[ { "id": 204294, "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-1961", "page_number": 62, "title": "RAS-1961", "content_text": "Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society Hong Kong Branch\n\nORASHKB and author\n\nVol. 1 (1961)\n\nISSN 1991-7295\n\n58\n\nAmong the eighteenth century travel books must be mentioned two first editions of interest although not relating to the Far East. The earlier is James Cook's A Voyage towards the South Pole, and Round the World of 1777, unfortunately the second volume only. And the second is Travels in the Interior Districts of Africa by Mungo Park, published in 1799.\n\nThere is a 1771 edition of A voyage to China and the East Indies, by Peter Osbeck which includes An Account of the Chinese Husbandry, by Captain Charles Gustavus Eckeberg and A Faunula and Flora Sinensis. The first volume contains ten engraved plates of plants found in China. In the second volume is printed a letter from Charles Linné [Linnaeus] to Peter Osbeck which says:-\n\n+\n\n+\n\n+\n\nI have read your excellent books with pleasure and surprize. You, Sir, have every where travelled with the light of science: you have named every thing so precisely, that it may be comprehended by the learned world; and have discovered and settled both the genera and species. For this reason, I seem myself to have travelled with you, and to have examined every object you saw with my own eyes.\n\nOne other eighteenth century account of travels and exploration in the Far East should be noticed: A Philosophical and Political History of the Settlements and Trade of the Europeans in the East and West Indies by the Abbé Raynal, 1784. It may be salutary to notice the bitter attacks which the Abbé makes on English administration in India and elsewhere. Books like Ellis' Embassy and Timkowski's Travels have been too often described to warrant inclusion here.\n\nThe Hundred Wonders of the World, and of the Three Kingdoms of Nature of 1824 published under the pseudonym of the Rev. C. C. Clarke, has a picture of the Porcelain Tower at Nankin, China, as a frontispiece. It is sad to think that this wonder no longer stands; it was destroyed during the T'ai-p'ing Rebellion. Processes of time, not war, have destroyed two of London's institutions listed as 'wonders', the Linwood Gallery of Leicester Square and Bullock's Museum, Piccadilly. It is strange to think that in their day they were compared with the British Museum and the Louvre of Paris.\n\nElements of political economy by James Mill appears in a first edition of 1821. James was the father of John Stuart Mill for whom he obtained a clerkship in the East India Company after he himself had been given a high position following the publication in 1818 of his History of British India.\n\nAmong the illustrated books in the collection there is an 1828 edition of Flora Javae by Carolo Ludovico Blume with remarkable colour plates.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1961.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/vd6724704", "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": 204931, "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": 39, "title": "RAS-1965", "content_text": "32 \n\nSIR JOHN BOWRING \n\nrace is thus augmenting, the causes which lead to the destruction of food, — such as the overflow of rivers, fires, ravages of locusts, bad seasons, and other calamities, — are to a great extent beyond the control of human prudence or human exertion. It would be difficult to show what new element could be introduced which would raise up the native supply of food beyond its present productiveness, considering that hand husbandry has given to cultivation more of a horticultural than an agricultural character.\n\nThe constant flow of emigration from China, contrasted with the complete absence of emigration into China, is striking evidence of the redundancy of the population; for though that emigration is almost wholly confined to two provinces, namely, Kwangtung and Fookien, representing together a population of probably from 34,000,000 to 35,000,000, I am disposed to think that a number nearer 3,000,000 than 2,000,000 from these provinces alone are located in foreign countries. In the kingdom of Siam, it is estimated that there are at least a Million and a Half of Chinese, of which 200,000 are in the capital (Bangkok). They crowd all the islands of the Indian Archipelago. In Java, we know by a correct census there are 136,000. Cochin China teems with Chinese. In this colony we are seldom without one, two, or three vessels taking Chinese emigrants to California and other places. Multitudes go to Australia, to the Philippines, to the Sandwich Islands, to the western coast of Central and Southern America: some have made their way to British India. The emigration to the British West Indies has been considerable; to the Havana greater still. The annual arrivals in Singapore are estimated at an average of 10,000, and 2,000 is the number that are said annually to return to China.* \n\nThere is not only this enormous maritime emigration, but a considerable inland efflux of Chinese towards Manchuria and Tibet; and it may be added, that the large and fertile islands of Formosa and Hainan have been to a great extent won from the aborigines by successive inroads of Chinese settlers. Now these are all males — there is not a woman to 10,000 men: hence perhaps the small social value of the female infant. Yet this perpetual out-flowing of people seems in no respect to diminish the number of those who are left behind. Few Chinamen leave \n\n* Journal of the Indian Archipelago, vol. ii, p. 286,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1965.