[
    {
        "id": 215278,
        "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": 55,
        "title": "RAS-2001",
        "content_text": "3\n\nBefore 1932 a number of small factories had been established in the colonies. Cotton ginning factories, sugar cane crushing mills, fibre decorticating plants, tobacco grading and packing factories, saw mills and tin smelters had been constructed to reduce the bulk of primary products and make them more convenient for export. Other industries were started for the purpose of import substitution. In almost all the sugar producing colonies sugar refineries had been set up. Edible oil, lard and soap factories were established using local produce in Nigeria, Ceylon, Nyasaland, Trinidad, Jamaica, British Guiana, British Honduras and Fiji. Breweries had been established in the Gold Coast, Kenya, Cyprus, Malta, Jamaica and the Straits Settlements; match factories in British Guiana, Jamaica and Trinidad; a canned pineapple factory in Malaya. This is by no means an exhaustive list of industrial enterprises in the colonial empire in 1932. All these factories had been set up to serve the local market and had taken advantage of tariffs which had originally been imposed by colonial governments for revenue purposes. In some cases this level of protection was sufficient to make the factory viable. In other cases the company contemplating investment asked the governor for the tariff to be increased so as to exclude competitive imports or asked for a guarantee that no excise duty would be imposed or that any excise duty would be levied at a reduced rate.\n\nColonial governors showed no reluctance to grant these concessions in order to encourage the establishment of local industries in spite of the loss of customs revenue and the increased prices paid by the consumer for goods previously imported. Often governors neglected to seek specific permission from the Colonial Office to make such changes to the schedules of their customs ordinances. In a number of cases the Colonial Office heard of the new protective duties only when British manufacturers complained that they were being excluded from the colonial market. When an industrial project was referred to London governors used various arguments to support the protection of infant industries in their colonies: that the proposal was a legitimate development of local resources; that it would relieve unemployment; that a pledge of protection had already been given by government to the promoters; or that the proposals had the support of the unofficial members of the executive and legislative councils.\n\nNormally the Colonial Office did not refuse to sanction the grant of assistance to the new local enterprise. For example, in 1927 the legislative council of Jamaica passed an ordinance to increase the tariff on biscuits, soap, edible oils, cordage and matches and to remove the excise duty on soap, edible oils and matches in order to protect local industries. The Colonial Office sanctioned this ordinance without any adverse comment. Once an ordinance had been passed by a colony's legislature and had received the governor's assent it",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 215281,
        "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": 58,
        "title": "RAS-2001",
        "content_text": "6\n\nStraits Settlements, but not to Hong Kong. The governor protested to the Colonial Office at Hong Kong's exclusion in 1907, 1910 and 1912 but the Canadian government refused to include Hong Kong within its preferential tariff on the grounds that goods from China might be shipped through Hong Kong's open port and fraudulently obtain the benefit of Canada's preferential tariff.\" So Hong Kong's exports of cement and refined sugar were taxed at the highest rate and soon lost their market in Canada. In 1912 a trade agreement was negotiated between Canada and the West Indian colonies whereby Canadian exports were granted preferential tariffs in return for Canadian preferences on Caribbean cane sugar, cocoa beans and lime juice. The West Indian colonies negotiated this trade agreement directly with Canada and the secretary of state for the colonies raised no objection. These preferences were increased by a new trade agreement in 1920 and were generalised to benefit goods from all empire sources.20 The Colonial Office invited all colonies and protectorates to consider the practicability of introducing preferential rates of duty for goods of imperial origin. But most of the colonial empire was prevented by international treaties from imposing discriminatory tariffs. Northern Rhodesia, Kenya and Uganda, being part of the Congo Basin, were forbidden to discriminate by the Convention of St. Germain (1919); Nigeria and the Gold Coast by the Anglo-French treaty of 1898; and Tanganyika, Togoland, Cameroons and Palestine were mandated territories of the League of Nations which prohibited discrimination. By 1932 the only colonies which were free to adopt imperial preference but had not done so were Somaliland, Ceylon, the Straits Settlements, Hong Kong and certain islands in the Pacific.\" Canada and New Zealand were the only dominions which granted any preferences to the colonial empire before 1932. Australia, South Africa, Newfoundland, Southern Rhodesia and India granted none.