[ { "id": 206308, "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": 125, "title": "RAS-1971", "content_text": "THE DISTRICT WATCH COMMITTEE\n\n119\n\npolice were commonly reputed to be corrupt, inefficient, drunken and lazy. The police force, mainly composed of European and Indian policemen with a small contingent of Chinese, was officered by European inspectors and sergeants and controlled at the top by a European Captain Superintendent of Police, often at loggerheads with the Registrar General, the 'Protector of Chinese'. The main duty of the regular police was to protect the central business district of Hong Kong, where most of the great European firms clustered, and the docks and wharves on which the prosperity of commercial Hong Kong depended. Principally, though, the regular police were there to overawe the Chinese lumpenproletariat, composed in European eyes of the sweepings of Kwangtung Province. The Chinese residential and commercial areas on the fringes of the core central district were more arbitrarily policed—and policed of course by aliens, most of whom as ex-Indian sepoys, ex-soldiers or ex-British policemen were unable to speak Cantonese.11 Chinese merchants, therefore, thought there would be advantages in maintaining a force of district watchmen Chinese to a man—selected, vetted, paid for, controlled, and if needs be, dismissed by the Chinese community.\n\nThe establishment of a body of Chinese district watchmen by the Registration Ordinance of 1866 was at first strongly opposed by some officials. In 1866 Sir Richard MacDonnell reported to the Secretary of State that the scheme was 'working admirably'12; but two years later the Chief Justice, Sir John Smale, laid on the table of the Legislative Council a memorandum inveighing against the inefficiency and corruption of the Force and suggesting that, to avoid the constant friction between the Superintendent of Police and the Registrar General, the district watchmen should be embodied in the Police Force under one head13. Soon after the Chief Justice's animadversions were made public in the Legislative Council, MacDonnell was forced to set up a commission to inquire into the working of the regular police as a result of a number of police scandals. In his memorandum setting out the reasons for holding such an inquiry, MacDonnell also asked the members of the commission to 'report as to the expediency of continuing to maintain, with Chinese co-operation and pecuniary aid, an auxiliary force of District Watchmen, and to ascertain whether the latter body has", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1971.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/z029vt43g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209646, "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": 303, "title": "RAS-1982", "content_text": "NOTES AND QUERIES\n\n281\n\ndisturbances were under control to rescind the proclamation invoking emergency powers as soon as the Chinese New Year celebrations were over. But conditions in the colony had not yet fully returned to normal and various wild rumours continued to be put into circulation, including the story that when May arrived the enlarged garrison would make an attack on China and annex further areas of Guangdong north of the New Territories. However, no-one was expecting any serious trouble on the morning of 4th July when the elite of the colony turned out to welcome the new governor.\n\nThe ship bringing Sir Henry May from Fiji arrived off Kowloon point early in the morning and at 10 a.m. Sir Henry crossed the harbour in the government launch to Blake Pier where he was greeted with a salute of 17 guns. He inspected the guard of honour and met the members of the Executive and Legislative Councils, all of whom were well-known to him. Among them was Sir Kai Ho Kai, the senior member of the Legislative Council, who had just received his knighthood, the first ever given to a Chinese in Hong Kong. Sir Kai had strong connections with the reform movement in China, but he had loyally supported the British administration in the measures taken to deal with violence in the colony, and the knighthood was his reward for this as well as for his long career of public service.\n\nThe next part of the ceremonial was the procession to the City Hall. Sir Henry and Lady May took their seats side by side in two sedan chairs, each carried by eight coolies. The chairs were escorted by eight Indian constables, four on the right of Sir Henry's chair marching two paces apart, and four on the left of Lady May's chair. Behind them was a European police sergeant, and he was followed by four more chairs carrying the four daughters of the new governor. The route to the City Hall was lined by soldiers stationed at intervals of three paces on either side of the road.\n\nAs the procession left Blake Pier and passed along Pedder Street towards Des Voeux Road a Chinese dressed in European clothes was seen to push his way through the crowd around the", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1982.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mk61z420p", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209649, "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": 306, "title": "RAS-1982", "content_text": "284\n\nNOTES AND QUERIES\n\nsympathy of all right-thinking Chinese who have not been slow to express their profound abhorrence of the action'. This was certainly true of the Chinese elite. A deputation of forty leading Chinese, including Legislative Councillors, the Director of the Tung Wah Hospital and members of the Committee of the Po Leung Kuk and the District Watchmen's Committee, waited on the Governor two days after the crime to testify to the loyalty of the community and their profound horror at the outrage.\n\nThere is little evidence to show how far such sentiments were widely shared by the rest of society. The only surviving Chinese newspaper made no comment and did not even carry a report of the incident.10 The police intercepted a letter from the landlady of the place where Li had been living in which she mentioned casually that her lodger had fired at the Governor 'and most unfortunately missed him'. At least one man saw a good omen in the affair; an Indian shopkeeper when told the news reportedly smiled and said, “Very good joss. That means there will be prosperity for Hong Kong.”