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s752cj653", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205295, "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-1967", "page_number": 57, "title": "RAS-1967", "content_text": "50\n\nL. G. ALMER\n\na match-factory in Yau Ma Tei in 1880, and dockyards at Sham Shui Po in the same year. A glass manufactory was also situated here. An early account informs us that Yau Ma Tei, \"the principal village\" and the main centre of development,\n\nhas increased in population and bids fair to some day become an important town. There is a considerable Chinese junk trade at this place, and amongst other industries is a preserved ginger factory. The Military and Police Rifle Ranges are at the back and near the village. Gas works were erected here in 1892.7\n\nThe New Territories came under British control in 1898 on a 99-year lease, and subsequently new communications were developed. In 1900 a start was made with the main road from Kowloon to Tai Po, and in 1906 work was commenced on the construction of the Kowloon-Canton Railway by a private company. In the middle of the 19th century the organization of the State of California and the gold rush to the Sacramento Valley created new lines of commerce to connect Hong Kong with the American Continent. This was also the beginning of a steadily increasing emigration traffic between Hong Kong and San Francisco. Much of the coolie traffic to Southeast Asia, South Pacific, the West Indies and other countries was carried out through the port of Hong Kong. Whalers began to be a frequent sight in the harbour and, in a free port, the Hong Kong shipping trade was booming in the latter half of the century.\n\nBy the close of the 19th century the valley people had come to experience a critical situation demanding economic activities beyond the framework of the traditional system. Stimuli in this process were supplied by the change in the general economic milieu, and the impact of Western industrialism was not only experienced as something negative and destructive, but also as something that directly or indirectly offered a wide range of new choices. Many men grasped at the new opportunities, and soon found advantages in their changed situation. Men from Big Stream Village took up jobs in the road and railway construction across Tide Cove. Others could be found seeking all kinds of employment in the new urban area in Kowloon. The men in Grass Field Village early specialized in masonry and worked on construction sites all over the New Territories, and in", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1967.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/0c488p70g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205309, "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-1967", "page_number": 71, "title": "RAS-1967", "content_text": "64\n\nL. G. AIMER\n\nemigrants who had left the Colony. The masons in Grass Field Village, who had their village within a day's journey, naturally had a word in all village affairs; but the Big Stream men working in Vancouver or on Aruba in the West Indies had a very limited influence on decisions made in the home community.\n\nVI\n\nTraditional leadership in these Hakka villages was gerontocratic in nature. There were no formal isu (M) or fang (M) leaders. An informal council of old men met occasionally in the ancestral hall to discuss current problems. These persons' influence was directly correlated to the distribution of economic control within the community. As long as this differentiation was small, all elders would have had fairly equal status. Age differentiation within the group does not seem to have been of vital importance.\n\nThe process of emigration created new economic groups. In Big Stream Village, where emigration abroad early dominated the scene, the informal council of village elders is made up of four former overseas Chinese. Two of them have worked in the United States, one in Canada, and one on Aruba in the Netherlands West Indies. The last-mentioned man has quite a good house and has apparently had some resources, but he is in poor health, struck by rheumatism, a fact he ascribes to excessive use of alcohol in his younger days. His sight is bad and is hardly improved by the smashed pair of spectacles on his nose. This 76-year-old man said that he was 'willing to accept anything, whatever it is and whenever it comes.' He has no children. His influence on village affairs is apparently very limited. It seems as if he is taking part in the village council meetings merely to represent the first minor lineage, even if I was never able to confirm a strict rule that all fang (M) should be represented there.\n\nOf the other three leaders, two are men who have spent much time in New York in the United States, and one who has been working in Vancouver, Canada. One of the New York men is Village Representative and the official spokesman with the British administrative authorities. He is 73 years old and a", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1967.