[ { "id": 204864, "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-1964", "page_number": 167, "title": "RAS-1964", "content_text": "142\n\nBOOK REVIEWS\n\nIndian archaeology, Robert Bruce Foote, a fascinating story that probably could be duplicated in every country in the world as regards the beginnings of archaeological interest and research. In this third section there is also a paper by Naoichi Kokubu and Erika Kaneko entitled Ryukyu Survey 1960 which is a preliminary report on ethnological and archaeological research carried out on several of the islands of the Ryukyu archipelago. The report is detailed, well and fully illustrated with notes on the history and customs of the islands in addition to findings from excavations and the study of existing museum material. An appendix, Note on the skeletal material collected during the 1960 Survey by Takeo Kana Saki accompanies the report. Other notes and articles in this section are New Dates for Early Pottery in Japan; On the Origins of Traditional Vietnamese Music; A First Classification of Prehistoric Bone and Tooth Artifacts,—and two articles on the occurrence of glass rings and bracelets in Southeast Asia.\n\nThe Journal is pleasant to read and to handle with good print and clear drawings and photographs.\n\nE. MANEELY", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1964.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qz20zx09r", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204931, "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-1965", "page_number": 39, "title": "RAS-1965", "content_text": "32 \n\nSIR JOHN BOWRING \n\nrace is thus augmenting, the causes which lead to the destruction of food, — such as the overflow of rivers, fires, ravages of locusts, bad seasons, and other calamities, — are to a great extent beyond the control of human prudence or human exertion. It would be difficult to show what new element could be introduced which would raise up the native supply of food beyond its present productiveness, considering that hand husbandry has given to cultivation more of a horticultural than an agricultural character.\n\nThe constant flow of emigration from China, contrasted with the complete absence of emigration into China, is striking evidence of the redundancy of the population; for though that emigration is almost wholly confined to two provinces, namely, Kwangtung and Fookien, representing together a population of probably from 34,000,000 to 35,000,000, I am disposed to think that a number nearer 3,000,000 than 2,000,000 from these provinces alone are located in foreign countries. In the kingdom of Siam, it is estimated that there are at least a Million and a Half of Chinese, of which 200,000 are in the capital (Bangkok). They crowd all the islands of the Indian Archipelago. In Java, we know by a correct census there are 136,000. Cochin China teems with Chinese. In this colony we are seldom without one, two, or three vessels taking Chinese emigrants to California and other places. Multitudes go to Australia, to the Philippines, to the Sandwich Islands, to the western coast of Central and Southern America: some have made their way to British India. The emigration to the British West Indies has been considerable; to the Havana greater still. The annual arrivals in Singapore are estimated at an average of 10,000, and 2,000 is the number that are said annually to return to China.* \n\nThere is not only this enormous maritime emigration, but a considerable inland efflux of Chinese towards Manchuria and Tibet; and it may be added, that the large and fertile islands of Formosa and Hainan have been to a great extent won from the aborigines by successive inroads of Chinese settlers. Now these are all males — there is not a woman to 10,000 men: hence perhaps the small social value of the female infant. Yet this perpetual out-flowing of people seems in no respect to diminish the number of those who are left behind. Few Chinamen leave \n\n* Journal of the Indian Archipelago, vol. ii, p. 286,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1965.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s752cj653", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206018, "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": 98, "title": "RAS-1970", "content_text": "CHINESE EMIGRATION AND THE DECK PASSENGER TRADE 93\n\nislands of Nauru and Ocean Island; and the other is the Pilgrim Trade from Malaya to the Red Sea Port of Jeddah. The passengers in this latter trade are mainly Malays, who travel in near-luxury conditions comparable with European tourist class. Food and accommodation are suited to Moslem tastes and prejudices, an Iman travels on the ship, and there is a mosque provided in the accommodation.