[ { "id": 205717, "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-1969", "page_number": 23, "title": "RAS-1969", "content_text": "CHINESE UNOFFICIAL MEMBERS OF COUNCILS\n\n17\n\nand stated that free debate by officials was impossible because paid servants must support Government measures or resign.\n\nHowever, in a confidential letter to the Governor, Lord Ripon agreed that unofficial representation on the Legislative Council should be enlarged and that there should be two unofficial members nominated to the Executive Council. Considering the extent of the Chinese contribution to Hong Kong and the undesirability of making any distinctions of race, he was of the opinion that one of them ought to be a Chinese. In his reply, the Governor, Sir William Robinson, doubted the advisability of the proposed increase in the Legislative Council and opposed having a Chinese on the Executive Council on the ground that he \"could not and would not be an independent member\". He also added that the Chinese did not understand representative Government.\n\nIn 1896, the new Secretary of State, Joseph Chamberlain, approved the appointment of an extra unofficial in the Legislative Council, preferably a Chinese, and the appointment of two unofficial members for the first time in the Executive Council. Thus in 1896 Wei Yuk became an unofficial member in the Legislative Council, and Messrs. Paul Chater and J. Bell-Irving of Jardine, Matheson & Co., took their seats in the Executive Council on 22nd October, 1896. From the year 1896 to 1929 there were two Chinese unofficial members serving concurrently on the Legislative Council.\n\nAlthough he was junior to Dr. Ho Kai in the Legislative Council, yet because he was older in age and much more Chinese in his mentality and approach, he was just as much respected by the Chinese as was Dr. Ho Kai. He did a good deal to bridge the gap between the Europeans and the Chinese on the one hand, and the Government and the Chinese population on the other. His advice was highly respected by the Government, especially at times of strikes and troubles among the Chinese masses, e.g., the coolie strike against the health regulations for plague prevention in 1894. He was noted for his ability to settle matters amicably before they assumed serious proportions. He was very much concerned with law and order among the Chinese masses because in those early days riff-raff and political refugees from South China continued to come into Hong Kong. Thus it was at his suggestion that the District Watch Force was formed in 1888, the district", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1969.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9g553n20d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206521, "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": 69, "title": "RAS-1972", "content_text": "SIR JAMES HALDANE STEWART LOCKHART\n\n63\n\nOn 16 April Lockhart returned to Taipo and in the presence of the General Officer Commanding, Major-General W. J. Gascoigne, and about 500 men, he hoisted the British flag and then read the Order-in-Council and Convention. The territory was now formally occupied. There had been some resistance from the people and from those living in the Sham Chun area. Lockhart had been asked to return to Hong Kong to attend a meeting of the Legislative Council but in a minute to the Governor he stated: 'I have consulted the General Officer Commanding, who thinks it very desirable for many reasons that I should remain here. I am of the same opinion, so propose to remain.'22 Since the situation was still unsettled, the Governor concurred with Lockhart's proposal and Lockhart stayed behind with the troops, accompanying them on a long sweep through the New Territories to make the British presence known.\n\nLockhart and the troops led by Lieutenant-Colonel The O'Gorman pushed on from Taipo on 18 April to Shek Kong; from that village they passed through Kam Tin, Yuen Long, Ping Shan, Sheung Shui, Fanling, and arrived back in Taipo on 27 April. The O'Gorman reported: \"To the Honourable J.H. Stewart Lockhart, C.M.G., Colonial Secretary, is due the admirable results that have been attained in the Civil Administration of this Territory during this brief state of turmoil; his measures have been taken with great energy and ability and in a manner that, long experience has shown him, were suitable to the occasion. The result has been a most complete success. Only those on the spot can realise the amount of labour and care he has devoted from early morning to late at night to the discharge of these trying duties. A most hearty co-operation has existed throughout between us and no difference of opinion on any one point has arisen.'23 The Secretary of State, Joseph Chamberlain, in a despatch to the Governor, commented: 'without wishing to undervalue in any way the services rendered by others, it is evident to me that much has been due to the energy of Mr. Lockhart, and to his local knowledge.