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/0c488p70g", "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": 206007, "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": 87, "title": "RAS-1970", "content_text": "82\n\nA. D. BLUE\n\nmarine surveyor was appointed to enforce the provisions of this Act. This resulted in many of the emigrant ships leaving Hong Kong harbour with the prescribed number of passengers on board, and then picking up many more outside Green Island, on its western limits. Even the very modest space of 12 square feet (6 feet by 2 feet) was only provided in the few good ships, and in some sailing ships each coolie had only 8 square feet. Another step to remedy abuse was taken in 1869, when emigration of Chinese to places outside the British Empire was prohibited. A more important step outside China was the appointment of British officials as Protectors of Chinese in Singapore and Penang in 1877 and 1880 respectively, followed in 1901 by the appointment of similar Dutch officials in Indonesia. (It should be remembered in any comparison between British and Dutch colonial administrations, that slavery was not abolished in the Dutch East Indies until 1860). Perhaps the last major improvement was taken in 1914, when Britain abolished indentured labour throughout the British Empire, an act of altruism which destroyed the Penang sugar industry.\n\nBesides emigration to the Nanyang and to South America, the discovery of gold in California and Australia in 1849 and 1851 respectively, started Chinese emigration to both places; and the first official returns of emigrants from Hong Kong in 1854 showed 10,491 emigrants leaving for California and 4,341 for Australia. The Chinese called California ‘Kam Shan', Golden Mountains; and Australia San Kam Shan, 'New Golden Mountains', a name this country still retains among many Chinese to this day.\n\nMost of the emigration to California and Australia was voluntary, and as stated above, the greatest abuses in the emigrant trade involved South America and the West Indies, and in particular the Peruvian guano islands and Cuba. In 1856, for instance, the master of a British ship which had left Hong Kong with 332 emigrants for Cuba, reported losing 128 from suicide and disease during the voyage. The first suicide took place on the first day out, and there was an average of three per day until the ship passed through the Sunda Straits. The captain had received $70 in passage money for each man who boarded the ship in Hong Kong, and collected a further $400 for every one", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1970.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ww72j0241", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207864, "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": 252, "title": "RAS-1976", "content_text": "(b) that nearly all of them hold British passports and may be assumed to have been born in the Colony, and (c) that they are practically all men of working age, then we may conclude that they represent very roughly, perhaps a third of all the men in the New Territories who were born there and who fall within the economically active years of manhood. Since, furthermore, there are certain areas of the New Territories from which emigration has been especially heavy, despite the fact that men from all areas have participated in the movement, there are grounds for assuming that the effect of migration must in places have been extremely important.\n\n73. The scale and direction of the emigration of the last few years are novel, but they rest on a tradition which reminds us that in this, as in many other respects, the New Territories are geographically and culturally part of southeastern China. For, especially since the middle of the last century, the coastal regions of the provinces of Kwangtung and Fukien have served as a reservoir from which many countries, above all in South-East Asia, have drawn population. Emigration to California and Australia,—the 'gold mountains'—was noted by the first British administrators of the New Territories (for they spoke of loan associations got up to finance men wanting to go to these two countries), but there are hints in the early census reports that New Territories people were scattered more widely. The 1911 census shows a handful of Chinese in the New Territories to have been born in Annam, Hawaii, the Philippines, the Straits Settlements, Siam, and Australia. In 1921 the countries which appear in this context, again with reference to very small numbers, are Annam, India, Japan, British Borneo, France, Italy, the U.S.A., and Mexico. The list for 1931 reads: Indo-China, British North Borneo, Malaya, Netherlands East Indies, Siam, Canada, the U.S.A., Cuba, Panama, Guiana, Peru, England, and Holland. There were, in fact, two kinds of emigrants; landsmen who went overseas to make a living in a particular country, and seamen who, whether legally or not, left their ships to try their luck in places to which they had been carried. The establishment of Hong Kong as a British settlement in 1842 created a demand for local seamen, many of whom were recruited from the Chinese villages lying near the new centre. Men from Lamma Island and from Lantau Island seem at an early date to have taken service in British and other ships.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1976.