[ { "id": 212303, "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": 245, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "222 \n\nand Jardine's Crescent, both in Causeway Bay, and Jardine's Corner on the Peak. Bulkeley Street market, and streets named Perceval, Irving, Anton, Landale, Matheson, Paterson, Johnstone and Keswick are named after Jardine taipans.\n\nThere is also Jardine's Lookout. It was from this 433 metre high vantage point that observers galloped down by 'pony express' to head office, in the days before modern communications, with the news that a Jardine ship was approaching. In early Hong Kong the company is said to have had a fleet of 12 ships which were faster than those of rival firms,\n\nThe late Richard Hughes, wrote that, of the two founders, Jardine was the older and tougher, and the planner. He was respected and even feared, and nicknamed 'Iron-headed Old Rat', in Chinese, because of his insouciant attitude when attacked and hit over the head with a club in Canton (Hunter, 1844). Except for the one on which he sat, there were no chairs in his office. Visitors were not encouraged to dally.\n\nMatheson was more genteel, although not of exalted stock, and some of his family had been clergy and others army officers. He was more liberal, suave and affable, and even, so it is believed, regarded with some affection. Unlike most businessmen at the time, he was a person of some taste and culture. In 1827, he supplied a small hand printing press so the Canton Register, an English newspaper, could be published. He owned the only piano in Canton or Macau. But as Hughes writes, no one laughed when he sat down to play'. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society (UK) on the 19th February 1846.\n\nMatheson was a good organiser and administrator. He could draft a dry, caustic minute as the following illustrates:\n\n\"The 'Gazelle' was unnecessarily delayed at Hong Kong in consequence of Captain Crocker's repugnance to receiving opium on the Sabbath. We have every respect for persons entertaining strict religious principles, but we fear that very godly people are not suited for the drug trade. Perhaps it would be better that the Captain should resign.\"\n\nIncidentally David Matheson, a member of the 'clan', did resign some years later to become chairman of the executive committee of", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213577, "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-1995", "page_number": 173, "title": "RAS-1995", "content_text": "143\n\nTHE USE OF HILL LAND FOR VILLAGE FORESTRY AND FUEL GATHERING IN THE NEW TERRITORIES OF HONG KONG.\n\nRICHARD WEBB\n\nWhile recent economic and social changes in the New Territories of Hong Kong have wrought irrevocable changes to the rural villages, until perhaps twenty years ago, villagers appeared to have used the hillsides much as they pleased, even though some of the larger clans claimed payments for hill land. The villagers of Cheung Sha Wan, west Kowloon, for example, paid regular sums in silver to the Tangs of Kam Tin for their forest land. The Liu family of Sheung Shui was leasing forest land to the villagers of Long Keng under a deed of 1867 (Hayes 1983). However, hill and forest land was usually annexed by the nearest village. Each village had its forestry lot, apportioned to families according to natural boundaries. There was a major difference in people's minds between land under pine tree cultivation (Pinus massoniana) and other hill land used for fuel gathering, grass cutting, and grazing. The British administration carried over the common usage of hill areas for pine cultivation into their village forestry licenses, or \"t'sung shaan p'aai\", which allowed villagers to occupy Crown Land for the purpose of growing these trees on which they relied for fuel, poles, and timber. It was the 'pine hills' that mattered more to the village families, even though they possessed no proper title to them, save under British rule, an undifferentiated notional share in the village license through being part of its community. Like houses and fields, hillside plots could be passed from father to son.\n\nDaley (1975) provides an account of forestry activities, although it is not clear if this refers to village forestry, in which 211,015 trees were planted in 1880, rising to 1,157,609 in 1883. The British administration established the Botanical and Forestry Department in 1880, with the objective of planting the badly eroded areas and water catchments. From 1881 to 1891, an average of around 647,223 trees were planted every year, of which 95% was Pinus massoniana, a local pine which can establish on very poor soil. By 1938, 70% of Hong Kong island had been afforested with government plantations, and 200 km2 of the New Territories were occupied by leased forestry lots used as a source of firewood. By this time, the government plantations were", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1995.