[ { "id": 206014, "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": 94, "title": "RAS-1970", "content_text": "CHINESE EMIGRATION AND THE DECK PASSENGER TRADE 89\n\nmaking their first venture abroad in those years were joining relatives or friends, and had been able to borrow enough on future earnings to ensure a comfortable passage. There were always a few unfortunates, however, who, in their anxiety to escape from the poverty and misery of their native village, had borrowed their passage money from money lenders or their tongs at ruinous rates of interest.\n\nConditions for most of this century were certainly vastly changed from the middle decades of the 19th century. Prospective passengers lived in boarding houses in Amoy or Swatow when waiting for a ship, and the ship's compradore often had a financial interest in these boarding houses or worked in close co-operation with their owners. As there was keen competition in the 20th century emigrant trades, not only between different shipping companies, but under the compradore system — between different ships in the same company, the prospective passengers were well treated in the boarding houses, which bore little resemblance to the barracoons of the 'bad old days'.\n\nBeside the China coasters, overseas ships on the Far Eastern run also took part in the emigrant trade, especially to the Straits and Bangkok, as this could be fitted into their wayport schedule; and even the large and luxurious Canadian Pacific liners were not above carrying a few hundred deck passengers from time to time. Ben Line steamers, too, sometimes called at Amoy and Swatow and took up to two hundred deck passengers to the Straits or Bangkok or vice versa, but on many overseas ships the passengers had to supply and cook their own food, and sleep on wooden planks laid over steel decks. The overseas ships were not normally so well suited for deck passengers as the regular coast ships, and by the First World War the latter had captured the cream of the trade.\n\nIn the South-east Asian trades south-bound traffic normally exceeded north-bound, but not to a disproportionate extent. Many overseas Chinese returned home, either for a holiday or to retire, and north-bound ships were especially busy just before Chinese New Year, and south-bound just after this important festival. These north-bound ships, where many passengers were carrying the savings of a few years or even of a lifetime, were the most tempting for pirates, and were specially equipped to deal", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1970.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ww72j0241", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207763, "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": 151, "title": "RAS-1976", "content_text": "136\n\nW. A. REYNOLDS\n\nport for the work came from American United China Relief (UCR) funds through the American Friends Service Council (AFSC); there were members from Canada, U.S.A., New Zealand, as well as China itself; and the self-sufficiency required was much greater than that of other FAU groups.\n\nThe original plan, worked out in late 1940 and early 1941, was for a group of forty men, equipped with 20 trucks, a mobile operating theatre and mobile workshop, to undertake two tasks. The first was the transport of medical supplies into China from Burma and the second provision of medical teams to work with civilian and military hospitals. The proposals had the support of the British Fund for the Relief of Distress in China under Dr. H. Gordon Thompson, the Foreign Office, the U.C.R. and the AFSC. The trucks and equipment were purchased in the US and shipped to Rangoon where they were assembled and driven up to China. Dr. R. B. McClure, a Canadian medical missionary born in China, was appointed to lead the Unit.\n\nIt will be remembered that in 1941 Japan occupied all the coast of China, transport up the railway to Kunming from Hanoi had ceased and the only land routes into the western provinces still held by the Government of the Republic of China under Marshal Chiang Kai Shek were the Burma Road and the road from the USSR via Sinkiang. When the Sino-Japanese war widened into the Pacific War on December 8, 1941, about half of the FAU group had arrived in Burma and China, the first trucks were being assembled in Rangoon and the rest of the party and equipment were on the high seas. All arrived safely and the Unit undertook a number of interesting tasks during the Burma fighting of 1942.1\n\nMedical Services and Supplies in China\n\nDespite the diversion of manpower and loss of trucks and fuel in Burma the work of transporting medical supplies in China got underway in 1942. In 1941 there were four organizations concerned with military and civilian medical services:—\n\n1) the Army Medical Administration (AMA)\n\n2) the Chinese Red Cross (CRC)\n\n3) National Health Administration (NHA) Weishengshu (衛 生 署) with its civilian hospitals and clinics.\n\n4) Over 100 mission hospitals, responsible to their own Mission Boards.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1976.