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/hq382988q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207865, "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": 253, "title": "RAS-1976", "content_text": "238 \n\nMAURICE FREEDMAN \n\n74. Early in the British period in the New Territories a considerable movement took place to the West Indies, especially from the Sha Tau Kok and Shap Sz Heung areas. After the Second World War the opportunities for overseas migration were much reduced both because of restrictions imposed in many countries and on account of the failure of the local shipping industry to re-establish its demand for seamen. New Territories men were casting about for new overseas openings; a few discovered the opportunity created by a demand for (what passes for) Chinese food in Britain, where there had been for many years a small but prosperous Chinese restaurant trade run mainly by Chinese from the New Territories and the area adjacent to it across the border in China; and within a short space of time a new emigration was under way, haphazard to begin with but becoming well-organised as its economic possibilities were realised by entrepreneurs. San Tin, whose men now bulk very large in the ranks of the emigrants, appears to have been a pioneer; one of the oldest Chinese restaurants in London was started by a man from this settlement. (I have a figure, which I have not been able to check, of 520 San Tin men in the United Kingdom in February of this year). The movement to Britain was already well-marked in the early fifties; it began to increase sharply in 1956 and reached its peak figures in the years 1958-1962. In the last few months, for reasons to be discussed presently, emigration has fallen away, so that 1963 may well prove to be a year in which the movement to the United Kingdom can be definitively studied. The New Territories demand for overseas work has also been met in part during recent years by the opportunities for contract-labour in Borneo and Nauru and Ocean Islands. The figures for this emigration are given in the New Territories Administrative Reports, but it is a movement about which I know very little and on which I propose to say nothing more.\n\n75. The ability of the Chinese restaurant trade in the United Kingdom to expand by tapping the New Territories very widely for its workers rested on the enterprise of a few men who organised an efficient method of recruiting, financing, and conveying would-be hands once it became clear that considerable profits were to be made. The early traffic was by sea. For a time charter flights took men over to London (and brought some of them back) at £90 a head. More recently the airlines have offered special migrants' fares at £85. Much of the recent financing has been done through", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1976.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/hq382988q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208209, "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-1977", "page_number": 248, "title": "RAS-1977", "content_text": "232\n\nNOTES AND QUERIES\n\nREPTILES NEW TO HONG KONG\n\nThe purpose of these notes is to record the occurrence of one species of gecko (Reptilia: Sauria: Gekkonidae) and three species of snakes (Reptilia: Serpentes: Colubridae) not hitherto known as part of the fauna of Hong Kong.\n\nHemidactylus brookii Gray\n\nDuring the first six months of 1978 three live adult specimens of these geckos were sent to me by Father Anthony Bogadek for identification. All three had been caught in the same locality in the Sai Ying Pun district on Hong Kong Island. The first two, both males, had been found outdoors behind a piece of building material lying against a brick wall, one in late September or early October 1977 and the other on 1 March 1978. The third specimen, a female, was found inside a school on 3 June 1978. There is no doubt that at least a localized population of Hemidactylus brookii is now established in Hong Kong.\n\nThe known geographical range of this species includes ‘India' [and therefore Pakistan and probably Bangladesh], Sri Lanka, and parts of Burma, extending southeastward into the East Indian Archipelago and Singapore; it is also widely distributed in the northern half of Africa, and has been introduced into the West Indies (Smith, 1935, p.91). Its occurrence in Thailand and the Malay Peninsula is not clear as, while Boulenger (1912, p.43) records it from the Malay Peninsula and Archipelago', Smith (loc. cit.) states that it is: ‘not yet known from Siam, French Indo-China, or the Malay Peninsula except Singapore. . . .’ As regards its occurrence in China, Smith (loc. cit.) remarks:\n\nthere are two specimens in the British Museum said to have come from China, both were obtained more than 80 years ago.... Recently (Anon., 1977), this gecko has been listed for Fukien and Chekiang provinces, but without other details.\n\nIn its habits, Hemidactylus brookii is equally at home inside buildings as it is out of doors. It is due to their close association with man that the geographical ranges of several species of house-geckos have been artificially extended very widely in warmer parts of the world.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1977.