rua Pedro Nolasco da Silva in Macao is called by Chinese Bak Ma Lo, or in translation White Horse Road. Father Manuel Teixeira, the Macao historian, states that the white horse was on the Prussian flag which flew over what was then No. 1 Rua Hospital, a building occupied by Jardines for some years.\n\nIn the lists of residents on the China coast published in the Chinese Repository and the Anglo-Chinese Commercial Directory, the first name I have identified as German is Edmund Mueller in 1835. He was from Hamburg but arrived at Canton from Manila. He became the editor of the Canton Press, holding this position from 1836 to 1844. In the latter year he went into trade at Macao. He appears to have left China by 1847.\n\nGustav Christian Schwabe is listed as a German residing at Canton in 1837. He had arrived from Calcutta in November 1836 and sailed for Manila in October 1837. The firm of Sykes, Schwabe and Co, which later became Boustead and Co., had its head office at Liverpool with overseas branches at Singapore, Manila and Canton. Mr. Schwabe was manager of the Liverpool office from 1845 to 1853. He then returned to China to head the firm of G.C. Schwabe and Co. at Shanghai. This firm was dissolved by lapse of time in 1859 and was succeeded by Bower, Hanbury and Co, Shanghai.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1994.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zk522640g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 216026, "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": 325, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "259\n\ntowns and villages of the region visiting their Chinese agents, taking orders for tobacco and sugar and checking sales and receipts, used Zhenjiang as one of their bases. They were known as 'sugar and tobacco travellers'.\n\nAn extract from the Shanghai Mercury in 1887 described Zhenjiang and its surroundings in the not untypical purple prose of the newspaper hack of the day:\n\nFew ports in China would seem to be better situated for trade than Chinkiang, a few perhaps have been more disappointing. The first glimpse of the port is eminently reassuring, as the fine bund, at the time of the year bosomed [sic] in trees, the conspicuous houses topped by the British Consulate, and the goodly array of hulks connected by handy bridges with the shore make a picture surpassed in our picturesqueness by none. The hum of traffic and the cry of coolies permeates the air; the familiar aspect of the Sikh policeman appears at the corners of the British concession; the concession roads are wide and well kept, and, what is unfortunately unusual in China, the enterprise of the foreign residents has succeeded in acquiring a system of good riding roads penetrating the country in all directions as far as from four to six miles from the central point.\n\nAt the first opening of the port it was assumed that, with the suppression of the Taiping rebellion, its unrivalled position would make it the centre of a large and increasing trade. The Inspector-General nursed it, and proclaimed it the natural rival of Shanghai, British consuls prophesied a direct trade on its own account with Europe, even the native authorities for a time seemed to have come out of their shell and lent it aid and counsel. One Taot'ai', to his honour, be it said, laying aside the prejudices of his class, re-introduced the art of silk cultivation, and the mulberry trees planted by his assistance have originated almost the only industry which remains in the neighbourhood. In spite, however, of all this flourish, Chinkiang remains a comparatively poor port...the British concession is but a small spot, a few hundred yards square, and on it is concentrated the entire trade of the place, native as well as foreign.\n\nAlthough Zhenjiang in reality was but a minor treaty port it was well-known to western expatriates in China during the 19th century as\n\n•", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 216050, "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": 349, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "283\n\ndoctors in charge, and a Lifesaving institution possessing six well-equipped, well-manned boats always on the river near the port, and ten others dodging about above and below. There was also a free ferry, with thirteen big boats, for crossing the ofttimes stormy and dangerous Yangzi. The city also had a winter 'soup kitchen', a Widows Relief Society and Widows' Home, the latter connected with a Boys' Orphanage.\n\nAnother of the many Western visitors to pass through Zhenjiang was one of the first British Indian Army officers to study Chinese in Peking.\" Colonel Wingate eventually retired from the Indian Army as the Director of Military Intelligence but not before he had accomplished, among other things, a journey back from Peking to India overland between September 1898 and May 1899 to collect information of all kinds'. In the October during his journey up the Yangzi he disembarked from the Butterfield and Swire boat at Zhenjiang and was met by the British Consul, E. L. B. Allen who put him up in the consulate. [One of Allen's claim to fame was his hatred of the maddening noise of cicadas which he disposed of by shooting them with his pistol]. Wingate remarked in passing that Zhenjiang was unique among treaty ports in that it had only a British settlement; consequently most of the trade was divided between British and Chinese.\n\nConsulates were set up in Zhenjiang not only by Britain but also by France, Germany, Austro-Hungary and, for a short while, by America.\n\nBritish Consuls and the Consulate\n\nIn 1858 the ruins of Zhenjiang were declared a treaty port open to foreign trade, and in 1861 a site was leased and laid out for a British concession. The British Consul first lived in the temple on Jiao Shan before renting a house on the slope near Guan Yin's Cave, the site which some sixty years later became the premises of the Chinese Life Saving Association which professed to be part-owner of most of the river foreshore.\n\nLater, a purpose-built Consulate was built on land acquired on the side of Yin Tai Shan [Consular Bluff] together with offices for the foreign employees of the Chinese Maritime Customs erected at the", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 216051, "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": 350, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "284\n\nopposite extremity of the foreign settlement. Some years passed before the site was occupied. On 5th February, 1889, the Consulate building was burnt in a riot together with several neighbouring houses. The final Consulate of a main building and four houses was erected on the same site in 1890. Built predominantly of red brick with white and grey bricks forming the decoration, it had double windows to keep the rooms warm during the bitter winters and a royal reign tablet on the rear wall. This white oval plaque bearing the enjoined letters VR is still in place a century or so later.