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/hq382988q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211526, "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": 243, "title": "RAS-1988", "content_text": "219\n\npremier and treasurer of Manitoba in 1885, and while there was quite prominent in the political affairs of the province, being sent to England to negotiate a large loan. On his return from England, he was ordered to Hongkong, to take a position in the diplomatic service. Before leaving this country, he came to Portland with a letter of introduction from Sir William Van Horne of the Canadian Pacific Railroad to Theodore B. Wilcox of the Portland Flouring Mills Co.\n\nRennie at that time knew nothing about the flour business, but he made such a good impression on Mr. Wilcox that he was engaged by the Portland miller to put in the time he could spare from his diplomatic duties, in selling flour. He was successful from the beginning, and in 1895 his business had grown to such proportions that he resigned from the government service and devoted all of his attention to the flour trade. He was a tireless worker, and as he had very liberal contracts with Mr. Wilcox, he was soon enjoying a very large business. On this business he always endeavored to stamp his own personality.\n\nWhile the Wilcox brands were soon famous from Vladivostok to the Malabar coast, and far into the interior of China, it was Rennie alone, of whom the Chinamen knew, and with whom they dealt. This great success and the attendant profits it brought, was probably responsible for Rennie's belief that he could make a grand success out of the milling business.\n\nHis studied effort to keep his own name and personality in the foreground, had given him great prestige in Hongkong and other trade centres across the Pacific, and to him it seemed easy to transfer this prestige from the Americans to a mill of his own.\n\nApparently confusing flour making with flour selling, Mr. Rennie plunged into the business on a big scale. Had he been content to feel his way with a small mill, where the capacity could be increased as the demand for the product developed, he might have made a success, or at least the failure would not have been serious. But Rennie, the greatest flour salesman in all the Orient, had aspirations to be a great miller, and with the money he had saved during his successful career as a salesman, and several hundred thousand dollars subscribed by English capitalists at Hongkong, he built a two thousand barrel mill. The capital", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1988.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212211, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1990", "page_number": 153, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "130\n\nto commercial goods, as it moved under the Japanese shadow. Under her conception of “incident” Japan had methods of applying pressure to foreign shipping companies, a pressure which in the existing atmosphere of appeasement it was difficult to resist.\n\nFollowing on the occupation of Canton, the Japanese mopped back towards Hongkong, but they left only a small garrison to watch the border. A heavy smuggled trade sprang up, not only over the border, but also by junk through the countless small inlets and bays of the neighbourhood. The Japanese exerted themselves to coerce the Colonial Government to suppress the trade. Their efforts met with failure: until Hongkong was itself submerged in a wider conflict, the Chinese war effort continued to benefit.\n\nHongkong is one of the world's great ports, the offspring of British administrative practice and Chinese commercial fecundity. Every year twenty-two million tons of shipping were entered and cleared. In the harbour the flags of many nations could be seen, from those of the great Western Powers to that of the little republic of Panama. The flags of the Scandinavian nations, of Norway and Denmark, were particularly in evidence, so far from home, witness to the freedom of the seas for which Britain stood sponsor. The volume of trade which passed through Hongkong was naturally restricted by the Japanese occupation of Canton. Cargo vessels called less frequently, but the great liners on fixed passenger schedules continued to go alongside the Kowloon wharves, often two or three at a time, ships of the American President line, the Canadian Pacific line, the Peninsular and Oriental, the Nord Deutscher Lloyd, the Nippon Yoshen Kaisha, the Dutch J.C.L., the Lloyd Trestino, the Blue Funnel, the City, the Messageries Maritimes and many other lines.\n\nI was due for home leave and sailed in the new P.& O. liner, the R.M.S. \"Canton\", on her maiden trip, in December 1938. The passengers lined the rails as we steamed towards the Lyeemoon passage. Did they realise what a remarkable monument to Sino-British co-operation was that lovely green hill side at which they gazed? Hongkong bears happy testimony, in a difficult future, to the benefits that flow from cordial relations between China and the British Empire.