[ { "id": 211138, "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": 199, "title": "RAS-1987", "content_text": "174\n\nWhen in July 1891, the appointment of a Chinese consul was made public, the expatriate community was angered at the manner in which it had been sprung on them. Without prior notice, the Governor had laid the notice of the appointment before a meeting of the Legislative Council.\n\nThe writer of the newspaper column \"Fragrant Waters Murmur” described the despatch announcing the appointment as \"made in the truest Imperial style, regardless of colonial feeling or opinion.\"\n\nHe further claimed, “that this, the Imperial will, was flashed upon the amazed residents without the slightest previous hint being given from any official source.\"\n\nHe expressed strong objections to an Imperial policy of this kind, particularly in view of the financial demands the Home Government made on the Colony. According to \"Brownie,” the author of the column, local opinion felt that, “if Hongkong is called to pay £40,000 a year as a contribution to the defence of the Empire, it is entitled to be consulted in matters which immediately concern its interests.\n\nToday if Britain takes unilateral action on certain matters affecting Hongkong, such as agreements regarding landing rights for airlines at Kai Tak, there are local murmurs about unfair treatment.\n\nIn order to air the question and to have a basis for formulating a position in response to the announcements, the merchants wished to have made public the correspondence on the matter.\n\nConsequently, at the next meeting of the Legislative Council, Mr. Whitehead, an unofficial member, after due notice asked: \"Will the Government lay upon the table copies of all recent correspondence on the subject of a Chinese consul to Hongkong and also copies of the correspondence on the same subject in the years 1868 to 1876?”\n\nThe Officer Administering the Colony, who was presiding, was", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1987.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/rx919b522", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211146, "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": 207, "title": "RAS-1987", "content_text": "182\n\nfor support in opposing the appointment.\n\nHo A-mei's advice to his countrymen was: “All Chinese merchants, who have any regard for themselves, should refuse to assist in the consummation of an act that is wrong. Let them be peaceful and law-abiding, but with enough pride as Chinese to stand for what was their nation's due.”\n\nThe letter evoked critical comment from \"Brownie,\" who wrote the newspaper column, \"Fragrant Waters Murmur.\" He questioned Ho A-mei's motives.\n\nAccording to him, a consul had always been A-mei's \"pet scheme.” In fact, Brownie said he was sometimes facetiously called the \"Chinese Consul\" because of his close relations with Chinese officials. He sometimes acted for them in an unofficial capacity.\n\nBrownie thought these connections should have made Ho A-mei fully aware of “the devious ways of Chinese officialdom.” Certainly he could not really believe that a consul would benefit Chinese residents.\n\nAn editor, commenting on A-mei's letter, implied that its author had himself had an unhappy experience with Chinese mandarins. He pointedly asked: \"Were you, Mr. Ho A-mei, ever fined a large sum of money for your temerity in presenting a work or despatch of yours to the Viceroy and did you think it fair treatment?\"\n\nUnder the caption, “How rich Hongkong residents are squeezed,\" the China Mail published a chapter from a work entitled: Chips from the workshop of a self-sacrificing officer. It related the difficulties the Li Sing family encountered at the time of the Second Opium War, when the Chinese Government put pressure on members of the family to make large \"contributions” to the Ch'ing Government. At the time, the family was accused of collaboration with the British against the Chinese.\n\nThe example was interesting inasmuch as Ho A-mei had a long", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1987.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/rx919b522", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211172, "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": 233, "title": "RAS-1987", "content_text": "208 \n\nThere was only time in those busy days for a committee to meet on February 17 to pass a resolution that read: “A public meeting should be convened upon Wednesday, March 2 at 4.30 pm, and the Chief Justice shall be asked to preside. All members of the community are invited to attend. The meeting will be held at the City Hall.\" \n\nAfter Mr. Chater's question and the Government's reply, \"Brownie,\" the writer of the regular China Mail column “Fragrant Waters Murmur,” expressed the hope that \"some scheme for celebrating Her Majesty's jubilee will be harmoniously arrived at, and that it will reflect credit upon the community of Hongkong as well as be a permanent good to the Colony and a worthy record to our Queen.