\n\nLater Chinese emigration to South-east Asia was largely the result of the economies imposed on the region by the European colonial powers, and the agricultural and industrial development which these powers initiated. On achieving independence at various times after 1945 each country has attempted with varying degrees of success - to weaken the economic and political position of their Chinese populations, and in the early 1960s Indonesia even attempted their repatriation on a substantial scale. It is in this country that the Chinese have been subjected to the harshest and most cruel treatment, with thousands being killed in pogroms reminiscent of the worst years in Indonesia and the Philippines in the earlier period. It may be that the contribution of the overseas Chinese to the economic development of South-east Asia, has in these latter years at least been counter-balanced by the political instability caused by their presence, but for this they are not wholly to blame.\n\nNOTE\n\nAn account of the Ch'ing government's attitude towards the emigration of its subjects is given at pp. 26-29 of Victor Purcell's The Chinese in Southeast Asia (London, Oxford University Press, 2nd edition, 1965).\n\nIn his well-known work, The Middle Kingdom (London, W. H. Allen & Co., revised edition, 1883) vol. 1, pp. 278-9 S. Wells Williams states that \"The obstacles put in the way of emigrating beyond sea, both in law and prejudice, operate to deter respectable persons from leaving their native land. Necessity has made the law a dead letter, and thousands annually leave their homes.\" He then quotes the following striking passage from W. H. Medhurst's China: Its State and Prospects (1838). \"Emigration is going on in spite of restrictions and disabilities, from a country where learning and civilization reign, and where all the dearest interests and prejudices of the emigrants are found, to lands like Burmah, Siam, Cambodia, Tibet, Manchuria, and the Indian Archipelago, where comparative ignorance and barbarity prevail, and where the extremes of a tropical or frozen region are to be exchanged for a mild and temperate climate.\"", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1970.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ww72j0241", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206067, "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": 147, "title": "RAS-1970", "content_text": "142\n\nS. F. BALFOUR\n\nthrowing or shooting since they are so thin that they would break if used for stabbing. Tools of soft stone for sharpening them showing traces of use have also been found.\n\nOther polished stone artifacts found in great quantities are ornaments. These are made of shale or of carefully chosen brown or greenish basaltic rock or of quartz. They consist of rings, bracelets and of small discs or buttons, carefully shaped and polished and most of them very fragile. In some cases it is difficult to decide what part of the body they were meant to adorn. Most of the rings have a very thin section and they may have been used as earrings, the section being passed over the lobe of the ear, or alternatively they may have been belt buckles. The small discs may have been used as ear plugs. But these theories are by no means certainties. In only a few cases can we be sure of the ornament's use; for instance, a pair of identical brown shale bracelets with flanges on the inner circumference, can be slipped onto a very slender wrist. Their workmanship is remarkable, and a break in one of them had been repaired by drilling small holes on either side of the broken pieces so that they could be bound together with ligaments. The finish of many of these stone implements is very striking to people like ourselves who do not know the use of stone in our everyday life.\n\nThere are many existing populations who use stone tools and ornaments, but it is chiefly from the adze that we can derive some idea of the cultural affinities of this people. The adze is used over a wide area embracing the Indian Ocean, Polynesia and even South America. But the \"shouldered\" or \"stepped\" adze of the type found in our region is particularly found in the East Indies. A tool used in the way we have described the use of the adze is still common in those parts. It is therefore quite certain that early population of these sites had once a connection with the \"Indonesians\" or the peoples that settled in the archipelago between the Indies and Polynesia. The importance of the Hong Kong finds is that they establish beyond a doubt the presence of this people in South China.\n\nBut when we take the conjunction of these stone implements with pottery and bronze we are faced with the difficulty of determining how far these people were influenced by Chinese craftsmanship.