\n\nAny deterrent effect of the sentence passed on Li did not last for long. Four months later the Hong Kong government made a further attempt to outlaw the use of coins minted in Canton by persuading the Tramway company to refuse to accept them. Agitators convinced the public that this was an insult to the new Republican government and a boycott of the tramway began in November, accompanied by widespread intimidation and violence directed against those using the trams and Europeans in general. In December the emergency powers under the Peace Preservation Ordinance were once again brought into force by proclamation.12\n\nOn\n\nLi Hon Hing only served six years of his life sentence.13 On 18 June 1918 Sir Henry May informed the Executive Council that he proposed to pardon the prisoner and order his release from prison. No reason is given in the Minutes of the Council for this act of clemency.19\n\nN. J. MINERS", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1982.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mk61z420p", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215285, "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": 62, "title": "RAS-2001", "content_text": "Singapore were being exported to the West Indian colonies. In November 1932 a Canadian manufacturer of rubber shoes complained to the Canadian minister of trade and commerce that in the last two months 15,000 pairs of rubber shoes had been imported into Barbados from Singapore at prices far below that of shoes produced in Canada. The Canadian minister wrote directly to Cunliffe-Lister asking for his help. He expressed the fear that unless something was done additional factories would be erected in Singapore and Hong Kong to take advantage of the new tariff and cheap Asiatic labour. The colonial secretary replied that it would be impossible to introduce in any colony legislation discriminating against goods produced in another colony; this would cut across the principle of solidarity between various parts of the empire which had been accepted at Ottawa and would inevitably cause a serious revulsion of feeling in these colonies.35\n\nExports of rubber boots and shoes to the West Indian colonies continued to increase at an alarming rate throughout 1933. They even penetrated the Canadian home market. Factories in Hong Kong which had previously exported their boots and shoes to China and the Philippines found themselves priced out of these markets by new protective tariffs and turned to export their products to the West Indies and Britain. Canadian and British footwear manufacturers faced with the loss of markets which they had formerly monopolised claimed that the Singapore factory was owned by Japanese interests who were seeking to evade heavy duties by setting up factories within the empire. In fact all the factories in Singapore and Hong Kong were owned and managed by Chinese businessmen. The empire content of the shoes was over 90 per cent since they were made from Malayan rubber and British canvas by British subjects working in a British colony and carried to Britain in British ships. There were no grounds for denying imperial preference to Hong Kong products in accordance with the Ottawa agreements. The Canadian prime minister, R.B. Bennett, complained to Cunliffe-Lister that the importation of rubber shoes was utterly demoralising the Canadian industry; thousands of workers would lose their jobs unless action was taken to prevent the continuation of this destructive and unfair competition.\" The colonial secretary replied that it would obviously not be politically possible to invite the legislative council of the Straits Settlements to pass legislation prohibiting the manufacture of rubber shoes in Singapore or their export to markets overseas.\" \n\nMeanwhile another industry long established in Hong Kong was causing embarrassment to the Colonial Office. The governor sent a telegram to London complaining that the Hong Kong and Whampoa Dock Company had tendered to build a 500 ton coaster for Australia but had discovered that it was liable to a 15 per cent duty and could not claim exemption since imperial preference was granted only to ships built in Britain. The governor", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g", "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 }, { "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": 215775, "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": 74, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "However, in response to a petition by European merchants in 1835 to the EIC against piracy, some action on the part of the Indian government was taken, through the use of steam warships (for example, the Diana and HMS Wolf). These ships were effective in fighting piracy, and according to LA Mills, 'piracy in the Straits greatly decreased for several years... Conditions never became as serious as they were before 1836.'38\n\nHowever, Turnbull says that these measures only gave temporary relief and that, within a few years, the position deteriorated. Moreover, in the 1850s, a new breed of pirates began to haunt the merchants' commerce. They came from China, and the Chinese imperial government was too weak to suppress them. The main theatre of Chinese operations was the Gulf of Siam, although many vessels were captured near Singapore.40\n\nThe Indian government did not pay much attention to the problem as it was involved in the second Anglo-Burmese war at that time, and as Calcutta had passed no laws to detain suspicious vessels, there were no legal means to curb piracy. In 1857, the Indian legislative council had passed an inadequate law which permitted the right of search, but did not solve the problem of proving intent. No improvement was made to the naval force in the Straits Settlements in the last ten years of Indian rule, which consisted of only three gunboats (a 'lilliputian fleet'41).\n\nEventually the Chinese pirates were gradually eliminated from the Straits waters as a result of a series of treaties and agreements between China and other western powers (such as with Prussia 1861, Denmark 1863, the Netherlands 1863, Spain 1864, Belgium 1865, Italy 1866, and Austria-Hungary 186942), the contents of which included co-operative measures to wipe out piracy. The Hong Kong 'Ordinance for the suppression of piracy' was the first real blow delivered against Chinese piracy.4\n\nThe Indian government played a minimal role with regards to the combat of piracy in the Straits. The problem was brought under control through a list of other factors, including foreign treaties and ordinances, and hence, the merchants' complaints were not without reason, as little credit can be attributed to the Indian administration in this respect.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 } ]