[ { "id": 206654, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1972", "page_number": 202, "title": "RAS-1972", "content_text": "NOTES AND QUERIES\n\nThe following letter appeared in the South China Morning Post, 10th April, 1972. — Ed.\n\nWHO HOISTED THE UNION JACK?\n\nIn today's (April 7) issue on page 20 you publish an article headed \"The Hongkong Club decides to go back to Victorian Era”. In the article you state \"The Club was founded in 1846, five years after the Union Jack was hoisted on Possession Point by Captain Charles Elliot\".\n\nThe statement is not correct. It is true that Sir Charles Elliot issued a formal declaration of British sovereignty over Hongkong in January 1841 after the treaty of Chuenpi, but the Union Jack was hoisted on Possession Point by Captain Belcher commanding H.M. survey ship, Sulphur, on January 26, 1841.\n\nThe account is given in Captain Belcher's book \"Voyage round the World\" published 1843, Volume II page 157. The following is an extract:\n\n\"The only important point to which we became officially partners was the cession of the island of Hongkong, situated off the peninsula of Cow Loon within the island of Lama,\n\n\"On the return of the commodore on the 24th we were directed to proceed to Hongkong and commence its survey. We landed on Monday the 26th January at fifteen minutes past eight, and being 'bona fide' first possessors, her majesty's health was drank with three cheers on Possession Mount.\n\n\"On the 26th the squadron arrived; the marines were landed, the union hoisted on our post, and formal possession taken of the island by Commodore Sir J. G. Bremer, accompanied by the other officers of the squadron, under a feu de joie from the marines, and a royal salute from ships of war”.\n\nThere may be some uncertainty about the exact date. It is probable that the landing was on Monday, January 25 and that the more serious formalities took place on Tuesday, January 26.\n\nCaptain Belcher's history is preserved in the Colony in the names Belcher's Gardens, Belcher's Fort (and formerly Belcher's Creek)", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1972.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gm80qf99h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206977, "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": 48, "title": "RAS-1974", "content_text": "42 \n\nH. J. LETHBRIDGE \n\nlong with the proposed intention of working his new-found country.\" He merely wished to form a syndicate to prospect the country, and agreed if their report was favourable to grant certain concessions. And the China Mail writer ought to know, since he claims to have taken so much interest in the King's personal affairs as not to be ashamed to pry into his private life, who he took to supper, and other details which only a hypocritical Pharisee and blackguard of the deepest dye would have had the audacity to set out in print, that the syndicate in question had been duly formed and the agreement signed. Had M. de Mayréna been the adventurer and swindler he has been called by the China Mail he would have surely tried to raise money by his promised concessions but he made no such attempt. He asked for nothing until his bona fides had been clearly established and the enterprise he proposed was thoroughly tested and shown to be genuine. That he may have acted foolishly in some respects during his stay in Hong Kong is probable enough, but we doubt if the China Mail's self-constituted censor is so immaculate a being that he can afford to throw mud at an erring brother. The China Mail oracle says he cannot conceive, even supposing M. de Mayréna's conduct to have been perfectly straight, how any speculators in Hong Kong could have been induced to embark in such an enterprise. That merely proves poverty of conception and further shows that the writer knows nothing whatever about the subject which he pretends to elucidate for the benefit of the public.38 \n\nIt is at first sight difficult to understand why Bain and Fraser-Smith attacked each other with such rancour, but a clue is provided by the following comment in the Mail: 'Imitating the example of the old Kings of France, the King of the Sedangs showed a remarkable affection for literature; and, one night, when the \"flow of soul” was especially strong, he knighted the whole staff of a local newspaper which had kindly taken to espouse his cause.39 The newspaper was of course the Telegraph, which had a staff of five Europeans in 1888. The journalists of the Telegraph, all of whom had suddenly become 'chevaliers' of the Kingdom of Sedang, no doubt swelled up with pride at their elevation and infuriated the puritanical Bain by their airs. \n\nThere is a pendant to the story of Mayréna's odyssey in Hong Kong. In Sir Hugh Clifford's words:", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1974.