[ { "id": 206198, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1971", "page_number": 15, "title": "RAS-1971", "content_text": "# HON. TREASURER'S REPORT FOR 1970\n\nThe Accounts now before you have again been kindly audited by Messrs. Wong, Tan & Co.\n\nIn my report last year I predicted that the Society would make a deficit due to forthcoming printing charges. As you can see from the Income and Expenditure Account this has been the case where a surplus of $5,691 in 1969 has been turned into a deficit of $6,529 in the current year. This is entirely due to the increased expenditure, the heaviest since the Society was revived eleven years ago. This increase can be seen in the expenditure incurred in the very successful Peking Opera, which the Society sponsored, and in the amount spent on printing Journals. The latter falls into three categories, the reprinting of Volume I, the printing of the symposium \"The Changing Face of Hong Kong\" and the 1970 Journal. The 1970 volume which you are just about to receive if you have not already done so, is a splendid work, but it has cost almost 50% more to print, due to rising costs, the increased size and not least the reproduction of coloured photographs. Members will recall that they receive this free and there is no doubt that it is exceptionally good value for money. However your Council has recently endorsed the proposal that in view of the exceptional expense, the price of this particular Journal to non-members and to members, should they wish for more than one copy, should be raised to $18 from the present $12.\n\nOn the Income side you will notice that this is more or less the same as in the previous year. Annual Memberships do not cover, and never have covered, the expenditure. It is of course important that the Society should increase its membership, not only to enable it to become wider known, but also to increase its income: this is the one positive way in which all members can contribute, by asking their friends to become members. At present, income from this source is fairly static (in 1968 it was $11,380; in 1969, $10,559; in 1970, $10,853 and in 1971 it looks as if the amount will still be under $11,000). I would therefore urge you to help in increasing our membership so that the Society can afford to produce more publications like the 1970 Journal and sponsor other activities such as the Peking Opera.\n\nPage 15\nPage 16", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1971.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/z029vt43g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210879, "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": 230, "title": "RAS-1986", "content_text": "213\n\npious, became more prominent.\n\nPIONEER BEHIND THE MINING TRAIL TO NEW ZEALAND\n\nThe career of Ho A-mei, the younger brother of Ho A-low, is of particular interest because he was an innovator. He introduced the first group of Chinese miners into New Zealand goldfields. He opened up lead, tin and silver mines in Kwangtung province. He was a principal in organising a company to build a telegraph line between Canton and Hongkong. He initiated a proposal to organise a waterworks company at Canton. He was the first president of a Hongkong Chinese Chamber of Commerce. I shall be writing about these and other aspects of his career in this and future articles.\n\nAfter leaving Dr. Legge's school he left Hongkong in 1858 to join his brother in Australia. Here he acquired enough capital to embark on a project to introduce Chinese labour to the goldfields of New Zealand. The details of his effort are set forth in a letter he sent in 1871 to the Otago Daily News Times in New Zealand.\n\nHe begins with an estimate of himself and his intentions. \"Sometime in the month of November 1865, being an energetic and enterprising man, blessed with the health and hopefulness of youth, and more especially animated by a spirit of speculation, I started from Melbourne for your city (Dunedin)... My object was for obtaining reliable information, and making necessary preparation previous to the introduction of Chinese labour into your goldfields, but being not a miner myself, my view therefore was to first secure the introduction of labour; then, with a hope to reap the benefit by having the full command of provisioning business, should the scheme prove a success.\n\nA-mei gives the impression that he alone was responsible for initiating the project. The account of the coming of Chinese to New Zealand given in Charles Price's book, The Great White Walls are Built, states that he had been invited to Dunedin by the Otago Provincial Council and the Dunedin Chamber of Commerce.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1986.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/jq08c7063", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211184, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1987", "page_number": 245, "title": "RAS-1987", "content_text": "220\n\nThe Government faced the vexing problem of compensation to the owners of the fields. This problem still troubles the Government. The compensation to people whose ancestral lands are resumed is a thorny issue.\n\nIn 1844 a three-member commission was formed to consider claims and recommend suitable payment for the land given up. It was composed of the Land Officer, Mr. Gordon, the Chief Magistrate, Major William Caine, and the Chinese Secretary, the Rev. Mr. Charles Gutzlaff.\n\nMr. Gutzlaff did most of the work interviewing the villagers and attempting to ascertain current land values.\n\nThe Colonial Office inquired of the Governor under what circumstances it had been necessary to purchase the land when, with the cession of the island to Britain, all land automatically had become the property of the Crown.\n\nThe Governor explained: “That Rule laid down since the occupation of the island has been that the property of those Chinese who were possessed previous to the cession of the colony should be respected, but none other.\n\n“The land in question is among the oldest under cultivation in the island, being a rich alluvial soil adapted to the growing of rice. It therefore came strictly under this rule.”\n\nThe committee determined to its satisfaction that the price of the second-class paddy land was between $20 and $40 a mow (a Chinese land measure). It recommended the average of $30.\n\nThrough a mistake by the committee in stating the number of mow in an acre, the Government almost blundered into paying three times as much for the land. Fortunately for the Government treasury, but not the villagers, the error was discovered before a settlement was made.\n\nIt took a year to complete the project. The land was surveyed. The owners were compensated and the drainage and undertaken.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1987.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/rx919b522", "rank": 0 } ]