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/95941j25g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213584, "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-1995", "page_number": 180, "title": "RAS-1995", "content_text": "150\n\n(Hase, P. pers. comm.). This tended to reinforce the fung shui layout of the village by protecting the primary and secondary fung shui woods. It is largely because woodfuel is rarely gathered from the hills any longer by villagers, due to the use of alternative fuels and because the reduced population can obtain its fuel needs, if necessary, from the abandoned fields, that such songs and prohibitions are being forgotten by the old women. This in turn has two effects. It allows fung shui woods to spread and colonize the hillsides, yet at the same time the precise working knowledge of fung shui is being lost.\n\nHowever, it appears that substantial amounts of woodfuel are still used in more remote coastal villages. When visiting Lai Chi Wo in December 1990, large amounts of fuelwood were seen cut and stacked, but whether this was solely for the use of the villagers is not known. Some of the coastal village restaurants, which cater for hikers and junk trips on a regular basis, such as at Sam A Tsuen, Plover Cove, use only firewood for cooking. At Ma Tsuek Leng near Sha Tau Kok in late 1993 there were large stacks of woodfuel, mostly cut branches, which the elderly people purchase from elsewhere, as it is cheaper than buying bottled gas.\n\nDuring the Japanese occupation, and the years immediately after, the pressure on the countryside for fuel was severe. Grass was shaved from the hills, scrub and remnant woods were cleared, even from remote areas, and inroads were made into fung shui woods, especially those of secondary importance. Such was the pressing demand for fuel that those trees and woods that can be seen on the US Airforce airphotos of 1945, taken prior to liberation, must only have survived purely because they were of such fung shui significance (Hase, pers. comm.).\n\nDaley (1975) gives an indication of the extent of this immediate post-war felling. \"Woodcutting extended further and further from the towns and gradually the hillsides as far as Mirs Bay and the western side of Lantao were stripped of trees. The prevention of all this cutting was an impossible task in the circumstances. Very few large trees survived this onslaught during the war years and just after. Perhaps the biggest was the pine felled at Ping Shan Chai, near Tai Po, in 1960. It measured almost 3ft in diameter at 4ft above ground, and 69ft in height. It was 159 years old.\"\n\nPage 180\n\nPage 181", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1995.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/95941j25g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213585, "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-1995", "page_number": 181, "title": "RAS-1995", "content_text": "151\n\nRecent Developments\n\nThe Government formally re-adopted a forestry policy in 1953, the aims of which were to afforest the waste hills of the Colony, many of which were eroded and bare and as such were a threat to effective water catchment; to manage the forest so that it would produce a sustained yield of poles, fuel and small timber; to encourage private forestry and assist the villagers in the New Territories to establish and manage their plantations. By 1963 there were about 10,000 acres (4166 ha.) of Government plantations and around 2,000 acres (833 ha.) of Government-assisted village plantations. The erosion control planting in particular was often on a heroic scale, and it is this planting which characterizes much of Hong Kong's Country Parks today.\n\nAround this time, however, the programme was scaled down considerably. The village population was declining as people emigrated or moved to the urban areas; the demand for wood fuel was declining as alternatives became available; and the problem of hillfires was as serious as ever. In 1966-67, the area of Government coniferous forest alone which was burned was 1,265 acres (527 ha.), and village plantations and naturally regenerating woodland also suffered. From 1970 to 1985, the total number of trees killed exceeded those planted, and the total area affected by fire was nearly twice as large as the woodland cover in 1985. In the event, the total planting programme was reduced, and the replanting of village woodlands was discontinued (Daley 1975).\n\nFor better facilities for informal \"countryside\" activities, such as walking and observing wildlife, more effective management of the hill areas was required. In 1977, the first Country Park was established in Hong Kong (Neil & Harding, 1983). Some 40% of the area of Hong Kong and the New Territories, covering most of the upland area, had been designated under 21 Country Parks by 1979. Under the Country Parks Ordinance, all development within the Country Parks is strictly controlled. As well as the Parks, the conservation framework in Hong Kong includes 13 special areas and 37 Sites of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI), which are sites chosen for their rare flora, fauna, and geology, or because of special educational, archaeological, or historic interest.\n\nThe Department of Agriculture and Fisheries, which manage the", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1995.