\"24 Lockhart remained in the New Territories until July 1899 in order to start the civil administration. The headquarters of the new administration were fixed at Taipo. He was assisted in his task by C.M. Messer, a cadet officer, Ts'oi Yeuk-shan, First Chinese Clerk, and two Chinese assistants. The problems he had to face were at first formidable.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1972.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gm80qf99h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210198, "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-1984", "page_number": 169, "title": "RAS-1984", "content_text": "148\n\nR.J. MINERS\n\nnior officials at the Colonial Office, including the Permanent Under-Secretary, favoured a return to the old system of control.20 But because of the pressure of public opinion in Britain and the attitude of the House of Commons the Secretary of State, Joseph Chamberlain, decided that it was politically impossible to sanction the re-enactment of the contagious diseases legislation in any form. He was, however, prepared to allow the introduction of amending legislation which would make it an offence for the keeper of a brothel to permit any woman suffering from venereal disease to remain on the premises; and also an amendment empowering a magistrate to close down any brothel if an application was made by the Captain Superintendent of Police or the Registrar General.21 This change was designed to meet the complaints voiced by the Chinese unofficials about the number of brothels being opened in hitherto respectable areas of the city. The minutes written on the Colonial Office file make it clear that it was foreseen in London that this discretionary power to close down any brothel would in effect allow the Hong Kong government to reintroduce the zoning of certain parts of the city as areas where brothels were tolerated, but this implication was not spelled out in the despatch since it was later to be published in a paper laid before the House of Commons.22\n\nThe Governor accepted these proposals with alacrity and informed the Colonial Office that they ought to give the government complete power to deal with the question. This was a remarkable statement in view of the Governor's previous contention that a full return to regulation and compulsory inspection was necessary. Even more surprisingly the subject of brothels and venereal disease then disappeared completely from the correspondence between Hong Kong and London for the next twenty years. The Colonial Office made no attempt to enquire exactly what the Hong Kong government was doing; ministers and officials were evidently only too glad that this politically embarrassing issue had disappeared from view and had also ceased to be raised in the House of Commons. But someone in the Hong Kong administration had realised that the discretionary power at the disposal of the government to order the closure of a brothel or to tolerate its continued existence could be used to reintroduce extra-legally the whole system of statutory control which had been dismantled by", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1984.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/5h73wh572", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210703, "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": 54, "title": "RAS-1986", "content_text": "37\n\nlegal ability and acumen in drafting regulations for dealing with the plague and its effects. A thoughtful touch by Francis was to offer coffee and cigars to the men of the Shropshire Light Infantry who helped with plague relief. The Hong Kong Telegraph in its obituary said that he directed and controlled everything and allowed his practice to suffer in the public interest. However, in September when the emergency was over, the Daily Press attacked the Sanitary Board, saying that its springtime of promise had drifted into a moribund condition of age, and the Permanent Committee saying that it was as absolute as practically to remove all control from the executive and demonstrated the difference between representative government and amateur despotism. In October, the Colonial Surgeon, giving evidence before a Retrenchment Committee that had been set up, alleged that the Board had done very little worth doing during the last six years. So far as the unofficial members of the Board were concerned, matters continued to deteriorate, and the last straw was the proposal early in 1895 to appoint another official member, the Medical Officer of Health, to it. Francis went so far as to say that he would be a Government spy. He and two other members threatened to resign. A Chinese member, Ho Kai, expressed the hope that they would not do so because that would be playing into the hands of enemies who wished to get rid of them. Francis and another member did resign and wrote to the newspapers to explain their reasons to the ratepayers. Their resignations were followed by others. At the next meeting of the Board, the Chairman said that they had all, especially Francis, who had devoted several months of his time absolutely