[ { "id": 205970, "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": 50, "title": "RAS-1970", "content_text": "J\n\nHONG KONG CADETS, 1862 - 1941\n\n45\n\nThe recruitment of cadets changed the nature of administration in early colonial Hong Kong. The cadets were professionals, unlike the earlier officials who were a mixed lot from variegated backgrounds. They spent their working lives—20 to 30 years on average—in one or other of the Eastern colonies, for some of course transferred from, or to, Hong Kong. Since their profession was administration, and the government of Hong Kong was mainly a matter in those days of running a municipality—between 1886 and 1939 only four new departments were established, the District Office New Territories after 1899, the Kowloon-Canton Railway in 1906, and air services and broadcasting in 1929—they soon introduced routines and procedures, organised the files, and set the administrative machine into grooves, along which it ran, on the whole, smoothly and uneventfully for many years. Several governors evinced surprise at the little work they were called upon to do, for ways of doing things had soon become fixed and immutable, and colonial officials were reluctant to change well-tried methods. Sir George Bowen, Governor 1883-1885, declared that the routine and absolutely necessary work of Hong Kong administration \"seemed to me from the first to be much lighter than that of any Crown Colony which I had previously governed\";40 and Sir Frederick Lugard, Governor 1907-1912, of the same opinion, was amused by the bland efficiency and meticulousness of his able Colonial Secretary, Francis May. In Lugard's day, as Margery Perham writes, the officials \"were certainly efficient; the place was small and administration was conducted according to a system which had been seventy years in the making\". Of course, before 1941, most of the problems dealt with by administrators in Hong Kong tended to be workaday ones, and dramatic solutions were hardly called for until the post-1945 period, when massive immigration changed the face of things.\n\nWith regard to administration, then, Sir Hercules Robinson's scheme had worked. It also produced results in another respect, interpretation. Eitel wrote in 1878: \"There are now very few departments where there is not someone who can read a Chinese petition for himself and efficiently check the oral interpretation of the native clerks acting as interpreter. The Coroner's Courts, the Registration Office, and Chinese Protectorate, even the Colonial Secretary's Office, are well provided with a sufficient check on...", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1970.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ww72j0241", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206557, "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": 105, "title": "RAS-1972", "content_text": "REVIEW OF HOUSING CONDITIONS IN HONG KONG\n\n99\n\nby the reduction of available accommodation, that privies for common use were contrary to Chinese social habits and that no compensation was offered to property owners.7 The unofficial (appointed) members of the Legislative Council were most vociferous in their objections to the proposed measures and were successful in obtaining numerous amendments which made the Ordinance of very limited use. However, the restriction over the amount of internal living space was retained but only after heated debate and the use of the official majority vote.\n\nTwo years elapsed before the government again attempted to introduce new provisions in the form of a Building Ordinance. The matter of rear yards was included in the Bill but this was once more forced out by the unofficial Legislative Council members and had to be included in the Crown Lands Resumption Ordinance. A clause was proposed whereby mezzanine floors could only be constructed if provision were made for a vertical clearance of 9 ft. above and below. This was modified at the insistence of the unofficial members so that it would apply only in cases where the mezzanine extended over more than two-thirds of a room; otherwise a clearance of 6 ft. was permitted. Another clause relating to the provision of sufficient windows was eliminated whilst the installation of privies was made optional.\n\nStiff resistance continued from property owners against further proposals put forward by the government to help improve the sanitary condition of the Colony which daily became the cause of greater concern. Nevertheless, the administration did achieve a number of major improvements recommended by Chadwick in 1882. Between 1883 and 1900, for example, over HK$2 million was spent on improving water supplies through the completion of a reservoir at Tytam; another HK$1 million was allocated for the reprovisioning of the sewerage system and the redraining of 9,957 houses; a further HK$660,000 was used for the construction of new markets, animal depots, slaughterhouses, latrines, laundries and other miscellaneous works.\n\n7Letter of 18th July 1901 to the Hon. J. Chamberlain, Principal Secretary of State for the Colonies from J. H. Stewart Lockhart, Colonial Secretary, Enclosure No. 2: Measures to Give Effect to Mr. Chadwick's Recommendations of 1882 Legislation, Blue Book Reports on Sanitation and Housing 1900-1907, Hong Kong, 1907.\n\nPage 105\n\nPage 106", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1972.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gm80qf99h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207328, "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-1975", "page_number": 96, "title": "RAS-1975", "content_text": "CONDITION OF THE EUROPEAN WORKING CLASS\n\nIN NINETEENTH CENTURY HONG KONG\n\nH. J. LETHBRIDGE*\n\n'The prejudices of a whole class cannot be laid aside like an old coat: least of all, those of the stable, narrow, selfish English bourgeoisie.'