[ { "id": 211360, "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-1988", "page_number": 76, "title": "RAS-1988", "content_text": "Introducing a motion for the adoption of the recommendations of the sub-committee, Mr. Bowley stated that in the Peace Treaty then under discussion provisions were made for an International Labour Convention and for a League of Nations. In the proposals for both organizations the welfare of women and children were dealt with. Appended to the section of the Peace Treaty dealing with the Labour Convention was the affirmation of the principle of an eight hour working day and a forty-eight hour week.\n\nMr. Bowley reminded the Board that the matters being proposed were on the agenda of the Labour Convention which was to be held in Washington, D. C. in the United States in October 1919. These developments had a particular meaning for Hong Kong as a British outpost in the East, for if Hong Kong took action as a part of the British Empire it might influence “our neighbouring allies' China and Japan, both of whom were parties to the Treaty and who had accepted both the League of Nations and the Labour Convention.” He continued. “If Hong Kong, China and Japan are to be included in the comity of nations on equal terms, it behoves us and our neighbours to consider these questions very carefully”.\n\nHe contrasted the absence of factory legislation in Hong Kong with Britain where such legislation had been gradually developed and enforced over the past eighty years. One reason for the difference between the two places was that Hong Kong until only recently had not been much of a manufacturing centre, but now there were many new factories. \"The time has come\", he said, \"when some, at least, of most of the elementary principles of the Factory Acts should be introduced into the Colony”. The experience of England had been that factory legislation had to be related to provisions for education and it would be difficult to apply the same laws to Hong Kong if there was no movement at the same time toward compulsory education, but since the Sanitary Board had no jurisdiction over education, the committee had concluded that it was impossible to prohibit employment of children even of the tenderest age, for it was better for children to be occupied with light tasks with their parents than playing in the gutter. Moreover, the criminal law contained provisions for the punishment of parents or masters and mistresses who ill-treated or neglected their children or child servants. So until something was done about universal education, the present measures were as much", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1988.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211701, "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-1989", "page_number": 116, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "91\n\nnumber of books was quite inadequate and the Japanese, with their usual suspicion of the written or printed word, would not allow any more to be brought in. Sea bathing is now (i.e. since the middle of July) permitted at one beach.\n\nChildren: Schools - a senior and a junior school were established by the Hongkong University authorities and some attempt made to arrange organised recreation for the children; but, there were hardly any toys, games or children's books in the camp, and the children were usually ragging about and getting into mischief. A little ping-pong and badminton apparatus, half a dozen old tennis rackets and a few dozen old balls would have been a boon to children and grown-ups alike, but there was no way of getting them.\n\nGeneral: Various 'shortages' have been mentioned in previous paragraphs, but in point of fact there was a deficiency of nearly everything - beds and bedding, clothing, shoes, toilet materials, brooms and other cleaning materials, plates, cups, dishes, cooking pots, knives, forks and spoons, glass for repairing war-broken windows, tools of all kinds, etc. etc. An \"International Welfare Committee\" formed in Hongkong by sympathisers under the auspices of Dr. Selwyn-Clarke (of whom I shall speak again) was doing a good deal to meet the most urgent needs and sent in cotton dress lengths, sandshoes, handkerchiefs, Chinese toilet paper, tin mugs, washing soap and numerous other articles; but the needs were far in excess of the resources of the Committee. The shortage was particularly serious in regard to clothing and foot-wear. Many people reached the camp with only what they stood up in, few were able to bring much. Clothes and shoes wear out. I remember seeing two ladies wearing shorts made of Australian flour bags and one girl in a frock made from the ticking of a mattress. Many people were going barefooted, others were wearing sandals made from gunny bags or home-made wooden pattens. The footwear situation was about July slightly—but only slightly relieved by the receipt from the Welfare Committee of some shoe leather, with which amateur cobblers did their best to effect repair.\n\nLetters: One of the worst features of the camp was the lack of communication with the outside world. We were allowed (in 6 months) to send one short telegram and two short letters, but the messages which I sent (to Mr. Le Rougetel) were never delivered. A few people got letters from Shanghai but this was exceptional. Internees were not allowed to write even to friends in Hongkong except (and even this was a very", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212212, "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": 154, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "―\n\n131\n\nEast. Thirty-five million tons of shipping entered the port each year, carrying twenty-five per cent of the trade of China. The vast town was controlled by three independent authorities: the International Settlement, where British and American influence predominated; the French Concession, mostly residential; and the Chinese Municipality. A polyglot population of between four and five million Chinese, and fifty thousand foreigners, thronged the streets. The war had brought about a great shift of population from the Chinese area, where residents were exposed to Japanese oppression, to the comparative safety of the two foreign areas, whose Chinese inhabitants increased from 1½ millions to 4 millions, resulting in a heavy congestion.\n\nIt was a far cry back to those days in 1845, when in the British Concession, before it was amalgamated with the American district to form the International Settlement, the British Consul appointed \"three upright merchants\" to act as a Committee of Roads and Jetties to supervise the inconsiderable municipal needs of a small community living on a mud bank. From those simple beginnings had grown the proficient machine required to cope with the extensive complexities of a unique metropolis.\n\nH.G.W. Woodhead, the talented editor of \"Oriental Affairs\", described the functions of the Municipal Council of the International Settlement, and I cannot do better than quote his words:\n\n\"Owing to its peculiar status as a sort of 'imperium in imperio', the Shanghai Municipality has had to shoulder various responsibilities that in other countries would be assumed wholly or in part by the State. For example, it maintains its own Defence Force, the Shanghai Volunteer Corps, and a highly efficient professional Russian unit. It maintains, what, for the average daily number of prisoners, is the largest gaol in the world. It maintains or makes substantial grants in aid to many hospitals. It started subsidizing Foreign education in 1880, and Chinese education in 1900, and now operates, or makes grants in aid, to numerous Foreign and Chinese schools. It has an Industrial Section, which concerns itself with labour problems, and also controls the rickshaw business to the extent of limiting hire charges, and providing for welfare work among the pullers. It maintains a public library and a municipal orchestra and an up-to-date Public Health Department. And it finances these and other important activities such as Policing, the Fire Brigade, Public Works, etc., mainly from", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 } ]