\n\nAll the British consuls serving in Zhenjiang from its opening in 1860 found time hanging heavily and a number became medically unfit within a short time of taking up their posts. Adkins, the Consul writing to his father in December 1861 wrote in passing that 'the office of Consul at a thriving port is no sinecure I can tell you. He is judge, bishop, police magistrate, coroner etc. etc etc.' As is usual his own countrymen give him the least possible support and abuse him like a pickpocket.' It was also soon realized just how unimportant Zhenjiang had become to foreigners and by 1867 it was decided to post a junior consul to the port under the aegis of the senior consul at Shanghai. However, ten years later the number of British residents had increased sufficiently to warrant a return to the consular post being restored to its former independent status. It was by no means a comfortable place to live though PD Coates wrote that all in all Zhenjiang would have been a pleasant enough post had the [foreign] community been more congenial.24 One incident in the history of the consulate in Zhenjiang related by Coates, tells how in 1879 the Chairman and Treasurer of the Zhenjiang Concession Council, Bean, a British merchant who held several of the nineteen concession leases, physically assaulted H. J. Allen, the British consul, in the Club when the latter as Consul had asked to examine the Council's books before approving its accounts. Duff, another merchant, was the Secretary to the Council. Coates describes the constant and major friction between Bean and Duff, Bean and the Consul, and between other foreign residents of the Concession and this was reiterated by William Mesny as we shall soon see. Oxenham, a subsequent Consul in 1886, described Bean as a coarse, cantankerous, uneducated man of low tastes and malignant disposition who had insulted practically every Consul and Customs commissioner serving at the port.\n\nAdkins described in one of his letters to his father how English", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 216071, "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": 370, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "304\n\nMason's book is fairly thick and contains numerous anecdotes about life on the China coast which in the main have no particular relevance to his later criminal escapade. He explained that he had had no experience of criminal matters and therefore made many mistakes which, with hindsight, he should never have made. He referred also to the American consul in Zhenjiang, General Alexander C. Jones, Mason's oldest and most intimate friend in the port, a southerner who had commanded cavalry on the losing side of the Civil War, and then later, in Hong Kong, Mason assumed the role, in disguise, of an American sailor who had been beached in Hong Kong. He made a great point in his book of how Sir Robert Hart had favoured him as a good employee of the Customs Service, and that looking back he was able to see that Hart had been at pains to try to warn him off doing anything stupid. The tenor of the tale was that Hart and others, including the US consul and the British Consuls in Zhenjiang, had known that Mason was up to something, even, perhaps, what he really had intended to do. Mason ends with no apologies or even any thought of the stupidity of his acts. Out of context, his book would be a \"cracking good yarn\" but taken at face value, it depicts Mason having Walter Mitty fantasies.\n\nHart's letters39 to his London representative reveal that Mason was a 4th Assistant B in Chinchiang [Zhenjiang] in 1887. By mid-1891, in a short sentence within one of his letters, not in any way connected with Mason, Hart refers to the Gelao Hui, whom he did not see as particularly hostile to either foreigners or Christianity but were anti-dynastic and whose activities were incipient rebellion. In the October of the same year, he first mentions the Mason affair and comments on the immense harm it had done to the Service. He attached a draft telegram in which he called Mason ‘a foreign conspirator who had bought arms, seized at Shanghai, with his own money, and whether he himself [Mason] was amateur detective, conspirator, dupe or lunatic remained to be seen, as also whether his disclosures, plot confederates, etc., exist elsewhere than in his own diseased imagination'. There is no indication in any of Hart's published letters that he was aware of Mason's plans, despite, as we learn later, all had already been revealed to the local Customs Commissioner in Zhenjiang.\n\nIn Mason's Confessions, he tells of his attempt to resign from the Customs and of Hart's reply which explained that according to the regulations, this was not possible. He added half-way down his letter to", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 216080, "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": 379, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "18 Doré: ibid: Vol.X: Second Part: The Chinese Pantheon 95-96\n\n313\n\n19 Stevens, Keith (1999) Images of Sinicised Vedic Deities on Chinese Altars: Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society 38:51-106\n\n\"Arlington, LC Through the Dragon's Eyes: 1931: London: Constable and Co Ltd.\n\n21 Rasmussen, A.H. China Trader - My 32 Years in the Orient: 1954: New York: Thomas Y. Crowell Co.\n\n\"Bird, Isabella (1899) The Yangtze Valley and Beyond, London: John Murray\n\nWingate, A. W. S. (1940) A Cavalier in China London: Grayson and Grayson, Ltd.\n\n**Coates, P. D. (1988) The China Consuls - British Consular Officers, 1843-1943 Oxford: OUP\n\n25 Simon Winchester in his book The River at the Centre of the World London: Viking: 1997, expresses grave doubts. He suggests that the anchor on display is too small for a frigate's anchor and could well be a foreign anchor lost from a smaller vessel at some time down the years.\n\n26 The Times: London: 10 March 1869\n\n\"Griffith John was a pioneering London Mission Society evangelist.\n\nA number of the headstones have been preserved in the Zhenjiang Museum housed in the former British Consulate.\n\n\"Stevens, Keith (1992) A Jersey Adventurer Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society 32: 60\n\n*Lorcha - a vessel of about 100 tons burden, having a hull of European build, and generally commanded by a European captain, but rigged with Chinese masts and sails, and manned by Chinese sailors.\n\n\"Mesny, writing in his Miscellanies many years later, frequently confused dates and facts.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 } ]