\n\nFrederick Engels.\n\nINTRODUCTION\n\nIn the nineteenth century the geographical setting and minute area of Hong Kong, a colony which did not expand substantially until the inclusion of the New Territories in 1898, meant that the territory could support only a small European population. From an examination of census materials it is certain that the resident European community rarely exceeded three thousand souls in all, usually rather less. Europeans in Hong Kong did not form a class of settlers or colonists of the type found in Canada or New Zealand; and, needless to say, no plantocracy—an elite of foreigners exploiting a native labour force—ever evolved; nor, on the other hand, did a class of poor whites—agriculturalists, fishermen or labourers—emerge. The European population was composed principally of middle-class sojourners, not one of whom thought of bringing up his children to regard Hong Kong as a permanent home. Sir James Cantlie declared in 1898 that 'the residents in Crown colonies are recruited, with but few exceptions, from the middle classes'.\n\nAlthough the majority of Europeans may be categorised as middle or lower-middle class in terms of their social origins or because of the occupations they engaged in, a minority could be properly identified as working or lower class either by reasons of birth, education, occupation, residence, or style of life. This paper is concerned with Sir James's 'few exceptions'. It is intended to\n\n* Mr. Lethbridge, Reader in Sociology at the University of Hong Kong and also a Councillor of the Hong Kong Branch, RAS, is well-known for his contributions to the study of Hong Kong's social history and institutions, some of which have appeared in previous issues of the Journal.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1975.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207350, "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-1975", "page_number": 118, "title": "RAS-1975", "content_text": "110\n\nH. J. LETHBRIDGE\n\nautomatic entrée for the husband into Chinese society, and any Chinese woman who married a foreigner in those days was almost certainly herself a deviant within her own family. There were no means, therefore, by which a European could be initiated into, pass into, or achieve full membership of Chinese society. The cultural devices by which Europeans could become full members of American Indian or Pacific islands societies were not present in China. A working-class European was excluded from both polite European and Chinese society; he was forced to live in his own constricted social world, a type of marginal man; and those Europeans who married Chinese women tended to cluster together socially, to form their own minority group.\n\nCONCLUSIONS\n\nIn nineteenth-century Hong Kong the European and Chinese communities formed separate entities, so that two separate systems -- parallel systems of social stratification can be identified. The Chinese population was basically a migrant one; few Chinese were permanent residents of the colony. It would be more illuminating, however, to describe the two communities as status groups: in Max Weber's words, 'in contrast to classes, status groups are normally communities'.38 The European and Chinese communities were distinguished by specific styles of life, a characteristic of all status groups. These were in great contrast, vividly different, a fact which made absorption of members of one group by the other extraordinarily difficult.\n\nIt is a thesis of this paper that working-class Europeans existed on the periphery of both European and Chinese communities, although their presence was essential for the smooth running of the colonial economy and society. They lived, in other words, in a terrain vague between the communities. Sir James Cantlie was perfectly correct in affirming that European residents of crown colonies were mostly middle-class. There was usually an abundance of native labour in tropical and sub-tropical regions, so that no permanent plantation of working-class Europeans was normally attempted. On the other hand, there was always a constant demand for European supervisors of various types; without them Hong Kong merchants and officials could not have carried on with their respective activities.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1975.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209396, "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": 53, "title": "RAS-1982", "content_text": "ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT OF THE POLITICAL SYSTEM\n\nIN THE SHANGHAI INTERNATIONAL\n\nSETTLEMENT\n\nJ. H. HAAN*\n\nIn this article I shall examine the special governmental structure which came into being in the Shanghai International Settlement,1 and which was virtually unique among colonial or semi-colonial territories.\n\nPut succinctly, the Settlement had the following characteristics:\n\n1. It was a territory which had explicitly been set aside by the Chinese authorities (in 1845 on the basis of the 1842 Nanking Treaty) in order that foreigners might live in it and conduct their trade from it. For the rest it was surrounded by Chinese territory, different from, say, Calcutta, Bombay, Colombo or Batavia, which all lay in foreign-dominated areas, if not originally then eventually.\n\n2. It was never the possession of any one single Western power. In this it was distinct from, e.g., Hong Kong, Singapore or Macau. In practice, this meant that no single foreign country was ever able to convert the city into a colony of that country, or to claim sovereignty over it.