to the work of coping with the epidemic, rendered valuable services to the colony, and it was resolved that the thanks of the Board be conveyed to them for the assistance they had rendered during their membership, especially to Francis for his untiring zeal and energy in coping with the plague epidemic in 1894. By this time, the Governor favoured the abolition of the Board. Despite that, he held a plebiscite in 1896 to ascertain whether the community wanted an official or unofficial majority on the Board. Francis took part in the plebiscite, and by 331 votes to 31 votes, the community indicated that it wanted an unofficial majority. However, the new Colonial Secretary, Joseph Chamberlain, was not prepared to countenance that or to agree to the abolition of the Board, and it was reconstituted. Elections continued to be held.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1986.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/jq08c7063", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211035, "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": 96, "title": "RAS-1987", "content_text": "71\n\n1901 (see below).\n\n36\n\nBrewin, who was promoted to Registrar General in 1901, had also served briefly, from 1897 to 1901, as Inspector of Schools in succession to E.J. Eitel. His endorsement was, therefore, particularly valuable. He had been appointed, together with his successor as Inspector of Schools, E.A. Irving, and the Chinese member of the Legislative Council, Ho Kai, to the 1901-1902 Education Committee, the report of which contains blatant calls for the separate educational treatment of the different races and a clear recommendation, compatible with the extremes of colonialistic paternalism, that, as far as Chinese education was concerned, the Government should concentrate its efforts and finances on the education, in English, of the few who could be regarded as potential leaders. Interestingly, the Secretary of State for the Colonies at this time, Joseph Chamberlain, totally rejected this recommendation (Chamberlain to Sir Henry Blake, Governor of Hong Kong, 12th September, 1902, in CO129/311, p. 481).\n\n\"For certain individuals, this explanation is something of a euphemism since the “medical and sanitary precautions\" involved burning down their homes.\n\nThe Plague first broke out in Hong Kong in the Spring of 1894. The death rate for the first five or six months was over 2,500, and, though, it was the Chinese population which was most affected, the Europeans were not untouched. Lady Robinson, the wife of the Governor of Hong Kong, was, for example, a victim. Dr. E.J. Eitel, the Inspector of Schools, provided details of the rumours circulating among the less educated Chinese, and their effects, in a memorandum to the Colonial Secretary on 22nd May 1894. Eitel wrote to report and explain \"the panic which has suddenly decimated the attendance in the local Chinese Schools\" and noted that the rumours began to spread in districts affected by the Plague on Sunday, 20th May and reached other districts the next day. The principal rumours were (a) that \"the Government intended to select a few young Children from each School to subject them to a surgical incision of the liver in order to obtain bile, this being the only known remedy for curing the plague”; and, (b) that \"every School would be visited by officers who would examine every child and send to the \"Hygeia\" anyone having the least boil or pimple on its body\". Eitel speculated about the origin of the panic, attributing it to \"the malicious distortion of the native medical fraternity\" and concluded: “I do not think anything very effectual can be done to remove the suggestions of native malice to native ignorance and suspiciousness. Distrust of the Government is still rampant among the lower classes of Chinese. Education will remove it in time. (Memorandum No. 38 of 22nd May, 1894, by Dr. E.J. Eitel, Inspector of Schools; in CO129/263, p. 190-193). 39 In Arnold Wright (ed.), Twentieth Century Impressions of Hongkong, Shanghai, and the Other Treaty Ports of China: Their History, People, Commerce, Industries, and Resources (London: Lloyd's Greater Britain Publishing Company, Ltd., 1908), p. 182, for example, Mok Tso Chun, “a native of the Heungshan district\" and formerly one of the directors of the Tung Wah Hospital, is described as the Chief Compradore of Butterfield and Swire. In the Anglo-Chinese Commercial Directory of circa 1915 (Chief Editor, Jan George Chance), a Mok Jao Chuen, clearly the same person as Mok Tso Chun, appears as Compradore for Butterfield and Swire, while a Choi Kung Po and a Mok Kon Sang appear as Assistant Compradores. Mok Man Cheung acted as witness to the will of Mok Tso [or Jao] Chun and the will, itself, makes it clear that Mok Kon Sang was Mok Tso Chun's eldest son. It was certainly not unusual for Compradores at this time to find positions for younger relatives.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1987.