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/x633mp077", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207147, "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": 218, "title": "RAS-1974", "content_text": "212\n\nNOTES AND QUERIES\n\nsurvey. Sir E. Belcher, accordingly, landed on Monday, January 25, 1841, at the foot of Taipingshan, and on the hill, now occupied by the Chinese Recreation ground, Captain Belcher and his officers, considering themselves the bona fide first British possessors, drank Her Majesty's health with three cheers, the spot being thenceforth known as Possession Point. The Point remained an open space and came under the management of the Chinese Recreation Ground Committee created in 1890.\n\nIn 1887 there was a rearrangement of streets to the south of the Recreation Ground. With the change there was a renaming. The western terminus of Hollywood Road was shifted from the present Possession Street to what was known as Gap Street, so that Hollywood Road emptied into Queen's Road on the south side of the Recreation Ground rather than on its east side.\n\nOn the south side of old Gap Street across from the Chinese Recreation Ground the original St. Stephen's Anglican Church opened in 1866. Here also the Baxter Memorial School was built in 1872 in memory of Miss Sophia Harriet Baxter. She had come to Hong Kong in 1860 and until her death five years later established schools for Chinese, Eurasians and orphans. St. Matthew's Anglican Church now occupies a part of the original site granted to the Church in 1864.\n\nThe neighbourhood could have been regarded as a good missionary area for it was dominated by establishments devoted to pleasure. Nearby was a theatre, and the present Possession Street was lined with brothels in the nineteenth century. It was also, however, near a more sobering district.\n\nThe hillside between Possession Point and West Point was used as a Chinese burial ground. The I-tsz Temple, built to house commemorative tablets for Chinese residents who died without a family to remember them, and, temporarily, for those whose families were in their home villages in China, was behind Possession Point on Tai Ping Shan Street. It adjoined the burial ground and thus, in accordance with Chinese practice, was in a convenient location to be used as a depository for those who were about to die. Publicity regarding conditions at the temple started a movement to provide better medical services for the Chinese community. This resulted in the formation of Tung Wah Hospital. It was opened officially in 1872 across the street from the I-tsz Temple, occupying land that was a part of the old burial ground.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1974.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/x633mp077", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208207, "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": 246, "title": "RAS-1977", "content_text": "230\n\nNOTES AND QUERIES\n\nLiang-ssu-ma (梁司馬) each in command of 25 soldiers, all under the command of a Centurion (Tsu-chiang † †). (5) Chien Chiang, the Chekiang literatus, never joined up with the Taipings, but later enlisted in Lei I-hsien's (†) headquarters in 1853 near Yang-chow. He was shortly afterwards executed by Lei after proposing the Li-kin system of taxation. (6) Lo Ta-kang at the beginning of the uprising was appointed a Chun-Shuai (軍帥) and never appointed Wang (king) or Great General.\n\n(7) There were no other two Los each with title of Wang and Assistant General,\n\n(8) Yang Hsiu-ch'ing was East King (東王), not Assistant Councillor. He was the number two man in the Tai-Ping-Tien-Kuo next only to the Heavenly King, while Feng Yun-Shan was the number four in rank.\n\n(9) The Taiping forces were organized into five main armies, Central, Front, Rear, Left and Right, and was not divided into left and right wings.\n\n(10) Concerning religious faith, the deserter knew nothing about the distinguishing features of Taiping Christianity, but reechoed a superficial doctrinization very vaguely recalled from Gützlaff's teaching.\n\nFor general references to the above historical facts, see my book The Taiping Revolutionary Movement (New Haven and London, Yale University Press, 1973) relevant chapters.\n\nThus, it can easily be seen that this ex-member of Gützlaff's Chinese Union, aside from being ignorant of Feng's death, did not know the personnel, itinerary, enrolment numbers, titles, organizational structure, and the Christian religion of the Taipings. In other words, we may reasonably presume that he had never joined up with the Taipings. But his return to Hong Kong with such a false report in 1853 did create a sensation, and provided a seemingly firm ground for general belief in the fable of Feng's relation with Gützlaff. Even the editor of the Register proclaimed \"it worthy of credit\". Readers generally still ignorant of Taiping affairs of course, took both the account and the connection as bona-fide fact. Clarke states (p. 164) that the first Anglican Bishop of Victoria, George Smith, publicized being informed by a Union Member that Tien-Teh-Wang and Feng Yun-Shan were identical and that Feng had been a member of the Union. He also consulted with Robert", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1977.