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208670, "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-1979", "page_number": 127, "title": "RAS-1979", "content_text": "100\n\nREVS. J. SMITH AND WM. DOWNS\n\nhis knowledge of electricity and has done many an emergency repair job throughout the Camp. Father Downs says a low Mass of Requiem at the Maryknoll Sisters' Chapel for Mr. Simmons. The Dutch have expressed a desire to be repatriated to the West Indies instead of to Holland. Father Bauer feeling better.\n\n30—Another meeting of the Americans was held in our garage community room to discuss the question of better baking facilities for the community kitchen. It was suggested that two or more electric ovens be taken from the individual blocks, but this was frowned upon, and the question was tabled. Father Meyer fought hard to retain our electric oven. Mr. Hunt, our Camp chairman, urges all who have not yet done so to get inoculations for cholera. May Devotions begin in the Community chapel, Bishop O'Gara preaching the first sermon. Ever since coming to Camp, the doctors have tried to impress upon the Japanese the inadequacy of the medical facilities of the Camp, and the urgent need of better equipment. Efforts have been made to get an operating table sent in, but to no avail. However, the Japanese have finally granted permission to a few individuals to go to St. Paul's Hospital for X-ray treatment. They go down and back in the Red Cross truck and may remain only one or two days. Father Benson is steadily improving and has just had a skin graft.\n\nMAY\n\n \n 1—An informal meeting of the American community was held, in which Mr. Sindlinger was elected to take the post of Council Secretary vacated by Mr. Taylor who is one of the repatriates, being an official of the U.S. Treasury Department. A discussion also took place relating to the choice of a buyer to go to Hong Kong and purchase our share of the food under the recent allotment of funds. May Devotions on the lawn in front of the Maryknoll Sisters' apartment, an altar being placed on their ground floor verandah.\n \n \n 2—Mr. Hunt, our genial and efficient Council chairman, has been called to Shanghai, and this morning at 10:30 he bid goodbye to his fellow internees at a brief meeting in the Club, and at 4:30 in the afternoon he leaves the Camp along with a British family, the Kadouris, well-to-do residents of Hong Kong. Our breakfast oatmeal supply is at last exhausted and we have but a cup of coffee and a", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1979.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2801w5938", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208800, "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-1979", "page_number": 257, "title": "RAS-1979", "content_text": "230\n\nBOOK REVIEWS\n\nThe years following the change-over were not peaceful. The western relations with China were not, on the whole, harmonious. This was largely because a tradition-bound and conservative bureaucracy, loosely ruled from Peking, was reluctant to allow contact with outsiders except within the long established tributary relationship by which the \"middle kingdom\" dealt with foreigners.\n\nProfessor Graham uses mainly western (and almost completely British) sources in his research. His extensive use of Foreign Office, Colonial Office, Admiralty and Indian Office Records in London and New Delhi has given him the expertise with which to assess British policymaking and the multifarious problems arising in its implementation in the imperial period of the nineteenth century. He uses private papers to complement official sources, delving into such well known collections as those left by the \"actors\" of the story, among them Palmerston, Wellington, Russell, Pottinger, Aberdeen, James Matheson, William Jardine. And he does not neglect the less well known diaries and journals left by common seamen and admirals who were participants in the action of the book.\n\nThe purpose, then, as the author admits, is to see the conflict between China and the west \"through European eyes” (p. viii). But here the author is rather modest for he does make excellent use of the best available translated sources to attempt to understand the conflicts from Chinese views.\n\nThe chapters are roughly chronological, beginning with a discussion of the Canton \"system\" of trade in tea, silk, opium and silver, and tracing the \"campaigns\" of the naval skirmishes in 1839-41 and 1856-60. Inserted, at appropriate places, are chapters on the founding of Hong Kong as a colony, the problems of administration and command in the Royal Navy (the China Station was not actually established until a division of the East Indies Station occurred in 1844), and the impact of the Crimean War, Russia and the Indian Mutiny upon events in China.\n\nIt is curious that rather limited naval skirmishes leading to consular treaties should be denominated by historians as “wars”. Professor Graham defines three separate Anglo-Chinese Wars, viz. 1839-41 (\"the Opium War\"), 1856-58, and 1860. These limited campaigns were found necessary, according to the preponderant British view, because Chinese officialdom was largely ignorant of western armed strength and must be shown by a demonstration of", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1979.