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1970.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ww72j0241", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206248, "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-1971", "page_number": 65, "title": "RAS-1971", "content_text": "LETTERS FROM CHINA 1835-36\n\n59\n\nup for three months and a half, reduced to a skeleton and with no strength left to stand the doctors' treatment. Ed.\n\n-\n\nO a sick-room\n\n+\n\nI\n\n+\n\nas\n\nis a dismal doleful prison. Such was mine for weeks at Macao-only two gruff Chinese Servants in the house with me, who skulked continually; and who, if my death had threatened then, would have fled the house, such being their only way of saving their own lives their monstrous Government (incredible as it may seem) would exact at least one of these same lives, if they were found beside a corpse!.... I am sadly grieved at my departure before receiving his [Herschel's] communication on Language and Orthography [for the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge in China mentioned in his letter of 12th December 1835]; the opportunity of applying practically some of the truths and instructions to be expected, seemed a very happy one, and I fear will now be lost. There are numerous languages however in the Indian Archipelago, not one of which has yet a written character, but which from the astonishing zeal already displayed both by English and American missionaries, are likely to be acquired ere long, and in the preparation of Grammar for these, there will be a fine field for applying every orthographical hint that can be given.\n\n[December] 8th The \"Society for Diffusing Useful Knowledge in China\" which I wrote you about, and which you have authorized my Subscribing £5 to, finds the work it has proposed to itself too heavy, I fear, for the one or two hands who are all that can engage in it. This is ten thousand pities particularly as its slow, and I may say unsatisfactory, progress, will dishearten many supporters. Its first work A Compendium of General History is now in the Press (at Singapore, for no Chinese printing is allowed, or practicable, in China itself), and will appear presently; at least so it is said. But whether any other work be in preparation or not, I cannot say. The missionaries who have the chief part of the labour to perform, as Chinese Scholars seem unfortunately to differ as to the style or dialect that ought to be used in the works, and also are not much agreed as to the manner in which these works are to convey knowledge. The dialect that is vulgar in one province, is classical (it seems) in another; and vice versa. There are difficulties of", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1971.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/z029vt43g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206624, "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": 172, "title": "RAS-1972", "content_text": "166\n\nW. SCHOFIELD\n\nand exported them to Hong Kong. Even a scrap of tin, perhaps smelted from ore obtained on the Kwangtung coast, was found during excavation at one site where bronze axes were cast. At the same time, the bead trade, so active in Malaya and the great islands, and even in the Philippines, appears to have passed South China by, for the only beads found are either of jade or of soft greenish local stone used as a substitute. This bead trade is in fact coextensive with Indian influence in the Archipelago.\n\nFifth, these finds raise the vast question of the immigrations of the Polynesians and Indonesians from Asia into the Pacific, and the routes they followed. Having regard to the distribution of anthropological types today, we cannot suppose that any large number of Polynesians ever visited the China coast; but there is the strongest probability that tribes of the types of those inhabiting Hainan, Formosa, the Philippines and Borneo frequented the coast, and perhaps started from it to their present seats. It may be possible eventually to prove that survivors of these peoples still live on the coast; personally, I am disposed to regard the Tan Ka or boatpeople of the Kwangtung coast as such survivors. Certain tribes of the interior, the Yui or Yao, and the Siapo of Foochow, may be similar remnants.