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/rx919b522", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213468, "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-1995", "page_number": 64, "title": "RAS-1995", "content_text": "31\n\n* These powers of the Land Officer sprang from the New Territories (Land) Ordinance, 1905 (No. 36 of 1905).\n\n1 Such powers were originally conferred on District Officers by the New Territories Small Debts Court Ordinance, 1908 (now repealed). By agreement of the parties, District Officers, by virtue of the proviso to that section, could determine suits with subject matter up to $5,000 in value ($1,000 HK is the approximate equivalent of £62-1st in 1962 - Editor).\n\nBy the Convention of Peking, 9th June 1898 vide Laws of Hong Kong, Allibone's Edition 1913, Vol. III, pp. 6-7.\n\nibid, pp. 8-9.\n\n* § 7, Supreme Court Ordinance 1873 (now s. 5 of Cap. 4).\n\nExtracts from a Memorandum on some Legal Aspects of the Hong Kong Extension, by W. Meigh Goodman, Attorney General of Hong Kong, dated December 1898, in Hong Kong Sessional Papers 1899, p. 209 at p. 210.\n\n19 Mr. Chamberlain (then Sir Joseph) to Sir Henry A. Blake, Hong Kong Sessional Papers 1899, p. 177 at p. 178, para 5.\n\nTranslation of the Chinese Proclamation dated 9th April 1899, being Appendix IX to Sir Henry A. Blake's Report to Mr. Chamberlain dated 19th February 1900, in Hong Kong Sessional Papers 1900, p. 280.\n\nvide my article \"The Choice of Chinese Customary Law in Hong Kong\" (1962) 11 International and Comparative Law Quarterly, 231 at pp. 232-233.\n\n\"Chinese Law and Custom in Hong Kong\" Hong Kong 1953, (hereinafter cited as Committee Report 1953) Appendix 1A at p. 122.\n\n1bid, Chap. II, para. 13 at p. 8.\n\n15 Memorandum of the District Commissioner, New Territories, to the Secretary for Chinese Affairs, dated 20th March 1958. It would appear that the 17th April 1899 was the date intended (vide the Governor's Proclamation of 8th April 1899 which appeared as Appendix XX to the Governor's Report in Hong Kong Sessional Papers 1900 at pp. 291-292) to bring the Colony's laws into force in the New Territories with effect from 17th April 1899.\n\n18 (1962) 11 International and Comparative Law Quarterly 231.\n\n17 loc cit para. 6.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1995.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/95941j25g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215276, "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": 53, "title": "RAS-2001", "content_text": "# ARTICLES\n\n## INDUSTRIAL DEVELOPMENT IN THE COLONIAL EMPIRE AND THE IMPERIAL ECONOMIC CONFERENCE AT OTTAWA 1932\n\n### NORMAN MINERS\n\nIt is generally agreed that the development of manufacturing industry in the colonial empire was very limited. A recent study of colonial development describes progress before independence as derisory.1 Joseph Chamberlain spoke of the colonies as a great underdeveloped estate that must be developed with imperial assistance for the sake of the local population and also for the benefit of the whole world. Similar sentiments were expressed by Lord Lugard, Lord Milner, Leopold Amery and many others. But development was seen primarily as the expanded production of foodstuffs, raw materials and minerals. Colonial governments encouraged the production of cash crops for export and built the roads, railways and harbours to transport produce to markets overseas, but they were unwilling to spend their limited tax revenues to assist the establishment of local industries.\n\nThe attitude of the British government was that the colonies were essentially agricultural and producers of primary commodities in a complementary partnership with the industrialised nations, chiefly the United Kingdom. The artificial encouragement of manufacturing was contrary to the prevailing ideology of free trade and the belief that the state should not intervene to distort the free play of economic forces. Expatriate trading firms were interested in the profits to be made from exports and imports rather than the processing of primary products or manufacturing for the local market. Indigenous businessmen were few and faced formidable obstacles such as the small size of the local market, unskilled and untrained labour, lack of access to long-term credit from foreign banks and competition from established imports from the metropolis.\n\nIt is said that the industrial development of the colonies was deliberately restrained by the British government, which was unduly deferential to commercial interests who objected to local manufacture displacing exports from Britain. It has also been claimed that colonial governors were reluctant to put forward schemes for industrial development because they believed they should act as trustees for the native peoples and avoid the disruption of traditional society by the social effects of industrialisation.3\n\nThe Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, Vol.30, No.2, May 2002, pp.53-76\n\nPUBLISHED BY FRANK CASS, LONDON", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g", "rank": 0 } ]