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209412, "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": 69, "title": "RAS-1982", "content_text": "47\n\nOnly the first two belonged to houses which had property in the Settlement, but Mr. Langley was the manager of the Oriental Bank which was not registered as a landrenter. At some time during the meeting \"the fact of Mr. Langley not being a land-holder and his being disqualified in consequence, was then argued\", but most of those present thought that it was \"competent for the Landholders to elect at a Public Meeting any person they might choose to take charge of their affairs”.\n\nThus the affair was closed, and during the following ten years there were only renters on the Municipal Council; but in the edition of June 29 1861 a letter to the editor of the North China Herald was printed, which drew attention to the fact that a non-renter was allegedly a member of the Municipal Council. This letter, by \"A Landrenter\" partly read:\n\n\"Sir. It is a generally received axiom that the possession of landed property renders its owner conservative; and on this good principle I was always under the impression that the Municipal Government of this Settlement was founded. Much then was I surprised to find the meetings of landholders purporting to be convened for them alone were attended by non-renters and from amongst them one of our Municipal Councillors was chosen My only reason for troubling you with this letter is to ascertain the opinion of my fellow-landholders as to the eligibility of non-renters to hold Municipal offices .\". The person referred to was probably Mr. William Howard, manager of the Chartered Mercantile Bank of India, London and China, who resigned as from June 28 1861.38\n\nThe opinion of the \"fellow-landholders” was aired at a Public Meeting of March 31 1862, during which the stand of a decade before was reversed in a resolution passed unanimously: \"That before choosing gentlemen for the Municipal Council for the coming year it be resolved that non but bona fide foreign Renters of Land shall be able to become members of the Municipal Council.\"30\n\nThus the matter was after all decided in favour of the landowners, the final Constitution only adding a very high threshold, to bar anyone who might not be considered “respectable”.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1982.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mk61z420p", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210744, "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": 95, "title": "RAS-1986", "content_text": "78\n\nOBSERVATIONS AT THE JIU FESTIVAL OF SHEK O AND TAI LONG WAN, 1986\n\nCHAN WING-HOI\n\nI. Introduction\n\nThe jiu festival of Shek O and Tai Long Wan on Hong Kong Island reported in this paper was celebrated from 17th October 1986 to 20th October 1986. According to the villagers, this was the sixteenth celebration which took place once every ten years. During the festival Taoist priests were hired to perform rites, and puppeteers performed puppet shows on a temporary stage. A poster put up by the festival committee referred to the duration as three days and four nights. By the standard of jiu celebrations in the New Territories, this would count as a \"three-day jiu\". As in the case of celebrations in the New Territories, the hired Taoist priests started with an opening session on the evening of the first day, and continued with daily processions and non-repeating major rites for three days. On 19th October, the main day of the festival, the villagers participated in a major procession to the celebrating villages.\n\nThe Shek O festival I found very much a repetition of the pattern found in the New Territories. The schedule and content of the rites were exactly the same except perhaps for the fact that the procession on the main day involved the main god of the celebration as well, and the priests hired were those usually seen in the New Territories. However, whereas in the New Territories, only bona fide villagers enjoyed the exclusive right to organize the jiu, here in Shek O the participants included indigenous villagers as well as outsiders. They included people who spoke different dialects, some having moved into the area only in the last ten years. Moreover, in Shek O, the spirit tablets for the ancestors of individuals who contributed extra money for the purpose were also displayed, and this practice is usually found only in Yu Laan rituals. Some of these features that seem peculiar to Shek O are probably related to the nature of the settlement, of which I learned only a little in the few visits I made during the celebration,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1986.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/jq08c7063", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211619, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1989", "page_number": 34, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "recounts that the crew of the Sulphur landed on Hong Kong island on Monday 25 January” and as 'the bona fide first possessors' drank the health of Queen Victoria on Possession Mount. Then 'On the 26th the squadron arrived; the marines were landed, the union hoisted on our post, and formal possession taken of the island, by Commodore Sir J. G. Bremer, accompanied by the other officers of the squadron, under a feu-de-joie from the marines, and a royal salute from the ships of war'.