\n\nShanghai and Eastern China 1939\n\nShanghai was the splendid stronghold of foreign interests in the Far", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212223, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1990", "page_number": 165, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "142 \n\nnumber of bicycles, and despite having to dismount frequently to cross ditches, alleged to be anti-tank but too narrow to be effective for the purpose, made forty miles in a day along the footpaths amongst the hills. \n\nTens of thousands of coolies were carrying loads over the track from Mirs Bay to the East River: it shewed what a large flow of supplies still entered China from Hongkong despite the Japanese blockade. I even saw the parts of wholly dismantled lorries being carried along, four coolies to each pole on the heavier loads, such as the frame. Unfortunately a cholera epidemic was raging, and the Chinese government appeared to have made no effort to provide medical and sanitary supervision, on what was one of the few remaining routes of entry into China. A plague of flies hovered over the human excreta which defiled the edges of the road along its whole length. Coolies were dying by the dozen. They would collapse by the side of the road and crawl off to expire in the scrub. In places the stench was so strong as to make you retch. On arrival next day at Mirs Bay we were offered tea at the little Chinese customs house, while waiting for the launch. As the bay was entirely inside Hongkong territorial waters, Japanese ships could not enter, and the launches ran twice a day with impunity. \n\nI stepped ashore at Taipo, a village in the New Territory, in time to catch the evening train from Fanling, but I was now feeling ill myself and half wondering whether I too had not caught cholera. I was unable to join the golfing fraternity in the saloon car to listen to the highlights of the day's sport, or to partake of refreshment, and on arrival at the Gloucester I retired to my bed. \n\nThe luxury, however, of a modern hotel soon put me on my legs, and I was further fortified by the comfort of a passage to Shanghai in one of the Canadian-Pacific Company's liners. \n\nIt was November. Many of the younger men had left to join up, either in Malaya or in India, where it was thought their services might prove more useful than in England. Nevertheless with the addition of the people who had been brought in from the outports, there was no shortage of staff in the offices; and the Clubs, if anything, appeared rather crowded. Owing to the stagnation in trade, people had not much to do. Yet managers seemed reluctant to release their young men, too many of whom, as it appeared to me, seemed quite content to stay; while, surprisingly, older middle-aged men were being allowed \n\nPage 165\n\nPage 166", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212310, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1990", "page_number": 252, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "224\n\nraw silk for their mills. Adanison arrived in Shanghai, on their behalf, in 1852. In 1858 he formed his own firm, exporting tea and general merchandise, and set up branches in Hong Kong, Foochow and Hongkow. There were ten European employees.\n\nIn 1872, the firm appointed a shipping clerk in its Shanghai office named George Benjamin Dodwell. He was 20 years old, born in Derby, and was paid 400 pounds for the first year of service, with a room, fire, light and medical bills met by the firm. Dodwell was allowed five per cent of all profits of the shipping business on everything earned above 700 taels per annum (equivalent to 2,100 sterling). He also had a share in other profits in an attempt to stop him branching out on his own account. Another condition of appointment was that he should 'not indulge in racing of horses and ponies'. This contrasted with the conditions of service for Jardine's who were not against their employees having a wager.\n\nIn 1876, Adamson Bell and Company's tea shipments (at the end of the nineteenth century nearly 60 per cent of China's exports consisted of tea and silk) were only marginally behind those of Jardines and Butterfield and Swires. For much of his work Dodwell was assisted by the firm's compradore. Nonetheless, a considerable amount of financial risk was involved. Dodwell and A.J.M. Carlill finally took over the bankrupt Adamson Bell Company [which is still known as Tien Cheang (天昌) meaning heavenly prosperity] on May 1st, 1891.\n\nCanadian Pacific Railways (CPR) chartered sailing ships to import goods from China and Japan. Dodwell had entered into a three-year contract with Sir William Van Horne of CPR. But, as business was good, CPR decided to run its own fast mail line in place of hiring old Cunarders.\n\nDodwell was told his contract would not be renewed, but he was asked to continue to manage the CPR services at the Far Eastern end. Van Horne was impressed by Dodwell as a man, and he offered him full control of the new CPR shipping line if Dodwell would abandon his newly established firm and join CPR as an employee. He was offered a salary and commissions totalling at least 4,000 pounds a year. Dodwell declined, preferring to head his own new enterprise which he had rescued, and would rebuild, from bankruptcy.\n\nIt is the worst day's work you have ever done, Dodwell\",", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212911, "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": 220, "title": "RAS-1992", "content_text": "205\n\nout as soon as I was able to make out my surroundings. I have never seen such a dense swarm of mosquitoes. Thank goodness we never had to use this shelter.