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/95941j25g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213586, "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-1995", "page_number": 182, "title": "RAS-1995", "content_text": "152\n\nCountry Parks, currently plant around 300,000 trees a year for amenity, erosion control and the repair of fire damage. Usually only introduced trees such as Acacia will grow under the harsh conditions of bare and eroded slopes, but under more favourable conditions native tree species are also being planted for the benefit of wildlife. DAF organizes forestry camps where each summer around 2000 young people learn to care for trees. Each spring in the Country Parks DAF also organises community tree planting days in which 20,000 trees are planted by the public each year.\n\nREFERENCES\n\nChan, Ka-yan (1989). Joss Stick Manufacturing A Study of a Traditional Industry in Hong Kong Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society 29 94-120\n\nChang, YN (1963) Hong Kong Ts'un (Hong Kong Village) and the Cultivation and Exportation of Incense from Kowloon and the New Territory in Lo, H. L. (ed) Hong Kong and its External Communications Before 1842 Hong Kong Institute of Chinese Culture P114\n\nCoates, A Myself a Mandarin (1968) Oxford University Press\n\nDaley, PA (1975). Man's Influence on the Vegetation of Hong Kong In Thrower, B (ed) The Vegetation of Hong Kong Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society 44-56\n\nDunn, S T (1907). Report on the Botanical and Forestry Department for 1907 Hong Kong Govt\n\nHase, P, Hayes, J W and Iu, K. C. Traditional Tea Growing in the New Territories (1984). Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society 24 264-281\n\nHayes, J. (1977), Notes for the Royal Asiatic Society Visit to Tai Mo Shan, 3rd April 1976. Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society 17 157-178\n\nHayes, J (1983) The Rural Communities of Hong Kong, Studies and Themes Oxford University Press\n\nHong Kong Daily Press 1873 February 5\n\nIu, Kwok-choy (1983) The Cultivation of the \"Incense Tree\" (Aquilaria sinensis), Hong Kong Quarterly Journal of Forestry July\n\nNichols, D (1978) Some Aspects of Vegetation in Hong Kong with Special Reference to Fung Shui Woods University of Leicester Dept of Geography Quoted in Thrower, S", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1995.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/95941j25g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 216420, "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-2003", "page_number": 179, "title": "RAS-2003", "content_text": "129\n\nChemulpo (later Inchon). This would drive north along thawing and impassable roads, across the Yalu River into Manchuria, heading for Liaoyang and Mukden (now known as Shenyang) north of the Liaodong peninsula. Then, with what remained of the Russian fleet bottled up in the harbour at Port Arthur, the second and main force would be landed some thirty miles north of Dalny (Dairen to the Japanese and now known as Dalian) cutting off Port Arthur at the tip of the Liaodong peninsula. The final stage was the landing of a third Japanese army in January 1905 and its assault on Port Arthur. The war began as planned with a Japanese 'Pearl Harbor' bombardment at Port Arthur, taking the Russian fleet by surprise.\n\nAlthough the Japanese met with a number of set-backs their overall plan succeeded. The crowning moments were the Fall of Port Arthur at the beginning of January 1905 and the Battle of Tsushima in May 1905, the titanic clash between the Japanese fleet and the Russian Baltic Fleet, the latter having made its slow progress across the world from Latvia in October 1904 to Tsushima seven months later, and to its fate and destruction. News of the devastating Japanese victory alarmed a number of Chinese officials who, whilst they did not wish Japan to lose, had not wanted her to gain such an overwhelming victory.\n\nFinally, after the eighteen month campaign the land war ended with the destruction of the Russian army before Mukden. The succeeding months were a matter of Japanese mopping-up operations and the capture of Liaoyang and Mukden.\n\nDuring the final stages of the war the Japanese finally took the fighting on to 'sacred' Russian territory when they invaded the large island of Sakhalin. This was of great political importance as it was regarded as Russian territory and, with rioting on the streets of the Russian major cities, the Russians realised that they had lost. Also at that point, Japan now holding most of the cards, but militarily and financially exhausted, sought President Roosevelt's good offices to bring about a peace conference. This took place in September 1905 concluding with the signing of the Treaty of Portsmouth in the United States. The Russians ceded the Guandong peninsula (Chinese territory) and half of the island of Sakhalin to Japan but without having to pay any indemnity. The Russians, so the Japanese believed, had been allowed by the Americans to get away without paying any financial compensation.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2003.