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2801w5938", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208803, "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-1979", "page_number": 260, "title": "RAS-1979", "content_text": "BOOK REVIEWS\n\n233\n\nview, states \"this volume will occupy an essential place . . . . in any library claiming to cover the affairs of the Far East in general and those of south-east Asia in particular\". He adds that it is “much more than a tale of crime. It touches unceasingly, and sometimes commandingly, the everyday life's economic activities and official governments of the Chinese population, incidentally throwing sharp lights and shades on the character, social organization, and politics of the Chinese A vivid piece of research not....\n\ndead history + 抒 + + a scrap of\n\nI am not an expert on secret societies, nor have much to offer by way of useful comment on the modern period of the book, but I am most impressed with the account given of Chinese associations in the early period of Chinese immigration and the reaction of the British Colonial authorities to the problems encountered in their train. They were dealing with an enigma and found it difficult to separate the clearly often respectable side of Chinese associations from the secret society or criminal aspect. Where they could be separated (which was not always the case) each type of society had yet come together for mutual self-help. Even the most criminal retained this feature which was so important and continuing a part of the movement. For me, interested in the association side of Chinese life at home and abroad — where, it is necessary to remind oneself, it had initially to operate against a background of all-male life in one or more alien cultures and a different climate — this confusion, the variety across the spectrum and the wealth of material provided in the book are more fascinating than the criminal involvement of certain societies and their leaders at different times.*\n\n* This confusion was noted by others in touch with Chinese in Colonial Society at the time. In this connection, the following extract from a work by an English Presbyterian missionary in Singapore (Archibald Lamont writing under the pseudonym \"John Coming Chinaman\" in Bright Celestials, The Chinaman of Home and Abroad (London, T. Fisher Unwin, 1894)) may be of interest. At pp. 183-184 he relates a conversation by his hero, a Chinese emigrant who is discussing a secret society with his employer, a Dutch planter in the East Indies.\n\n'But although our Society has its dangerous and unworthy subsections and cliques, comprising men who use Society privileges for selfish and criminal ends,' said Tek Chiu, ‘our real aims are the highest and the best. And although there are bad men in our membership, the loyalty that we owe to the Society becomes all the greater. We who are free from crime act as a conscience to the blackguards, who, however bad they may be, will on account of the oath that binds them, do us no wrong. And on the other hand, we may do them much good in dissuading them from evil courses.'", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1979.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2801w5938", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209011, "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-1980", "page_number": 173, "title": "RAS-1980", "content_text": "NOTES AND QUERIES\n\n141\n\n(1810), General Chin Mun-fu ***** suggested that the Fat Tong Mun Fort be abandoned and be rebuilt near the Kowloon guard-station ✯ ✯ A Viceroy Pak Ling T✯ ordered the Magistrate of the San On County 觚 ***◊ to carry out the suggestion.\n\nChapter 175 of Kwangtung Tung Chi, Tao Kuang edition KKAR £&4-4*+ states, \"The Kowloon Fort Aate lies 290 # E west of the Tai Pang Battalion 4. It was guarded by one pa-tsung and one ngai-wai with 48 guards.\"\n\n5 After the Opium War, the Chinese were defeated, and Hong Kong was ceded to the British. In the 23rd year of the Tao Kuang Reign (1843) Ke Ying was Viceroy of the Kwangtung and Kwangsi Provinces **** and Wong Yan-tung & was Governor of the Liang Kwang-tung ✯✯✯. They proposed building the Kowloon Walled City. The work was completed in the 27th year of the Tao Kuang Reign (1847).\n\n* See Chapter 13 of the Kwangtung Tao Shuet, Tung Chih edition ŁATÁRUK+ which records. \"The Kowloon Walled City was under the command of a fu-cheung ## or brigadier of the Naval Forces of the Tai Pang Battalion. Under him was an extra ngar-wai who guarded the Walled City with 150 men. There were 75 men under one tsin-tsune for lieutenant guarding the Kowloon Fort; and one ngai-wai-tsin-tsung ††or sub-lieutenant leading 15 men guarding the Kowloon Coastal Guard Station ALDA.\n\n* See Chapter 73 of the Kwangchow Fu Chi, Kuang Hsü edition ANA££*TE and Kwong Tung Hoi Tao Shuet, Kuang Hsü edition 張之洞廣東海圆說.\n\n* See my article 'The Old Cannons found in Hong Kong' in Volume 8, Part 2 of Kwangtung Man Hin REÆ : RKARXUŁ^ËZI\n\n* The Old Yamen is now occupied by the CNEC Grace Light School.\n\nTUEN MUN FROM CHINESE HISTORICAL RECORDS\n\n2\n\nTuen Mun1 lies in the western part of the New Territories. The highest mountain in this area is the Tuen Mun Shan ₺F2 which reaches a height of 582.9 metres. To the east of the mountain is the Tuen Mun Bay, also called the Castle Peak Bay lying to its east, and the Lantau with Kau King Shan A Island lying to its south.\n\nTuen Mun Bay is surrounded by mountains on three sides, thus forming a good typhoon shelter from the strong easterlies. It is also the waterway for entering the Chu Kiang i or Pearl River estuary of the Kwangtung Province. The Bay had been an important harbour for the Persians, the Arabs and the people from India, Indo-china and the East Indies. Their trading fleets had to anchor and gather at Tuen Mun before entering the Chu Kiang.