\n\nOur departure for Hong Kong that spring was dramatic. From the hospital we took the ancient hospital motor boat down the creeks to Canton. We found the river steamer for Hong Kong moored in the fast flowing stream. It was surrounded by an impenetrable mob of sampans carrying people fleeing from the Japanese attack on Canton which was expected any day. Our motor boat could not get to the gangway so we transferred to a sampan. We approached the ladder from downstream as most of the boats were tied to the steamer upstream. We soon found out why because as each sampan cast off from the ladder another, aided by the stream, pushed its way in from upstream. We could make no headway. The only possible approach was from the bows. As we worked our way slowly down we saw that the captain was getting worried by the crowds swarming on board. He had to sail or be swamped. Our luggage was manhandled across the intervening sampans but my father would not allow us to be passed along in the same way, which I thought was a pity. The captain saw us and waited only until our sampan at last made the steps. He then gave the order for his crew to chop through the mooring ropes of all the sampans still tied on. Once freed of these, he weighed anchor and set off for Hong Kong - an overnight journey.\n\nP & O to England – Canadian Pacific to China\n\nIn 1933 my father was due for leave so the whole family, now comprising four children and parents, set off on the P. & O Rawalpindi, a ship which was converted to be an armed merchantman during the war and sunk by a U boat. Travel by sea was the most commonly used way to reach Europe. From about 1933 one could go a little faster by taking the Trans-Siberian railway. Fast mail was marked 'Via Siberia' on the envelopes. The sea journey involved four days at sea to Singapore and trips to the Botanical Gardens there. Then on to Penang, Colombo, Aden, through the Suez Canal perhaps with a stop at Marseilles, where some in a hurry got on the train through France to England, a stop at Gibraltar and thence to Plymouth where we got off for a train to Herefordshire. Most passengers went on to Tilbury in London. There was a leisurely routine about the trip. Beef tea was served on the deck mid-morning and tea in the afternoon. An enterprising steward rounded up a number of children to help him gather up the", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1992.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212912, "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": 221, "title": "RAS-1992", "content_text": "206\n\ncups and plates and rewarded us with magnificent Orders of Chivalry. We usually found some acquaintance in the ports or fellow missionaries. Aden was a coaling port where a ceaseless stream of labourers carried basket after basket of coal on board. We had to keep port-holes shut to keep the coal dust out. At sea we had a good deal of freedom and were taken on exploratory trips to such places as the engine room. Here we saw the huge pistons of the steam engine driving the propeller shaft and walked down the tunnel in which it turned to the very end. The heat was terrific.\n\nIn 1934 leave was up and my father and I returned early to get me into school in September. The two of us travelled by the scenic route, first on the Canadian Pacific ship, the Duchess of Bedford which we boarded at Liverpool and which took us across the Atlantic to Montreal. Then by Canadian Pacific Railway for three days and four nights across Canada to Vancouver. That was a glorious journey. The first day was through pine forests and by lakes. The second was across endless prairie country and the third through the Rocky Mountains. At the back of the train there was an observation coach from which we had an excellent view of the scenery. Each evening beds were made up and each morning they were folded up.\n\nFrom Vancouver we sailed on another Canadian Pacific ship, the Empress of Asia to Shanghai a long journey which must have included a stop in Japan. A funny thing about sojourns with my father was that he introduced me to simple gastronomic delights. During my convalescence in the Matilda Hospital from appendicitis it was kippers and on the trans-Pacific trip it was celery, curry and Worcestershire sauce in the soup to prevent sea sickness. All have been favourites ever since! And he patiently read from The Swiss Family Robinson each evening.\n\nChefoo Schools\n\nFrom Shanghai we took a coastal steamer north to Chefoo. Chefoo is the name of a small village on a bluff of land connected to the mainland by a sand spit. The school was called after this village though the town, in which it lies, is now called Yentai after the nearby walled city dating from the Ming Dynasty. The China Inland Mission had established primary and secondary schools for European and American children from all over China. There were about 100 children in the primary school,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1992.