\n\nIn the crown colonies, government was conducted by a Governor who was appointed by the home country, and he was assisted by an Executive Council, equally appointed by the authorities; furthermore, there was a Legislative Council which consisted partly of official, ex officio, members and partly of non-official\n\n* Mr. Haan is a student of the University of Amsterdam.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1982.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mk61z420p", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210701, "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": 52, "title": "RAS-1986", "content_text": "35\n\nhis profession but no-one would ever know what he was going to do next. Francis did not try again though he remained in the public mind as a possible candidate. The Daily Press in an editorial in 1892 said that he would prove a valuable acquisition to the Council with his long and intimate knowledge of the colony and his legal attainments but the Government would probably think it desirable to have a merchant. Also (according to G.B. Endacott, Government and People in Hong Kong 1841-1962) Governor William Robinson regarded Francis as one of his principal opponents. However he maintained his interest in the reform of the Legislative Council and the introduction of representative government. In 1889 in a lecture on Crown Colonies he expressed a hope for an elected Council, and he was a leading member of the Hong Kong Association founded in 1893 for improving and popularising the Government. That was followed in 1894 by a petition to the Home Government for constitutional reform.\n\nFrancis did in fact achieve elective office, but on the Sanitary Board. That was set up in 1883 to supervise and control the practical sanitation of the colony (which left much to be desired). As its work involved interference with the private affairs of residents it was unpopular with property owners and with the Chinese generally. It could however only make proposals. Their implementation was a matter for the Government. Originally it consisted solely of official members but subsequently provision was made for nominated unofficial members, and two members elected by ratepayers on the special and common jury lists. The first election was held in June 1888 and there were four candidates including Francis who received 55 votes. The other candidates received 71, 43 and 18 votes respectively. The Daily Press hailed the occasion saying the day would be ranked as a day of note by the future historian of Hong Kong; for the first time the ratepayers of the Colony had been given a voice in the management of their own affairs. Prior to the election it referred to his legal knowledge, skill in debate and long and intimate knowledge of social conditions of all sections of the population and said that his presence on the Board should ensure some check on its servants. Granville Sharp in proposing him called him capable, conscientious and unselfish. He promised to be a watchdog for the public. He remained a", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1986.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/jq08c7063", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210706, "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": 57, "title": "RAS-1986", "content_text": "40\n\nWALTER GREENWOOD\n\nHis letter received wide publicity. The Daily Press wrote \"The community will sympathise with Mr. Francis in the treatment to which he has been subjected. It was generally understood that he would at least be made a C.M.G., and to ask him to accept a paltry inkstand while conferring a C.M.G. on Mr. F.H. May can only be construed as a marked intentional insult. The explanation is perhaps not far to seek. In the first place Mr. Francis is not an official and in Crown Colonies the Government is very chary of conferring honours outside the charmed circle; and in the second place he has on certain points deemed it his duty to oppose the Government sometimes with what may have been considered unnecessary warmth. Whoever is at fault the omission of his name is a disappointment to the whole Colony”. In a letter signed Honoris Causa (anonymous letters have always been a feature in Hong Kong) a correspondent wrote “In common, I fancy, with most of the Hong Kong community I thoroughly agree with the letter of Mr. Francis to the Governor except that knowing some of the men the honour of C.M.G. is bestowed on I must congratulate him in not having been created a Colonial Made Gentleman”. The expectation that Francis would be honoured was not confined to Hong Kong. The Straits Times wrote \"The great public services of Mr. Francis would entirely warrant a C.M.G.” Indeed it was believed at first in Singapore that he had got one because the official telegram reporting the award to May read \"Francis May Hong Kong Companion Michael”. However there was reaction the other way. A piece in the Straits Times said “Mr. Francis has succeeded in making what is almost a record in bad taste. The provocation was no doubt great but it was inexcusable for him to publish his letter to the Governor. He had no right to an honour, he only did his duty. The habit of living in small societies tends to throw men off their balance. Mr. Francis lacks self-restraint, dignity and a saving sense of humour. He has taken himself so seriously that no-one else can do ought but smile\". The Japan Mail wrote \"There is one thing that no man has ever succeeded in achieving with grace; it is a return of a gift on the ground of its inadequacy. Mr. Francis has made the essay and has accomplished it after a fashion not certainly wanting in ability but altogether wanting in grace. We may infer from the Governor's extolling the beauties of the gift that he had doubts of its suitability for Mr. Francis' most substantial and praiseworthy services. It is impossible not to sympathise", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1986.