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1980.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/kh04md207", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211336, "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": 52, "title": "RAS-1988", "content_text": "28\n\nformally took steps to organize and control the trade. Henceforth it was to be a government-sponsored operation supervised by the commission itself.\n\nIn October a prospectus was distributed advertising the new policy. It made specific efforts to differentiate the new programme from the previous illegal trade. According to the prospectus, the trade was to provide labour for the West Indies and work for the poor of China. It was not to be considered slavery. The rights of those recruited would be guaranteed by the British government and families were welcome to come along. In fact, in addition to promising education for dependents, the flyer outlined contracts of five years with pay set at four dollars a month. The contract could be broken after a year though four-fifths of the price of passage had to be repaid. As an additional incentive a twenty dollar advance was offered. Happily for those interested in recruiting coolies, Lao Ch'ung-kuang, the acting Governor-General who had replaced Po-Kuei, agreed to endorse the plan and to supply a mandarin to work with John Austin, the British recruitment official. By the late autumn the French had made similar arrangements.\n\n63\n\nEvery effort was made to disassociate the now official coolie recruitment from the previous illegal trade. Because the coolie ships had often sat off the coast near Whampoa full of men usually presumed to be prisoners, the new system established land-based recruitment houses in Canton. Parkes, the dominant commissioner, also worked with the local gentry and elders to gain their co-operation. And, as mentioned above, with the co-operation of the provincial officials, each emigration office, French and British, had Chinese officials assigned to work with it.\n\nThe allied commissioners were taking no chances with a potential uprising stemming from \"misunderstandings associated with the trade. Coolie inspectors were assigned to interview the recruited labourers. The inspectors had the right to interview the men at any time and, if necessary to close down the offending establishment. No corporal punishment was to be allowed. The inspectors were to be present whenever contracts were signed and inspection officers were required to visit the emigration houses daily.\n\n67", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1988.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212825, "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-1992", "page_number": 134, "title": "RAS-1992", "content_text": "119\n\nissued for the passage of our party through Yunnan to Kokang in Burma. The suggestion was added that it might at the same time be possible to give some assistance to the Chinese guerillas, reports of whose existence in western Yunnan had come to our ears. On looking back I think this suggestion was a mistake, because the guerillas were Lung Yun's men and the Central government might be unwilling to encourage them.\n\nWhile awaiting the passes I remained in Kun-ming, where I found old friends and made many new ones. Our bungalow on the lake side became a popular resort, particularly on Sundays, when many Chinese, American, and British comrades would come out to drink tea on the lawn and to enjoy the lovely sunny weather. On the hill at the back several old and picturesque temples provided objectives for an afternoon stroll. One of the temples, carved out of the rock face overhanging the precipitous mountain side, was approached along a ledge, also cut out of the rock, an approach to inspire qualms in any but the strongest-headed visitors. At week ends wealthy Chinese from Kun-ming would flock to these temples, where the priests kept special guest rooms for those who wished to stay. Earlier on, when Kun-ming had been subjected to occasional bombing raids, the rooms were at quite a premium.\n\nWe had some good friends among the American officers, many of the more senior of whom were regular soldiers with long years of service in the Philippines and other tropical places. One in particular who some years before had met the officers of my regiment, the Sherwood Foresters, when they went over from their station in the West Indies to visit Panama, at a later date provided us with very considerable assistance. If it was part of American high policy not to encourage the presence of British troops in certain areas of the Far East, the attitude was certainly not reflected in the manner of the American officers towards us. They invariably treated us with the greatest cordiality: with their large establishments and regular system of supply they were often in a position to assist us, especially over transport* and many are the good turns for which we have to thank them. I am sure this camaraderie of the field is the best possible antidote, and a very effective antidote, to the mischievous propaganda put out by our common enemies in the attempt to create discord between America and Britain.