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212918, "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": 227, "title": "RAS-1992", "content_text": "212 miles of China coast to look for her. As time wore on, the distance she could travel extended until it could be anywhere from Tientsin to Hainan. The Royal Navy had an aircraft carrier in Hong Kong and this was drafted into the hunt. An aircraft from H.M.S. Hermes spotted a ship like the Tungchow anchored in Bias Bay (Days Bay) which was a well-known haunt of China coast pirates. It was indeed the Tungchow and the pirates, seeing the plane swoop over, realised that they had better decamp. Once they were away, the Captain sailed for Hong Kong where he arrived a few hours later. Although the pirates escaped, they had a frustrating piracy. They had got the wrong ship. The silver was on another ship which delivered its cargo safely. The Tungchow carried no silver but a cargo of oranges. The pirates broke open the crates in their hunt for the silver so that the ship was running with oranges which the boys gathered in quantities. The pirates did no harm to the children but at first kept them shut up in the passenger accommodation. You can imagine what tales the Shanghai party had to tell when we all got back to school.\n\nWe Leave China\n\nIn 1939 my father's tour was up and he decided, after twenty-five years, to retire from the mission field. He was in his mid-fifties and few stayed so long. Today this sounds an early retiring age, but today we have the untold advantage of constant air-conditioning to temper the severity of our summers and much greater control over diseases. The advance of the Japanese and the threatening war situation in Europe may well have influenced his decision too.\n\nIn any event, my parents and our younger sister set off from Fatshan, while my brother, other sister, and I set off from Chefoo on the last of our journeys on a B. & S. coaster for Shanghai. My parents travelled up from Hong Kong on a Canadian Pacific steamer, the Empress of Russia, which we joined in Shanghai. By this time, Shanghai had been occupied by the Japanese, though they were still at peace with Britain and America. In the occupied city, security was tight, especially round the docks, and we had to pass through several check points manned by pretty rough soldiers. Once at sea, those worries were left behind, but, as a postscript, when we sailed from Yokohama a few days later, we found ourselves in the midst of large-scale manoeuvres by the Japanese fleet and accompanying aircraft firing and bombing targets not far from us.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1992.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213401, "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": 223, "title": "RAS-1994", "content_text": "Roc, A S, China As I Saw It, London Hutchinson, 1910\n\nRomer, Charles Frederick, Foreign Investments in China, New York Macmillan, 1933\n\nRoosevelt, Kermit, The Search of the Giant Panda, Journal of American Museum of Natural History XXX 33-16(1930)\n\nRoss, Edward Alsworth, The Changing Chinese, The Conflict of Oriental and Western Cultures in China (Taipei Reprint Ch'eng-wen Publishing)\n\nRowbottom, Arnold H, Mission and Mandarins, the Jesuits at the Court of China, Berkley, University of California Press, 1942\n\nRoy, Jules, Journey Through China, London Faber, 1967\n\nRoyal Asiatic Society, Journal of Hong Kong Branch\n\nRoyal Asiatic Society, Journal of North China Branch\n\nQuested, R. K.I., The Expansion of Russia in East Asia 1857-1860, Kuala Lumpur University of Malaya Press, 1968\n\nSaeki, P Y, The Nestorian Monument and Relics in China, Tokyo. Toho Bunkwa Gakuin, 1937\n\nScidmore, Eliza Ruhamah, Westward to the Far East, a Guide to the Principal Cities of China and Japan, Montreal Canadian Pacific Railroad, 1894\n\nScott, Roderick, Fukien Christian University. Historical Sketch, New York United Board for Christian Colleges in China, 1954\n\nSebes, Joseph S.J., The Jesuits and the Sino-Russian Treaty of Nerchinsk (1689), Rome Institutum Historicum S.I., 1961\n\nSewell, William Gowan, The People of Wheelbarrow Lane Chengtu 1931-41, London Alfred and Unwin, 1972\n\nShaw, Robert, Visits to High Tartary, Yarkand and Kashgar, London John Murray, 1871 (Hong Kong Reprint. Oxford University Press)\n\nShaw, Samuel (1754-1794), The Journals of Major Samuel Shaw, the First American Consul at Canton with Life of Author by Joseph Quincy, Boston W Crosby and H P Nichols, 1847\n\nSilverstein, Joseph and Lynn, David Marshall and Jewish Emigration from China, China Quarterly (London 1979)\n\nSino-Swedish Expedition 1927-1935, Reports from the Scientific Expedition to the North-Western Provinces of China Under the Leadership of Sven Hedin, with 54 folded maps,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1994.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zk522640g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214999, "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": 95, "title": "RAS-2000", "content_text": "51\n\nyoung for demobilisation, he volunteered to join the HQ of the CLC instead of serving with the Army of Occupation of the Rhine, and served with them until being demobilised. In February 1920 he volunteered for repatriation duty and from Le Havre assisted to escort 1000 labourers on the S.S. Melita to St John's, Newfoundland, a voyage lasting five days. Seven days journey by Canadian Pacific Railways took them to Vancouver City and then by ferry to the quarantine station at William Head on Vancouver Island, where they were joined by another 5000 coolies who were also awaiting repatriation. After quarantine, with 12 British officers and other ranks, 4730 coolies sailed on the M. S. Dollar to Qingdao, a crossing of twenty-one days, where the coolies were demobilised. Mellor then sailed via Shanghai, Hong Kong [staying two months], the Suez Canal to London, where he was demobilised in late 1921.