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/jq08c7063", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214467, "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-1998", "page_number": 325, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "293\n\nSIR RALPH MOOR AND THE \"BENIN CANNON OF THE BRITISH MUSEUM AND THE ROYAL ARMOURIES\n\nRonald Bishop Smith\n\n(D\n\nIf might be of interest to the members of the society and to readers of the Journal to know from unpublished sources how four old cannon recovered in Benin City (in modern Nigeria) at the time of the British expedition of 1897 arrived at their present locations, that is a Portuguese swivel-gun of about 1540 in the British Museum and three rather archaic looking pieces of various precedences found in the Royal Armouries.(2) One of the Royal Armouries' cannon, curiously to note, has writing in Chinese on it. These four cannon are the only \"Benin\" cannon presently known to exist in England. Another is found in the Museum für Völkerkunde in Berlin and more may exist.\n\nIn the central Archives of the British Museum there is a document in the \"Book of Presents\" for 1899 which throws much light on the four \"Benin\" cannon in England. It is dated 30 May 1899.\n\nMr Read has the honour to report that he has received from Sir Ralph Moor H.M. Commissioner and Consul General for the Niger Coast Protectorate, through Major Gallwey D.S.O., a consignment of Benin antiquities consisting of three cannon, two of iron and one of bronze; and, in addition, a second bronze gun and a bronze plaque also from Sir Ralph Moor, through the Crown Agents for the Colonies.\n\nMr Read was somewhat doubtful whether all of the three objects in the first consignment were appropriate to the Museum, and whether they would not be more fittingly placed in the armoury of the Tower of London. He therefore consulted Lord Dillon, who confirmed his opinion that the bronze guns were not made in Europe, and are probably, therefore, of Benin manufacture; while of the two iron guns, one is doubtless of European make, and the other a copy made in Africa.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215279, "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": 56, "title": "RAS-2001", "content_text": "could be nullified only by the use of the crown prerogative of disallowance. The Colonial Office was most reluctant to exercise this power except in extreme circumstances since it might cause the governor public embarrassment. There are only three cases to be found in the files before 1933 where the Colonial Office was consulted about a project and imposed its veto.\n\nThe progress of industrialisation in Hong Kong was completely different from all other British colonies where factories could be established only with the aid of protective tariffs and other government assistance and manufactured goods were sold only in the local market. Hong Kong island was originally occupied because it had the best deep-sea harbour between Shanghai and Indo-China. It served as a base for the British navy and a place where merchants could store their goods and transfer them from ocean-going vessels to smaller ships to trade at ports along the China coast and inland waterways. About 80 per cent of the goods passing through the harbour consisted of re-exports destined for South China from overseas or from North China, or exports from China being transhipped in Hong Kong. Since the principal reason for Hong Kong's existence was to be an entrepôt for trade with China, it has always been a free port with no customs duties on imports or exports. Industries were established early in the colony's history to provide for the needs of the port and to process primary products for local consumption and export to China. Shipbuilding and ship-repairing yards were established soon after Hong Kong island was occupied in 1841, followed by a rope-making factory in 1851, a flour mill in 1859, a sugar refinery in 1870, a distillery in 1871, tobacco and cigarettes in 1880, a cement factory in 1897, and a cotton spinning and weaving company in 1899.\n\nIn 1911 the Hong Kong General Chamber of Commerce carried out a survey of all European, American, and British Indian firms in the colony engaged in import, export, and manufacturing. The survey listed 38 trading companies which had also set up factories. The 1931 census found that about a quarter of the working population (112,133 out of 470,794) were employed in manufacturing industries. The 1930 Blue Book listed 3,164 factories and workshops under 102 categories ranging from 124 boat builders to 116 tin beaters and 14 weaving factories. Most of these establishments were very small, situated in the back streets and tenements of the urban area. In 1932 only 586 were registered under the new Factories and Workshops Ordinance, which regulated firms that employed at least 20 persons. It is difficult to quantify the size of the manufacturing sector in the absence of detailed statistics of local consumption, but it appears that domestic exports of manufactured goods in 1932 totalled at least HK$36 million (about £2,500,000).1 The main items exported were cement, refined sugar, preserved ginger, lard, knitted singlets and hosiery, and electric torches.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g", "rank": 0 } ]