\n\nThe archaeology of the historic periods has, inevitably, been comparatively neglected in the attractions of unearthing ancient and unknown cultures. Pottery of types familiar to archaeologists in Canton, and attributed to the Han and the Six Dynasties period (100 B.C. to 600 A.D.), has been found at several Hong Kong sites: urns probably of pre-T'ang date (615 A.D. or earlier) have been unearthed at Sheung Shui near the border and elsewhere; and pottery and porcelain of Sung, Yuan and later dynasties can be found everywhere, especially near villages. Forts and watch-posts are to be seen on islands and promontories, and walled towns and villages are frequent inland; such fortifications are, however, post-mediaeval, and the oldest are late Ming, designed for coast defence against Japanese pirates. Of megalithic remains, such as are known as near as the Laos country in Indo-China, no trace exists. No ancient porcelain kilns, such as exist in North and Central China, were ever started within the Colony, though one small establishment for making rice bowls and cooking pots has been found. In one road cutting a mass of broken porcelain of early Ming date, much", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1972.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gm80qf99h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206651, "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": 199, "title": "RAS-1972", "content_text": "THREE CHINESE DEITIES\n\n193\n\nfrom the Imperial Palace. These Chinese expeditions sailed as far afield as the coast of East Africa, the Maldive Islands, Mogadishu, the Persian Gulf, Aden and Mecca, Siam, Champa, Java, Sumatra and Malacca, visiting more than thirty countries in South East Asia, the Indian Archipelago and the Indian Ocean.\n\nCheng Ho\n\nThe most famous of the admirals to command these expeditions was Ma Cheng-ho, a eunuch from the Imperial Palace and the son of a Chinese Moslem Hadji from Yunnan. The Admiral is remembered either as Cheng Ho or by his title, San Po Kung (2) and not by his family name which was the common Chinese Moslem name Ma ( ). The full title by which he was known after his death was San Pao T'ai Chien (2), the Three Jewelled Eunuch, but this in South East Asia has been shortened to San Pao Kung (ET). Cheng Ho's last expedition in 1430 visited seventeen countries from which tribute had ceased to be received, but after he died in about 1431 all official intercourse between these countries and China ceased.*\n\nWhere or when he was deified is not known. However, amongst the overseas Chinese communities which are mentioned below Cheng Ho is still prayed to for protection, both in everyday life and on short journeys. In the earlier days of the Chinese migrations to South East Asia, he was prayed to by the junk crews of the southern maritime provinces of China and the South Seas. Cheng Ho himself on his voyages is said to have prayed to Tien Fei, the Heavenly Consort (kt), the Chinese seafarers' goddess, who is now normally called Ma Tsu or Tien Hou. What a good example of Chinese toleration Cheng Ho was: or perhaps a good example of the prudent Chinese who takes the opportunity not to offend, and also backs all horses. Here he is, a Mohamedan who prays to Tien Fei for protection and who during one of his voyages erects a tablet in honour of the local Buddha.\n\nImages of Cheng Ho\n\nStatues of Cheng Ho are to be seen in temples in Singapore; in Malaysia in Muar and Malacca; in Sarawak; in Semarang in Java,\n\nSee J. V. G. Mills' edited translation of Ma Huan's Ying-yai Sheng-lan. The overall survey of the Ocean's Shores, Cambridge University Press for The Hakluyt Society, 1970.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1972.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gm80qf99h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208209, "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-1977", "page_number": 248, "title": "RAS-1977", "content_text": "232\n\nNOTES AND QUERIES\n\nREPTILES NEW TO HONG KONG\n\nThe purpose of these notes is to record the occurrence of one species of gecko (Reptilia: Sauria: Gekkonidae) and three species of snakes (Reptilia: Serpentes: Colubridae) not hitherto known as part of the fauna of Hong Kong.\n\nHemidactylus brookii Gray\n\nDuring the first six months of 1978 three live adult specimens of these geckos were sent to me by Father Anthony Bogadek for identification. All three had been caught in the same locality in the Sai Ying Pun district on Hong Kong Island. The first two, both males, had been found outdoors behind a piece of building material lying against a brick wall, one in late September or early October 1977 and the other on 1 March 1978. The third specimen, a female, was found inside a school on 3 June 1978. There is no doubt that at least a localized population of Hemidactylus brookii is now established in Hong Kong.\n\nThe known geographical range of this species includes ‘India' [and therefore Pakistan and probably Bangladesh], Sri Lanka, and parts of Burma, extending southeastward into the East Indian Archipelago and Singapore; it is also widely distributed in the northern half of Africa, and has been introduced into the West Indies (Smith, 1935, p.91). Its occurrence in Thailand and the Malay Peninsula is not clear as, while Boulenger (1912, p.43) records it from the Malay Peninsula and Archipelago', Smith (loc. cit.) states that it is: ‘not yet known from Siam, French Indo-China, or the Malay Peninsula except Singapore. . . .’ As regards its occurrence in China, Smith (loc. cit.) remarks:\n\nthere are two specimens in the British Museum said to have come from China, both were obtained more than 80 years ago.... Recently (Anon., 1977), this gecko has been listed for Fukien and Chekiang provinces, but without other details.\n\nIn its habits, Hemidactylus brookii is equally at home inside buildings as it is out of doors. It is due to their close association with man that the geographical ranges of several species of house-geckos have been artificially extended very widely in warmer parts of the world.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1977.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208937, "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-1980", "page_number": 99, "title": "RAS-1980", "content_text": "SILK & SILVER: MACAU, MANILA TRADE\n\n67\n\naffairs clandestinely. This greatly encouraged them to develop autonomous merchant communities with what amounted to extra-territorial rights. The most important of these Chinese merchant communities at the end of the 15th century was in Malacca.\n\nShips went to and from Malacca as far as India and China, trading in a wide variety of Indian and Chinese goods which were exchanged for the products of the Indonesian islands. Malacca, the \"city made for merchandise\", was essentially an entrepôt the very existence of which depended upon its carrying trade. It had an excellent and easily defensible harbour, protected on either side by the narrow straits between Sumatra and the Malay Peninsula and strategically placed, as Pires put it, at the end of one monsoon and the beginning of others. When Afonso de Albuquerque captured Goa in 1510 he was quick to see that Malacca's unrivalled position as an emporium and as a centre for the dissemination of Islam in South East Asia made it essential that he gain control of it also. He could thus fulfil Portuguese obligations to the Holy See and acquire a base for their commercial activities in the archipelago, in particular the carrying trade in spices and other precious goods from Indonesia to Goa and Lisbon in which the Portuguese sought to gain a share, if not a monopoly.\n\nAt the other end of the maritime area with which we are here concerned was another important trading centre. This was the Ryukyu Islands. The inhabitants of these islands, known to the Europeans as Lequeos or Loochoos, were actively engaged in the carrying trade between the northern and southern parts of the area from the 13th to the mid 16th century. The islanders carried to the south Chinese porcelain, silks and other textiles, metal goods and drugs, Japanese weapons and armour, lacquer and gold, all of which they exchanged for spices, aromatic woods, dyewoods and exotic beasts and birds from the Indonesian archipelago — goods that they could sell in China for several hundred times the buying price.2\n\nTechnically this trade with China remained an imperial monopoly and was carried out under the pretence of tribute. As Ming seapower dwindled and piracy in the China Seas accordingly grew, and as the Portuguese extended their trading activities in the years following their conquest of Malacca in 1511 into the Indonesian archipelago and beyond to the spice islands, to Timor and the Solor Islands, to Makassar and eventually to Macau—so the Ryukyu trade became increasingly circumscribed until it was con-", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1980.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/kh04md207", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209677, "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": 334, "title": "RAS-1982", "content_text": "312\n\nBOOK REVIEWS\n\nto a halt and where the physical past remains frozen or fossilized by political currents.\n\nALAN BIRCH\n\nFujiwara Iwaichi, F. Kikan: Japanese Army Intelligence Operations in S.E. Asia, 1983. Heinemann's Asia.\n\nProfessor H. J. Benda, authority on the Japanese occupation of the Indonesian archipelago, once remarked \"Japan's war-time aims were never as clearly defined as in South-east Asia”.\n\nRecognizing this significance of Japanese plans and preparations for the war waged against the imperialism of the West, Heinemann's have published a number of studies illuminating in depth several aspects of this important programme, notably Joyce Lebra's Japanese trained Armies in South-east Asia. It is she who writes the introduction to this present volume Lt. General Fujiwara's account of the operations of F. Kikan in Malaya in this critical area of World War II in the Far East. (Actually, this is a translation by the noted Japanese scholar Professor Akashi Yoji, biographer of Loi Tak, the notorious and typical middleman figure in these entanglements of the contending forces of imperialism).