\n\nThe world trade depression which began in 1929 convinced British politicians that the liberal principles of free trade which had been followed for the past 70 years must be abandoned. The National government elected in 1931 quickly passed the Import Duties Act which imposed a general duty of 10 per cent ad valorem on all imports. Section 5 of the act granted an entire exemption from the general duty to imports from all colonies, protectorates and mandated territories, provided that at least 25 per cent of the value was derived from materials grown or produced or from work done within a part of the empire.\" Imports from the dominions and India were exempted from duty only until November pending the outcome of an Imperial Economic Conference.\" A circular despatch was sent by the Colonial Office to all colonies and protectorates drawing attention to the great advantages extended to the colonies by the Import Duties Act and inviting them to give similar preferences to United Kingdom manufactures",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 215296,
        "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": 73,
        "title": "RAS-2001",
        "content_text": "21\n\nKenya 33 per cent, Nigeria 58 per cent, Ceylon 52 per cent, Jamaica 60 per cent.\n\n7. For example Nyasaland in 1929 raised the duty on imported soap from 5 shillings to 7 shillings to protect a newly established factory. In 1931 the duty was increased to 8 shillings a cwt. The Colonial Office first heard of these increases in 1932 when Unilever complained. Memo IDC(37)No.7, T160/763/F14811/2.\n\n8. CO137/780. Georgina Waylen, 'Colonial Policy towards industrialisation between the wars: the case of Jamaica', Manchester Papers in Politics (University of Manchester, Nov. 1987, mimeo).\n\n9. In 1931 a local company proposed to establish a cement factory in Kenya which required a protective tariff and a guarantee that a very high anti-dumping duty would be imposed on Japanese cement which dominated the market. The Colonial Office refused the request for protection on the advice of the Board of Trade because the local factory if successful would take over government orders, depriving British cement manufacturers of the last remnant of the market. CO533/417/18. In 1933 the Colonial Office rejected a scheme to erect a cotton spinning and weaving factory in East Africa which required a capital subscription of £500,000 from the governments of Kenya, Uganda and Tanganyika. IDC(37)No.8, T160/763/F14811/2. A proposal for a soap factory in the Windward Islands was disallowed because it involved the colony being given a preference over the UK in other colonies from which the copra was to be exported. IDC(37)No.7, T160/763/F14811/2.\n\n10. Hong Kong Blue Book 1846 (PRO, CO133/3), 226, stated ‘A large number of Chinese are employed in their respective shops and houses in the exercise of industrial trades and manufactures and there are scarcely any ordinary wants of the inhabitants which do not meet with a ready supply within the town.'\n\n11. These dates are taken from the Return of Manufactures, Mines and Factories in the Blue Books compiled every year for submission to the Colonial Office. Not all the manufacturing enterprises were successful: the cotton spinning factory closed in 1914 and removed its machinery to Shanghai. But new manufacturing ventures soon took their place. Sir William Robinson (governor 1891-98) in his first address to the legislative council spoke of the advantages that would accrue from a further encouragement of local industries. 'The community may rely upon my aid and assistance in fostering in every legitimate way the development of such enterprises.' Hong Kong Legislative Council Debates, 25 Jan. 1892, 97. This was done by selling public land by private treaty at a discount for industrial development, H.K. LegCo. Deb., 4 Dec. 1893, 1–2.\n\n12. CO129/379, 377-384 and 392-755.\n\n13. Hong Kong Blue Book 1930. Blue Book 1932. The largest factory was that of the Green Island Cement Company which could employ 1,470 men when working at full capacity.\n\n14. Statistics on imports and exports were first collected in 1918. Publication was discontinued in 1925 and resumed in 1931, but no distinction was made between re-exports and domestic exports until 1959. Estimates of gross domestic product were not made by government statisticians until 1961. Domestic exports have been calculated from Hong Kong Trade Returns 1932, compiled by the Imports and Exports Department (Hong Kong, 1933), CO133/103, by identifying all categories where exports exceeded imports, on the assumption that the surplus must represent Hong Kong domestic production. This calculation certainly understates local production since it does not take account of manufactures consumed locally. Also the trade figures do not include the very large volume of goods smuggled into China to avoid payment of customs duty.\n\n15. Memorandum in Clementi to Cunliffe-Lister, 20 Sept. 1933, CO323/1232.\n\n16. Report of the Commission appointed by the Governor to Enquire into the Causes and Effects of the Present Trade Depression in Hong Kong, February 1935 (Hong Kong, 1935), 88-89, CO129/554/5.\n\n17. Trade Depression Report, 75.\n\n18. W.K. Hancock, Survey of British Commonwealth Affairs Vol II, Problems of Economic Policy 1918-1939, Part 1 (Oxford, 1940), 87.\n\n19. CO129/344. CO129/370. CO129/392.\n\n20. F. V. Meyer, British Colonies in World Trade (Oxford, 1948), 9–11, 18–19.\n\n21. Hancock, 125. Meyer, 10-11.",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g",
        "rank": 0
    }
]