\" Bremer himself was no more expansive. In his official despatch to R. More O'Ferrall M.P. at the Admiralty, written on 24 February but received only on 8 June 1841, Bremer reported that on 26 January he proceeded to Hong Kong ‘and took formal possession of the island, and hoisted the colours on it, with the usual salutes and ceremonies'.\n\n12\n\nNews of the acquisition of the island of Hong Kong became public knowledge in England on the morning of Friday 9 April 1841, but yet again there was no description of the ceremony of possession. On this day Elliot's circular of 20 January was printed in The Times, and it was discussed in an optimistic editorial: it was considered good news because Hong Kong was much more convenient for trade than Macao and a settlement there would be able to maintain itself independently of the Chinese.\" By the following day the tone of the editorial had changed. Its author wrote that 'the nominal cession of the island of Hong Kong to the British crown, though apparently promising considerable advantages to our mercantile interests, has been clogged with conditions which in practice may substantially defeat them', and then referred to the island as an 'insulated and unfrequented locality'. One factor which may have been decisive in settling on Hong Kong in the negotiations was, as the merchant James Matheson noted, the Chinese language, for such, he felt, is its ambiguity that it is difficult to fix in it a definite meaning.\" Matheson believed that, when Ch'i-shan remarked in one of his communications ‘as we have granted you territory you do not now require another port', Elliot in consequence gave up thoughts of British access to a port in northern China in the hope that he could hold Ch'i-shan to an interpretation of the Chinese characters which meant that the British had been granted the territory of Hong Kong rather than merely being given a trading factory there.'5\n\nTwo letters to The Times published in the same week expressed dissatisfaction with the new British acquisition. The first was dated Macao, 22 January and was presumably written by a merchant: 'Regarding the terms of Captain Elliot's treaty with the Chinese, I have", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211644, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1989", "page_number": 59, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "34\n\nFUKIENESE WANG YEH (王爺)\n\n(ONG YA [HOKKIEN])\n\nKEITH STEVENS\n\n'Wang Yeh' is the popular and workaday title given to a large number of Chinese deities China-wide and not, as widely believed, just in South China. The Wang Yeh of the Fukienese in South-East China, for example, are in no way connected with, and have nothing in common with, for instance, the Szechuanese riverboat people's Wang Yeh.\n\nAll Wang Yeh in Fukienese communities tend to be thought of by outsiders as pestilence deities; that is, protectors of communities against plague and epidemic. This is not necessarily so. Fukienese Wang Yeh fall into two categories. The first category comprises those whom the Fukienese know to be disease spirits or demons but, by using the polite honorific 'Wang Yeh', they not only avoid voicing the spirits' or demons' true identity and offending them, but also, in practice, honour them, with the consequential hope of buying them off. These are the Pestilence deities. The second category, revered by the majority of Fukienese believers, not only in Fukien province itself (on the mainland opposite Taiwan), but also by Fukienese settlers in South East Asia and Taiwan, consists of a number of individual deified folk heroes, bona fide deities from the higher echelons of the pantheon.\n\nA number of Taiwan temple keepers claim that the Wang Yeh were once all pestilence deities but nowadays in the eyes of the devotees they are gods 'who are everywhere and can do anything'. Pestilence Wang Yeh are second in the list of popular cults in Taiwan (based on the number of temples in which they are the main deity) following close on the heels of the very popular fishermen's protective deity T'ien Hou, often referred to as Ma Tsu or T'ien Shang Shengmu. Despite this, the appeal of the Pestilence Wang Yeh is limited and their status in comparison much lower.