\n\nLebra claims for the author of this war-time account of the activities of this Japanese propaganda intelligence group stood for Fujiwara, Freedom and Friendship that he developed a vision of Japan's military role in Asia at its most idealistic, Seeing himself as the Japanese 'Lawrence of Arabia' he took the war-time propaganda slogan ‘Asia for the Asians' most seriously.\n\nFujiwara's relatively short-term, but significant, role in furthering the formation of the Indian National Army, which, of course, was to attempt the removal of the colonial bondage of the British rule of India and further to demonstrate the self-proclaimed role of Japan as the instrument of liberation, is therefore of more than passing interest to historians of that critical period in the shifting of political power in the East.\n\nFujiwara's part in this crusade, and particularly his relations with the least ambiguous of Indian nationalists, Chandra Bose,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1982.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mk61z420p", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215770, "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": 69, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "Turnbull, an established historian, equivocally suggests that the transfer was based on an inaccurate and unbalanced feedback of the community's feelings:\n\nNo dissenting voice was raised in London and Calcutta, and the colonial office naturally had the impression that the demand for transfer was based on general dissatisfaction with rule from India, with the entire merchant body clamouring for change. In fact, it had required years of agitation on the part of Read, Woods and a small minority of enthusiasts in Singapore to arouse interest in the transfer, and apart from the brief period of panic in 1857 in when the petition was framed, the majority even of European merchants in Singapore were not actively in favour of the change, while the Asian merchants showed almost no interest in the movement.2\n\nIn spite of these conflicting points, I hold that the transfer was needed as the problems raised in the Straits merchants' petition were material and bona fide enough to necessitate the transfer of the administration from Calcutta to London. However, my essay attempts a revisionist's approach to the transfer controversy, questioning its necessity and examining its legal significance through an orchestration of the pot-pourri of relevant issues, in the hope that this methodology may help to provide a clearer awareness and legal understanding into this much taken for granted transfer, thus according it the new angle of attention it deserves.\n\nBackground history of the Straits Settlements3\n\nSingapore, Malacca and Penang were combined to form the Straits Settlements in 1826. The Straits Settlements became the fourth presidency of India, and remained an Indian dependency until 1867. The EIC obtained possession of Penang in 1786, as a base to protect the company's expanding China trade and a centre for the collection of Straits produce from the Malay peninsula and the eastern archipelago for shipment to China. When Singapore was founded in 1819, it was placed under the administration of Bencoolen (in Sumatra) where Raffles was lieutenant-governor. When he resigned and returned to England in 1823, Singapore was placed under the control of the Supreme Government of India. Singapore was ceded to the EIC in 1824 and", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215774, "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": 73, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "their petition. Even before 1826, the Spanish silver dollar and local copper cent had been used widely by the Straits merchants in their trade and commerce, (even though in theory, in 1835, the rupee was the currency of account for official purposes until 1867).\n\nThe directors of the EIC, considering only the Indian Empire's interests,29 established a uniform rupee currency throughout its territories, which of course included the Straits Settlements. In 1854, a bill was introduced to the Indian legislative council 'to improve the law relating to the copper currency in the Straits,' which provided for a copper currency based on fractions of the rupee.30 According to the Currency Act, the Indian pice was to be made legal tender instead of the copper cent and the rupee was to be enforced as legal tender.31\n\nThis Act was fiercely objected to by the Straits merchants, and in response to the opposition, the directors ordered the act to be repealed in 1857. Mr Ballie (Secretary of the Board of Control of the EIC) argues that 'it was very natural that the governor-general should desire to establish a uniform currency throughout the whole of the territories subject to his authority'32 and that after the complaints made at Singapore, this grievance was redressed, and that therefore the petitioners did not have a right to complain.