[
    {
        "id": 213975,
        "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-1997",
        "page_number": 44,
        "title": "RAS-1997",
        "content_text": "9 \n\n(b) the maximum decentralisation of functions by the Central \nGovernment; \n\n(c) simplicity in concept and operation; \n\n(d) the possession of built-in controls; \n\n(e) the allocation of priority of consideration to the densely-populated urban areas, including Tsuen Wan; \n\n(f) compromises, appropriate to particular localities, governing community of interest, development or expected development, economic and industrial characteristics, financial resources measured in relation to financial needs, physical features, population, past administration, size and shape of existing administrative areas, and the wishes of the inhabitants. \n\nAn interesting discussion was recorded of theoretical local government criteria, between the 'Grass Roots School,' which brought government close to the people through attending to day-to-day social cohesion but, while providing local debating societies, resulted in units too small for executive responsibility; and the 'Functional School,' which by relating boundaries to the area of optimal performance of technical services (as in the Colony itself) led to authorities too extensive to be local; and the ‘Finance School,' which by requiring viable internal financial strength reflected the views of the Finance Branch of the Colonial Secretariat but also questioned the validity of the whole concept. This did not daunt the working party's draftsman. \n\nNo immediate application to the NT was expected (where the ark was peculiarly susceptible to rocking), and the special position of the Heung Yee Kuk and the Rural Committees as important consultative bodies in the sensitive circumstances of the self-consciously unBritish leased territories was acknowledged; but although that door should be left open, Tsuen Wan, already a swelling wen, must be made an exception now. The recommended procedure was to appoint an officer with overall responsibility for each developing NT area; to establish an advisory committee to him of local residents; and ultimately to transform this committee into a local authority.",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1997.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/wp98g7579",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 215294,
        "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": 71,
        "title": "RAS-2001",
        "content_text": "19\n\nvery useful in the depression, and the factory would provide employment for 100 Africans.\" Hong Kong was also seen as a special case where the decline of the entrepôt trade with China justified the policy of fostering industrial development. After much discussion the only specific recommendation made by the committee was that when a protective tariff was granted an excise duty equivalent to the import duty should always be imposed. The final report of the committee was never published and apparently was never considered by the cabinet.\n\nSo the Colonial Office continued to vet proposals for new industries according to the guidelines laid down in the 1934 Report, that manufacturing should not be 'artificially encouraged'. Officials were concerned to safeguard colonial revenues at a time when most colonies were in financial difficulties as a result of the world depression. The Colonial Office insisted that budgets must be balanced, to avoid the need for a grant from the British government and the consequent Treasury control of the colony's finances. The Colonial Office had no money available in its own account to subsidise ingenious schemes, such as a project put forward by an entrepreneur from Trinidad to produce newsprint paper from bagasse and to power the factory with anhydrous alcohol distilled from sugar cane juice.70 Governors could apply for funds from the Colonial Development Advisory Committee which provided £36,500,000 for development assistance from 1929 to 1939. But this fund was originally set up to alleviate unemployment in Britain and no application for industrial development would be entertained which would be likely to compete with British industry.? Officials believed that by discouraging uneconomic industrial development they were acting in the best interests of the native inhabitants. An assistant secretary minuted, 'Manufacturing industry, which can be established in a colony only at the price of a monopoly protected by a high tariff, ends in producing a locally manufactured article which is too expensive for the primary agricultural producers to buy.' Governors were more suspicious of the motives of Colonial Office officials. The governor of Sierra Leone complained that any industrial project was approached from the standpoint that British trade interests must rank first, dominions' interests second and those of the colonies last. Perhaps the fairest summary of Colonial Office policy was made by a junior official: 'Generally speaking we do not want to encourage industrial development in the colonial empire, but we are reluctant to go so far as actually to prohibit it.'\"\n\nWhy then was it that Hong Kong was able to develop a flourishing export-oriented industry without any subsidy or assistance from the colonial government whatsoever when in all the other dependent territories the development of manufacturing industry was derisory, and the few factories that were established were heavily dependent on protective tariffs, special",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g",
        "rank": 0
    }
]