[
    {
        "id": 210857,
        "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": 208,
        "title": "RAS-1986",
        "content_text": "191\n\nof the United States and for some time lived at Charlestown, South Carolina. His wife was an American woman. His dress was a bizarre combination of Western and Chinese modes.\n\nHe was an early arrival in San Francisco and operated for a time the Macau and Wosung Restaurant. His domination of the Chinese population was heavy-handed, but it was challenged by an equally colourful character, A-toy, the doyen of San Francisco's \"women of pleasure.\"\n\nThe transfer of leadership came just at the time the question of Chinese labour was becoming a political issue in California. A bill to introduce contract labour was put before the State Legislature. Due to a slump in available cheap labour, the merchants wished to import it from China.\n\nThe miners were strongly opposed. They viewed contract labour as capitalist exploitation of immigrants who would work under living conditions that free miners would not endure. Contract labour was regarded by them as an economic threat. This view appeared to be that of the political majority, and Governor Bigler addressed the legislature in April 1852, opposing the legislation of contract labour.\n\nHis address had been noted by the few Chinese who could read English. They, in turn, explained it to the general Chinese community.\n\nAs representatives of their fellow countrymen, Hab Wa of the Sam Wo Company and Tong A-chick of the Tun Wo Company published a letter replying to the Governor's remarks. In it, they emphasised the important economic contribution to the state made by the business of the Chinese merchants. They emphasised that Chinese immigrants were not coolies under contract but free labourers.\n\nThe letter did not stem the anti-Chinese feeling of the miners, but it did influence more of the American merchants to support the Chinese cause. This encouraged the Chinese in their efforts to win a hearing. They sent Tong A-chick to discuss this with Gover-",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1986.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/jq08c7063",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 210858,
        "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": 209,
        "title": "RAS-1986",
        "content_text": "192\n\nCARL SMITH\n\nnor Bigler.\n\nThe Chinese account says: \"We charged him to see the Governor face to face and to tell him again the truth about us, and to endeavour, by supplicating words, to induce him to use his powerful influence in persuading the American miners to abide by the law which the legislature had passed, allowing foreigners, Chinamen as well as others, to work in the mines on the payment of a tax.\"\n\nTo create a favourable climate Tong A-chick took with him on his visit to the Governor \"shawls of rarest pattern, rolls of silk of costliest texture, and some 70 handkerchiefs of the choicest description.\"\n\nTong A-chick reported back to his compatriots that he had been hospitably received and entertained. Indeed the Governor had requested that the Chinese present another letter stating their case. He promised to answer it by a speech or proclamation on their behalf. \"When we heard this, we were much rejoiced, and believed our sorrows were nearly at an end.\" The rejoicing was premature.\n\nThey drafted another letter and sent it by A-chick to the Governor. His Excellency found it unacceptable and drafted a version of his own. The Chinese, however, found that \"the words were not our words, and that we cannot say them with the truth of honest men, and they contradict what we have already said.\" Despairing of the Governor's support, they published the original letter they had sent for his approval.\n\nIn this letter they stated that the miners had been provoked to drive out Chinese from their claims by the Governor's original message against them, the unfavourable report of the Committee on Mines and Mining Interests, and the resolution passed at a public meeting at Sacramento, the state capital. All these had been circulated extensively among the miners, feeding their animosity against the Chinese.\n\nThe letter protested that the Governor had not followed the advice of the legislature, which had passed a bill levying a tax of",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1986.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/jq08c7063",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 215773,
        "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-2002",
        "page_number": 72,
        "title": "RAS-2002",
        "content_text": "5\n\nalso study how the English system of law was introduced into a largely Far Eastern society and the extent of its impact.\n\nThe nature of the Calcutta administration\n\nLackadaisical attitude\n\nOne of the most glaring problems in the Straits Settlements was the failure of the Indian authorities to establish an effective form of government. This was due to its distance and lack of accessibility which cultivated an indifferent or disinterested attitude on the part of the Indian officials.21 The Indian government was far more interested in its Indian territories than in its possessions in the Malay Peninsular.22 This led to the administrative problems in the Straits Settlements. Owing to this indifference, the men sent from India were young and inexperienced who knew nothing of the problems in the settlements but were only too eager to return to India to reap bigger rewards and promotion.23\n\nLack of representation in Legislative Council\n\nAs the administration of the Straits Settlements was highly centralised in India, the governor of the Straits Settlements had very little authority and merely supervised administration.24 All important matters had to be referred to India for a decision and the governor had no executive or legislative power.25 All the legislation for the Straits Settlements was planned by the Indian government. As the Straits Settlements had no official representation in India, it could not block any legislation that could prove detrimental to the Straits Settlements.26\n\nThus it can be established that the 'roots of the transfer movement lay in the constitutional rearrangement in the Straits Settlements of 1830 and the [Indian] Charter Act of 1833. The system of government was unsatisfactory both for the governor and the mercantile community.'27\n\nThe petition of 1857: A critical evaluation of the complaints raised\n\nThe Currency Act 185528\n\nThe Currency Act is an example cited by the Straits merchants in",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278",
        "rank": 0
    }
]