**\n\nPage 36\n\n33\n\n35\n\nThe 1867 Act legalised a currency which was already assured,” and by the time the transfer to the Colonial Office took place, the currency issue was virtually resolved. However, as it was a problem that could have been prevented instead of cured, I would accord little credit to the Indian government's role in this issue.\n\nPiracy and western laws\n\nThis was another arguable \"problem\" that was cited in the petition, and used as an example of the Indian government's inefficiency. Piracy was widespread in the Straits until the mid-19th century, and was a threat to the property and commerce of the merchants. The pirates that predominated in the 1830s and 1840s were pirates of the Sulu archipelago, Illanun pirates from Mindanao and Dyaks from North Borneo. Complaints were that 'no systematic measures of protection have ever been adopted or carried out by the EIC, who have been content to leave the service to be performed by the Royal Navy.”37", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215781, "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": 80, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "NOTES\n\nAbbreviations:\n\nColonial Office - CO\n\nJIA - Journal of the Indian Archipelago and Eastern Asia\n\nJMBRAS - Journal of the Malayan Branch, Royal Asiatic Society\n\nJSEAH - Journal of Southeast Asian History\n\nSFP - Singapore Free Press\n\nSSR - Straits Settlements Records\n\nThe Government of the Straits Settlement Act, 1866. 29 & 30 Vicc 115 - An Act to provide for the Government of the Straits Settlements.\n\nTurnbull, The Straits Settlements 1826-67 Indian Presidency to Crown Colony. (1972) Oxford University Press, p 379\n\nAmong the various historians on Malayan history, Mary C Turnbull's comments on the Straits Settlements prior to the Transfer in 1867 are, by far, the most balanced and comprehensive, and her views on this area are invaluable. While the following facts were gathered from several historians' works, I have been influenced strongly by Turnbull's analysis. I have attempted to summarize in the following 3 sections Turnbull's views based closely on her Introduction to The Straits Settlements 1826-67 Indian Presidency to Crown Colony.\n\ncf. Treaty of 6 February 1819 (Johore 1819) (Treaties with Native States Part III)\n\nTreaty of Friendship and Alliance between the EIC and the Sultan of Johore in 1824, cf. Treaties with Native States p 16 Part III\n\ncf. Article 10 of the treaty\n\nTurnbull, The Straits Settlements 1826-67 Indian Presidency to Crown Colony, Introduction p 3", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215793, "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": 92, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "25\n\n225\n\nCady, John F, 1964, Southeast Asia: Its Historical Development, McGraw Hill, New York\n\nCameron, J. (1865) 1965, Our Tropical Possessions in Malayan India, Kuala Lumpur\n\nCampbell, Persia Cranford, 1923, Chinese Coolie Emigration to Countries within the British Empire, PS King & Son, London\n\nCavenagh, O, 1844, Reminiscences of an Indian Official, London\n\nCavenagh, O, 1867, Report on the Progress of the Straits Settlements from 1859 - 60 to 1866 - 67, Singapore\n\nChan, Helena H M, 1986, An Introduction to the Singapore Legal System, Malayan Law Journal Pte Ltd, Singapore\n\nChiang Hai Ding, 1966, 'The Origins of the Malayan Currency System', JMBRAS, xxxix, no 1, 1-18\n\nCollis, Maurice, 1966, Raffles, Faber and Faber, London\n\nComber, Leon, 1961, The Traditional Mysteries of Chinese Secret Societies in Malaya, Eastern Universities Press, Singapore\n\nCoupland, Sir Reginald, 1946, Raffles of Singapore, Collins, London\n\nCowan, 1950, 'Early Penang and the Rise of Singapore 1805 - 1832', JMBRAS, xxiii\n\nCoyajee, JC, 1930, The Indian Currency System, Madras\n\nCrawfurd, J, 1967, History of the Indian Archipelago, Cass, London\n\nDavidson, G F, 1846, Trade and Travel in the Far East, London\n\nDesai, Tripta, 1984, The East India Company, A Brief Survey from 1599 to 1857, Kanak Publications, New Delhi\n\nDe Vere Allen, J, 1968, \"The Colonial Office and the Malay States, 1867 - 73', JMBRAS, xxxvi, no 1, 1 – 36", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 } ]