\n\nWithin Fukienese communities all Wang Yeh are now regarded as protectors. The specific Wang Yeh of the first category protect against plague and other pestilence; they have no history of earthly lives whereas the second category Wang Yeh, the community deities, are general...", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215393, "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": 170, "title": "RAS-2001", "content_text": "119\n\n蘊抑對獲酒紀念禮物的回應\n\n他的調藥學,都對表示濃游,\n\nRMK JUNEM AUNA\n\nTAAT SEWA MOJA WAAP\n\nLugard's Response to The Tribute\n\nLugard must have felt delighted and encouraged by this display of affection. His warm appreciation was strongly reflected in his response; reported in the South China Morning Post\n\n\"Dr. Ha Kai and gentlemen, it gives me the very greatest pleasure that I can possibly express to receive this most beautiful address from your hands, and it will give the very greatest pleasure to my wife, to whom you have made such very kind allusions, both in the address and in the words of Dr. Mo Kai. It is usual for such presentations to be made at the time when the Governor severs his connection finally from the colony. In my case I'm only leaving you for a short time and I hope to be back early in November. You have alluded in this address to most of the things which have had my earnest consideration during the past few years, more particularly with regard to the sanitary laws, and you have thanked me for the efforts I have made to remove pre-existing conditions.\n\nGentlemen, in this matter, it is I who ought to thank you for tendering thanks. My endeavours have simply been directed towards 我所做的,無尋秘獲障你們的合作,\n\n対象学的、簡撼\n\nAMDAY}KNHA TEKMO\n\nA010 ET MAA KANTA A\n\nBAZ KAAWUR · AUTH\n\n捐贈遼築物,以及藥員學者去教育电\n\n說一段非常關裁,亦使我深受鼓黼\n\n你們一直與政府東誠合作,無論向套\n\n眾湯瑜信心,調查窮人患病的情況,\n\n以及為他們提供繼利淨方備、髒維得\n\n很確場,番茄訊生、除了感謝你門與\n\n政府合作以外,謝華道的努力不站不\n\n可沒,我在關裡必康向他道謝、纖維\n\nWANAAMAANTE - KANAD\n\n引領下盡力支持政府,便是促使續) 政策成功的最大因素,我萬分雀躍地 enlisting your co-operation, and towards inviting your efforts to support the Government to reach the people what is best for their welfare, and how such measures as are necessary both to preserve life and to ameliorate the conditions of the poor can be best carried out without causing inconvenience to themselves, or I should say so as to cause the least possible inconvenience to the people themselves.\n\nYou have come forward in answer to that appeal in a manner which has filled me with encouragement and admiration by providing dispensaries and buildings and hospitals, and by engaging lecturers to teach the people.\n\nYou have co-operated with the Government and have succeeded largely in instilling confidence and in checking disease and in benefitting the poor people. For this co-operation, gentlemen, in which I include the assistance of the Registrar General, who has won the confidence of you all, and whose influence with you has been the main factor in the success, for this co-operation I say I thank you heartily, and I look forward, on my return to the colony, to its continuance. You have also alluded to the subject of education, a matter in which I take the deepest interest, not only as regards the University but also as regards the education given in all our schools throughout the colony. I hope the steps taken, and which will be brought into operation without delay, will be effective in decreasing the overcrowding in our schools, in", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215666, "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": 443, "title": "RAS-2001", "content_text": "395\n\ncorrespondent for The Times in southeast Asia, having previously supplied articles to the paper on a freelance basis. One of the last to escape the invading Japanese, he reported the retreat along the Malay Peninsula and the last stand and surrender of the British garrison in Singapore on 15 February, 1942.\n\nAfter Singapore, Mr. Morrison went to Java before following the campaigns in the South West Pacific under General MacArthur, and later in Southeast Asia under Admiral Mountbatten.\n\nMr. Morrison was a courageous correspondent who never thought twice about entering a dangerous situation to get a good story. During the Second World War he spent a lot of time reporting from the front and shared the soldiers' life in the jungle. He regularly hitch-hiked on Australian or American army transport planes in order to follow the action and provide authentic accounts of the fighting with the Japanese. He often came close to death. In late November 1942 he was slightly injured during an air raid on the Buna front in Papua, and in December 1943 he was involved in a plane crash which resulted in head wounds and fractured vertebrae. This is how he telegraphed the paper:\n\n'Regret involved in airplane accident enroute obtain eyewitness operational full stop hospitalised injuries seriouser than yestertime hope recover soon Dickson Brown newschronicler kindly consented cover next three days thereafter Curthoys sorry disappoint you good story - Morrison'\n\nHis injuries on that occasion kept him out of action until July 1944, when he returned to cover the South East Area Command. He was not out of trouble for long. On 10 December 1945, while reporting from Batavia (now Jakarta) covering a local campaign he was again wounded and cabled the paper:\n\n'Left hospital today. Thumb, in which fragments of Dutch bullet are lodged, will take at least a fortnight to\n\nIan Morrison and family, circa 1950", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215770, "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": 69, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "Turnbull, an established historian, equivocally suggests that the transfer was based on an inaccurate and unbalanced feedback of the community's feelings:\n\nNo dissenting voice was raised in London and Calcutta, and the colonial office naturally had the impression that the demand for transfer was based on general dissatisfaction with rule from India, with the entire merchant body clamouring for change. In fact, it had required years of agitation on the part of Read, Woods and a small minority of enthusiasts in Singapore to arouse interest in the transfer, and apart from the brief period of panic in 1857 in when the petition was framed, the majority even of European merchants in Singapore were not actively in favour of the change, while the Asian merchants showed almost no interest in the movement.2\n\nIn spite of these conflicting points, I hold that the transfer was needed as the problems raised in the Straits merchants' petition were material and bona fide enough to necessitate the transfer of the administration from Calcutta to London. However, my essay attempts a revisionist's approach to the transfer controversy, questioning its necessity and examining its legal significance through an orchestration of the pot-pourri of relevant issues, in the hope that this methodology may help to provide a clearer awareness and legal understanding into this much taken for granted transfer, thus according it the new angle of attention it deserves.\n\nBackground history of the Straits Settlements3\n\nSingapore, Malacca and Penang were combined to form the Straits Settlements in 1826. The Straits Settlements became the fourth presidency of India, and remained an Indian dependency until 1867. The EIC obtained possession of Penang in 1786, as a base to protect the company's expanding China trade and a centre for the collection of Straits produce from the Malay peninsula and the eastern archipelago for shipment to China. When Singapore was founded in 1819, it was placed under the administration of Bencoolen (in Sumatra) where Raffles was lieutenant-governor. When he resigned and returned to England in 1823, Singapore was placed under the control of the Supreme Government of India. Singapore was ceded to the EIC in 1824 and", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215777, "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": 76, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "were pledged to protect and three over whose external relations they had a right of control.\"55 Hall strongly claims that, 'the Malay States were in a state of chronic unrest, external and internal,56 and had become completely incapable of putting their house in order. Intervention, therefore, could not be avoided. There was indeed constant intervention, notwithstanding all the rules to the contrary and all the thunders of Calcutta and the East India House, '57\n\nHowever, in spite of Thio's and Hall's assertions, the truth of the merchants' complaint is not invalidated, because between 1824 and 1873, British rule in Malaya was indeed ‘inactive,258 as their official policy was still in accordance with Pitt's India Act. In several cases, the actions of the Straits Settlements government implied some form of intervention, or at least limited interference in the affairs of the Malay States, when they violated the policy of non-intervention; but even then, nothing more elaborate was undertaken than the occasional punitive expedition, which was not enough, in 'the interests of British commerce.'60 Insofar as this was concerned, it would appear that the Straits merchants did have a legitimate complaint to the House of Lords, because their statement would appear to have been bona fide and to hold a substantial amount of evidential truth. The influence of Pitt's India Act (that is, EIC non-intervention) remained until 1874, when a new law was passed, and the British took on an active, intervening role in the Malay states.\n\n59\n\nJudicial system!\n\nThe main complaints of the merchants were that the Law was administered by unprofessional persons, that is, the administration of justice was in the hands of local officers of government, civil or military servants of the EIC, and the 'impractical schemes [that] were propounded' (for example, the Currency Act, port dues and stamp duties). LA Mills renders a counter attack to this point; he argues that 'although there were delays in dealing with problems which caused the Straits Settlements to suffer at times, on the whole the results were not serious. Of the problems which arose between 1826 and 1867, very few were of importance, so that injury caused in the delay in settling them was not great. The population was small and generally law-abiding. The Straits Settlements had practically no foreign relations (the main task of the government was to watch Siam and Holland,\n\n63\n\n262", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215780, "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": 79, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "them. These ex-convicts married local wives, and some even rose in prominence.82 The European merchants complained mainly about the high cost of keeping the convicts (for example, as early as 1841, they grumbled about the costly body of troops to be maintained in the Straits Settlements mainly because they were penal stations).83\n\nThere were some disturbing facts about the Indian convicts pertaining to the growth of Indian-type secret societies,85 and to the spread of criminal activities among present and ex-convicts. There are no statistics to prove how far these groups were involved in crime, but there were nevertheless a few notorious incidents.87\n\nOn the whole, the convict \"problem\" was not really a problem. The Indian government did make some attempts to improve the situation. However, this only took place after the petition of 1857 to the House of Commons. Thus, even though most defects of the system were remedied by the time of the transfer to the Colonial Office, little credit can be given to the Indian government in this issue. Taking into account the context in which the convict problem was cited in the 1857 petition,88 it is not difficult to sympathise with the European merchants,8991 and hence, this \"problem\" in my opinion, was a bona fide one.\n\n## Conclusion\n\nThe transfer was governed by a series of factors. The overall argument has been broached with a revisionist's method of assessment. However, the conclusion is nonetheless an orthodox one in that having clarified the \"problems,\" most would appear to have been bona fide and convincing enough to necessitate a liberation from the Indian government's rule. In this respect, the transfer was a necessary, and hence, a justified move. The act that was eventually passed by Parliament, to change the government of the Straits Settlements from the India Office to the Colonial Office, was the result of a complex variety of causes, which also explains how legal changes were brought about, not in isolation, but in the context of and in accordance with the Straits society's requirements. The regulations of the Straits Settlements were made subject to London's control, and this is a confirmation of the primacy of the English legal system in which was entrenched the rule of law in the Straits Settlements.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215786, "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": 85, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "18\n\nHowever, there were also cases where the British did intervene in the Malay states during the period 1824-73. It is evident that, to a certain extent, the British were inconsistent with their policy of non-intervention, but compared to the period after 1874, when the policy was reversed, these interventions were limited and they only occurred where unavoidable (Ibid. p 179). In this respect, I would argue that the merchants had valid grounds for their petition of complaint to the House of Commons.\n\nThe EIC's non-intervention policy reflected realism and flexibility. They took the stance of non-intervention wherever their commercial interests and political prestige were not threatened, but their policy changed according to the dictates of time, thus in reality, causing them to play dual roles of non-activity and intervention in accordance with the change of times. Whilst the period 1824-73 was not marked by any 'spectacular action or further territorial advances', it can neither be described as being inactive, because as Tan observes, '[c]ases of intervention were...more in evidence than cases of non-intervention' (Tan D E, supra, p 120), and I will highlight some of the more important and interesting ones. From its footholds in the Straits Settlements, the EIC gradually extended its influence over the independent Malay States chiefly through trade and treaties. (Thio E, British Policy in The Malay Peninsular 1880-1910 Vol 1 - Introduction pg xvi-xvii)\n\nThe following examples could be used as evidence to challenge the truth of the merchants' statement of complaint, although in the final analysis, their complaint was a bona fide one.\n\nCases of Intervention\n\nAfter 1826 the Malay states tended to look to the EIC as the arbiter of local politics to whom they reported the ascension of new rulers, and appealed for help in settling internal disputes and quarrels with their neighbours. (Thio, Ibid. p xvi-xvii) For example, the proximity of thriving Singapore to Johore led the British to intervene in the affairs of Johore. When Sultan Hussein died in 1835, Governor Murchison refused to acknowledge Hussein's son, Ali, as the Sultan. It was only in 1852 that Acting-Governor Blundell persuaded the Supreme Government to recognise Ali as the rightful Sultan. Later, compromise was reached when Ali accepted an empty title of Sultan and Temenggong Ibrahim retained control over Johore in 1855. Thus, a new royal dynasty was established in Johore, with British intervention. This case clearly illustrates a deviation", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 } ]