\" \n\nUnfortunately, it produced discord rather than harmony. It resulted in the Chinese holding their own meeting on March 28, when harmony did reign. That meeting decided to raise funds for a building for a Chinese Chamber of Commerce. \n\nWHEN EXPATS WAXED OVER GLORIES OF SOVEREIGN \n\nOn March 2, 1887, a public meeting was convened at the City Hall to pass resolutions concerning Hongkong's celebration of the Golden Jubilee year of Queen Victoria. \n\nFive resolutions were passed and several amendments were proposed. The proposer of each resolution gave a speech as did its seconder. It was an occasion upon which Hongkong's would-be Demosthenes could display their oratorical skill. \n\nThe anticipated celebration was one in which national pride could luxuriate. In that day loyal Britons took pride in the worldwide Dominion of the Empire. The occasion was an opportunity for the expatriates in Hongkong, an outpost of that Empire, to express their patriotic sentiments, \n\nIn the nineteenth century imperialists did not question the right of \"civilised nations\" to impose their rule over what were considered the less advanced peoples of the world. The \"white man's", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1987.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/rx919b522", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211216, "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": 277, "title": "RAS-1987", "content_text": "252\n\nThere was still, however, one more proposal before the meeting, that of the statue. It was defeated. This left Dr. Manson's sanitarium proposal as the only one not rejected outright. But the meeting was at an impasse because of the tie vote.\n\nIt was now time for those who desired a committee to again come into their own. Mr. Lister spoke: “I have now much pleasure in proposing a small committee to inquire into the details of Dr. Manson's scheme and report at a subsequent meeting.”\n\nMr. Sharp proposed the names of six men to serve on the committee. One of the persons named begged off, saying he could not possibly spare the time. Mr. D. R. Crawford was suggested as a substitute. He also declined as he was leaving the Colony shortly. Another name was put forward, but at this point the meeting suddenly dissolved.\n\nThe reporter who covered the meeting for the Daily Press thought: \"Probably it was the general impression the committee was appointed, but this is a matter of more surmise as the motion was never put.\n\n**\n\nThe whole affair seemed to be about to melt away, leaving behind a bad taste and a smudge on Hongkong's reputation. This would have been a dismal admission of civic incompetence as well as an insult to the Queen.\n\nAs a way out, the Daily Press suggested that a plebiscite be held. Voters on their ballot could select the scheme they wanted and suggest twelve names for a committee to carry out the most widely accepted proposal. Or, if it seemed there was no possibility of the public being able by this means to come to a decision which represented a majority, the Legislative Council should take the matter in hand and invite the public to co-operate.\n\nAfter the meeting, the China Mail column \"Fragrant Waters Murmur,\" as an expression of general dissatisfaction over the state of affairs, suggested \"the erection in a conspicuous position of a broken column, copies of the entire correspondence to which the subject has given rise to be deposited in a receptacle in the base.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1987.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/rx919b522", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212191, "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": 133, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "110\n\nJ\n\nonto\n\nup from Shanghai to relieve them. In this way he wished to show the Japanese that the British flag could not be driven off the Yangtze. But other ideas prevailed in Shanghai; the ships were ordered out. I was instructed to transfer my Chinese refugees, the employees from our office and their families, numbering some 200 souls, to the \"Ewo\" hulk, which was to be left anchored at Nanking under the protection of a British gunboat. Curiously enough, the refugees showed extreme reluctance to be abandoned thus to an unknown fate, and in the upshot, most of them went on to Shanghai with the ship. Our flotilla was augmented by the arrival of the light cruiser **Caradoc** from Hankow, where she had been wintering. Her 'tween decks were packed with several hundred British women and children, who were being evacuated from the upriver ports. A small ship flying the Italian flag added to our number; she was believed to be carrying the personnel of the Italian Aviation Mission, who had been training Chinese pilots at Nanchang. Led by a Japanese escorting destroyer, followed by H.M.S. \"Caradoc\", we formed line and sailed down the river, the journey enlivened by the anger of the Japanese Commander at the inability of the master of the Italian ship to understand the signals which, from time to time, he made in the International code. With our convoy went the last merchant ships to show the British flag on the Yangtze. The \"Red Duster\" was displaced; henceforth the Japanese view prevailed.\n\nHong Kong and South China 1938\n\nThe West river and its network of tributaries provide the highways over which the commerce of South China moves. Some distance outside Bocca Tigris, where the river debouches into the China Sea, an eleven-mile ridge of hills rises sharply out of the blue semi-tropical waters. We call it Hongkong, but to the Chinese it is \"The Fragrant Lagoon\". Why \"fragrant\" I cannot say, because the surrounding waters are salt, as any sea water, and full of large diaphanous jelly-fish that lie in wait to sting unwary swimmers, or of little black insects which get inside your bathing costume and bite you in places inconvenient to reach.\n\nThere is no record to show how these marine depredators spent their time before 1840. In those days, before the arrival of the British, the island was uninhabited and, though visited by fisher folk and pirates, I doubt whether they went swimming. The pirates have now", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 } ]