\n\n* The American Army had an excellent and well-managed hospital where they treated British patients just like their own.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1992.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x", "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": 214983, "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-2000", "page_number": 79, "title": "RAS-2000", "content_text": "35\n\nOn the British side, other nationalities were considered for recruitment for use in Labour Corps, including Egyptians (thought to be reliable), Indians (considered to be lazy and would be affected by the climate), Maltese (whom Kitchener thought bad workers), as well as conscientious objectors, but were deemed for various reasons to be unsuitable. There were Labour Corps serving in France from Egypt, Fiji, India, Malta, Mauritius, Seychelles, the British West Indies as well as a Native Labour Corps from South Africa.\n\nFollowing protracted negotiations between Beijing, the British Government and the War Office, the first contingent of 1078 coolies, under six officer candidates, one doctor and one regular Army captain, left Weihai Wei on 18th January 1917, three months after recruitment commenced.\n\nThe (British Army) Labour Corps was formed in April 1917 from various ASC, RE and infantry labour units which had come into existence from the early days of the war to meet the need for unskilled labour in large numbers for handling stores, constructing rear lines of defence, making and repairing roads, etc.\n\nAt the same time a Directorate of Labour was formed at GHQ, BEF, to take over the control, administration and allocation of all labour. Companies belonging to the Chinese or similar Labour Corps were included but not RE technical units.\n\nChinese were recruited both directly and through the Wei-min and other recruiting companies while Chinese-speaking British personnel for officers were contacted directly through the British Legation in Peking. Later, advertisements were placed in newspapers throughout the British Empire seeking Chinese-speaking Europeans to enlist as officers and NCOs in the CLC.\n\nThe Chinese, invariably from the “up-country” farming class, were mainly recruited from the provinces of Shandong and Zhili [Chihli in the former romanisation, and the metropolitan area covering much of present-day Hubei province]. They were considered physically strong and were used to adverse weather conditions. Others also came from the provinces of Liaoning, Jilin, Jiangsu, Hubei, Hunan, Anhui and even as far as Gansu. This was ascertained from the graves of those visited.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2000.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/nk328168n", "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": 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": 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": 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": 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": 215805, "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": 104, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "37\n\nforces to the north would tire themselves out trying to link up with the beachhead. Should the Chinese collapse in the face of a Japanese attack, then an Allied campaign to recapture Hong Kong would be jeopardized.\n\nJapan had an incentive to retain Hong Kong. Besides being a part of Japanese-held China, Hong Kong also lay just outside Japan's Inner Zone. This zone included Japan Proper, Korea, Manchuria, North China, Formosa, the Pescadores, the Ryukyus, and the Japanese half of Sakhalin Island. Well before the war, the British had already gained an appreciation that a Hong Kong in Japanese hands would augment the defence of the Inner Zone. Moreover, Hong Kong helped guard Japan's LoC to points west and her oil supplies in the Dutch East Indies. The Japanese could still afford to trade space for time by forfeiting many other parts of their Pacific empire to the Allies, but they were certain to defend their Inner Zone and the positions that anchored their LoC to and from it with the utmost vigour. If the Japanese lost Hong Kong, this would provide hope to people living under Japanese rule elsewhere, while it would send a message to the Japanese people that the war was proceeding unfavourably for them.\n\nBy late 1943, the Allies had gained the upper hand over the Japanese in the Pacific. It was the Allies who could dictate where the next move would fall. As China was still in the game, Allied planners began to take a closer look at the feasibility of a Hong Kong campaign. One opponent the Allies couldn't overcome, however, was Mother Nature, so heed was paid to Hong Kong's weather and how it could affect an Allied campaign there.\n\nA timeless enemy\n\nNature at its cruellest is a phenomenon that humanity's best efforts still cannot match. Even during a high-technology conflict like World War II, the weather proved to be as indomitable a nemesis as it had been throughout the history of war.\n\nWith World War II being fought over a greater expanse of the planet than any other war in history, its participants had to endure extreme variations in the weather, like the freezing cold of the Arctic and the Soviet Union to the sweltering heat of New Guinea, or the oppressive humidity of the South Pacific to the barren aridity of North", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 } ]