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2v242g390", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 216434, "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-2003", "page_number": 193, "title": "RAS-2003", "content_text": "143\n\nof the natives and made a very favourable impression was in the prohibition of religious propaganda on the part of [foreign] priests.\n\nForeign bias towards the Japanese\n\nThe great majority of western correspondents in the field would appear from their reporting to have had Japanese sympathies. British illustrated histories regularly contained favourable reports on individual scenes and acts by Japanese forces. They were frequently praised for humanitarian acts and regularly reported as having paid particular care in their treatment of and friendly relations with the Chinese population.\n\nA western observer reported that 'in May 1904 prior to the Japanese assault on Dalny (Dalian) a Japanese sergeant made his way into the Chinese quarter, and by spreading news of a great Japanese victory and a quickly arriving Japanese army, induced the residents to fly the Japanese flag, and so stampeded the Russians.'\n\nThe Japanese fought their way for three months, up the Korean Peninsula, stormed across the Yalu in April 1904 and set up their Headquarters in Andong, a Chinese town of some size. Here, stores of all sorts were purchased from the Chinese, though at an exorbitant cost. Chinese coolies, laden with military stores, competed with bullock carts, similarly laden, crowding the road now filled with marching troops and empty carts returning from the front. Coolies and carts were plentiful as they had no problem working for the Japanese who paid promptly, unlike the Russians.\n\nIn general, the lives of Chinese coolies were wretched and the Japanese Army commander issued an order reminding his troops that they were fighting the Russians and not the Chinese, and that they should remember they were fighting an enemy in the country of their friends. A Japanese report claimed that in Manchuria, as in Korea, they had made full use of Chinese coolie labour but had worked their coolies as transport carriers in the same scientifically humane way they worked their horses. After three months of unremitting labour the carrier coolies, well fed, well treated, at a daily wage five times as high as they had been accustomed to earn, and so well looked after that there had been only 2% of sickness among them, were in better condition than when the campaign began.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2003.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2v242g390", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 216444, "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-2003", "page_number": 203, "title": "RAS-2003", "content_text": "153\n\nrecruit Chinese labour for the South African mines had been discussed and taken before the outbreak of the war).\n\nNOTES\n\ni The Russian's naval port at Port Arthur was built beside the small Chinese town of Qingniwa now part of greater Dalian (called Dalny by the Russians). The Chinese town was known to the Russians as either the Chinese town or the Old Town.\n\nii Mukden was Fengtian in Qing times; also Shengjing.\n\nThis consisted of revolutionary agitation, with strikes, riots and mutinies in the army and navy - including the mutiny on the Potemkin in Odessa in June 1905.\n\niv The IG In Peking: Vol. II: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press: 1971: Hart's Letter 1319 of 28 February 1904\n\n* Ernest Brindle: With Russian, Japanese and the Chunchuse - The Experiences of an Englishman during the Russo-Japanese War: John Murray: London: 1905 (A number of observations provided by Brindle have also been quoted within this article)\n\nv Sakuya Takahashi: International Law Applied to the Russo-Japanese War: Stevens and Sons, Ltd: London: 1908 - Chapter IV: Section I\n\nvii Newchwang [(Niuzhuang) is a town some 30 miles inland and connected by the River Liao with its port, formerly Port Newchwang, and known to the Chinese as Yingkou. Newchwang had been a Treaty Port with Western resident businessmen and missionaries since 1861.\n\nviii Some four months after the outbreak of the war foreign newspaper correspondents were complaining that neither the Russians nor the Japanese allowed them to see much of what was going on. Both belligerents claimed that war was too serious an affair to let plans be spoiled by correspondents. Japanese reports were considered more reliable and Russian accounts were not taken seriously.\n\nix [C]hun[c]huse was probably the Russian romanisation for Hong Huzi.\n\nx Shao Yuchun: Minzu Lao Yingxiong - Wang Delin: (Wang Delin, Old Hero): in Tan Yi [ed] Dongbei Kangri Yiyongjun Renwuzhi: Vol 2: 1981\n\nxi Mancall and Jidkoff: Les Honghuzi de la Chine du Nord-Est: 1970\n\nxii War in the East: Virtue and Co.: London: Volume VI\n\nxiii International Law Applied to the Russo-Japanese War: Chapter IV: Section II\n\nxiv Illustration in Japan's Fight for Freedom H.W. Wilson: The Amalgamated Press: London: 1905 - Volumes I and II.\n\nxv * Hart's letter No. 1387 dated 29 October 1905", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2003.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2v242g390", "rank": 0 } ]