\n\nAgain, a further confusion in these figures of those who died arises, as, according to a list of names provided by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, of those labourers who have graves, world-wide, the number buried is 1952. Their list also includes, separately, names and graves of non-nationals [i.e. Brits, etc.] who were either serving with or were attached to the CLC from other regiments and these totalled 58. A total of 191 Chinese from the Corps served later with the Slavo-British Legion in Northern Russia in 1920. Between March and December 1919, 50,861 labourers were repatriated with shipments continuing for several more years. About 60 men remained behind in France to carve inscriptions on the tombstones of their dead fellow workers, and this may explain why some of the characters on the stones are unusual, if not incorrect. We understand that headstones are today replaced at fairly frequent intervals providing an enduring picture of well-cared for military cemeteries. The stones are produced nowadays in France by a team working for the Commonwealth War Graves Commission [CWGC] using automatic laser guided tools. This means that the Chinese characters are taken from identical templates which may explain why the character that we saw for the surname Liu has two different forms, each of which is identically turned out on headstones but without any apparent reason for the use of the popular version on some and the obscure version on many more. According to the CWGC a typical headstone would bear one of five phrases engraved both in Chinese and English, the name of the corps, number and date of death in English and the name and province of the casualty in Chinese. We only", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2000.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/nk328168n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215281, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-2001", "page_number": 58, "title": "RAS-2001", "content_text": "6\n\nStraits Settlements, but not to Hong Kong. The governor protested to the Colonial Office at Hong Kong's exclusion in 1907, 1910 and 1912 but the Canadian government refused to include Hong Kong within its preferential tariff on the grounds that goods from China might be shipped through Hong Kong's open port and fraudulently obtain the benefit of Canada's preferential tariff.\" So Hong Kong's exports of cement and refined sugar were taxed at the highest rate and soon lost their market in Canada. In 1912 a trade agreement was negotiated between Canada and the West Indian colonies whereby Canadian exports were granted preferential tariffs in return for Canadian preferences on Caribbean cane sugar, cocoa beans and lime juice. The West Indian colonies negotiated this trade agreement directly with Canada and the secretary of state for the colonies raised no objection. These preferences were increased by a new trade agreement in 1920 and were generalised to benefit goods from all empire sources.20 The Colonial Office invited all colonies and protectorates to consider the practicability of introducing preferential rates of duty for goods of imperial origin. But most of the colonial empire was prevented by international treaties from imposing discriminatory tariffs. Northern Rhodesia, Kenya and Uganda, being part of the Congo Basin, were forbidden to discriminate by the Convention of St. Germain (1919); Nigeria and the Gold Coast by the Anglo-French treaty of 1898; and Tanganyika, Togoland, Cameroons and Palestine were mandated territories of the League of Nations which prohibited discrimination. By 1932 the only colonies which were free to adopt imperial preference but had not done so were Somaliland, Ceylon, the Straits Settlements, Hong Kong and certain islands in the Pacific.\" Canada and New Zealand were the only dominions which granted any preferences to the colonial empire before 1932. Australia, South Africa, Newfoundland, Southern Rhodesia and India granted none.\n\nThe world trade depression which began in 1929 convinced British politicians that the liberal principles of free trade which had been followed for the past 70 years must be abandoned. The National government elected in 1931 quickly passed the Import Duties Act which imposed a general duty of 10 per cent ad valorem on all imports. Section 5 of the act granted an entire exemption from the general duty to imports from all colonies, protectorates and mandated territories, provided that at least 25 per cent of the value was derived from materials grown or produced or from work done within a part of the empire.\" Imports from the dominions and India were exempted from duty only until November pending the outcome of an Imperial Economic Conference.\" A circular despatch was sent by the Colonial Office to all colonies and protectorates drawing attention to the great advantages extended to the colonies by the Import Duties Act and inviting them to give similar preferences to United Kingdom manufactures", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g", "rank": 0 } ]