[ { "id": 206326, "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": 143, "title": "RAS-1971", "content_text": "The District Watch Committee\n\n137\n\nto be the richest man in Hong Kong. When Ho Tung retired as chief compradore to Jardine, Matheson's in 1900, Ho Fook succeeded him. Ho Fook's assistant was Ho Kom Tong, another of Ho Tung's brothers. The members of the District Watch Committee were members of a small circle of businessmen, often related through ties of blood or marriage. When the Tai Yau Bank was established in 1914 with a paid-up capital of $6,000,000, the proprietors were named as Lau Chu Pak, Ho Fook, Ho Kom Tong, Lo Chung Shiu and Chan Kai Ming. Lau Chu Pak was compradore to A. S. Watson and Co., chairman of the Po On Commercial Association and chairman of the Chinese General Chamber of Commerce; Chan Kai Ming was manager of the Opium Farm; and Lo Chung Shiu, assistant compradore to Jardine, Matheson and Co., was Ho Fook's brother-in-law. All were or became members of the District Watch Committee.\n\n22 T. C. Cheng writes that Wei Yuk 'was very much concerned about 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 founded in 1888. Mr. Cheng appears to be mistaken about the date and is no doubt referring to the ordinance of that year, no. 13 of 1888 rather than to its proper date of origin. Wright and Cartright, Feldwick, and Professor Woo all state that the Committee was formed on Wei Yuk's suggestion. See: T. C. Cheng, 'Chinese Unofficial Members of the Legislative and Executive Councils of Hong Kong up to 1941', Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, vol. 9, 1969, pp. 17-18; Arnold Wright and H. A. Cartright, Twentieth Century Impressions of Hong Kong, Shanghai and other Treaty Ports, London, Lloyd's Greater Britain Publishing Co., 1908, p. 109; W. Feldwick, ed., Present Day Impressions of the Far East and Prominent Chinese at Home and Abroad, London Globe Encyclopedia Co., 1917, p. 576; Professor Woo Sing Lim, The Prominent Chinese in Hong Kong, Hong Kong, Five Continents Book Company, 1939, p. 4.\n\n23 Unfortunately all the records in the Secretariat for Chinese Affairs were destroyed or lost during the Japanese occupation and hence anyone trying to reconstruct the history of the District Watch must work mostly from scraps of information found in government publications, newspapers, books.\n\n24 My guess is that a large number were traditional Chinese merchants from the Five Districts operating on a relatively small scale. The Committee after 1891 represented the views of a more westernised and modernised elite with a knowledge of modern business techniques and modern financial manipulations. Dr. Ho Kai, for example, played the stock exchange with great success and speculated in many fields, particularly land development. He was, properly speaking, a financier although his occupation is often given tout court as lawyer. He had also qualified in medicine at Edinburgh but gave up the practice of medicine soon after his return to Hong Kong in 1882 because of Chinese resistance to western medicine.\n\n25 In 1903, for example, the Committee opposed the re-introduction of the night-pass system but suggested other remedial measures (see Index to Correspondence (General Register) 1894-1904, Hong Kong, Noronha and Co., 1909, p. 100). In 1909 'at the request of the District Watchmen Committee, children who are hawking without a licence are on their first offence sent to the Registrar General who cautions their guardians. This procedure seems to have proved effective in each case' wrote the Registrar General in 1909. It is worth noting that both Registrar General and Committee wanted to end the night-pass system and were opposed by the Captain Superintendent of Police, who was unsuccessful. As for hawkers, very few Chinese regarded them as a serious menace although colonial administrators", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1971.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/z029vt43g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208285, "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-1978", "page_number": 9, "title": "RAS-1978", "content_text": "188\n\nDAVID FAURE\n\nThere is little doubt that at least for several months, Leung Shuen Wan was a central bandit hideout. Mr. Lau Shang of Pak Lap Village on the island said that there were bandits who came there from the mainland, but they did not rob the villagers for they were themselves stationed in Tung Ah Village nearby. Villagers from Tung Ah and Pak Ah confirmed that there were bandits on the island and that the island villagers were not disturbed. Mr. Chung T'in Fuk of Pak Ah added that this might be because the bandits were from P'ing Shan (in China) nearby, and were afraid that the villagers might take reprisals against their own villages.73\n\nMr. Kong Ts'eung of Tung Ah knew that the bandits used the T'in Hau Temple of Leung Shuen Wan as their headquarters. The first group that arrived was Hoklo. Then came Hoh Shing Nin, from Aau T'au in China. Hoh was well-known among Sai Kung villagers as a bandit chief. But other bandits also came, and they began to fight among themselves. Hoh quarrelled with a certain Chan Nai Shau. According to Mr. Tse Koon K'au, for a short while Hoh had to leave Leung Shuen Wan for Tap Mun, and later Chek Keng. Chan took his guns with him in pursuit.74\n\nVillagers from Leung Sheun Wan and nearby Kau Sai were apparently quite favourably disposed to Hoh Shing Nin. Mr. Chung T'in Fuk of Pak Ah thought that Hoh was a guerrilla, who was maintaining order in the area. Mr. Loh Kai Faat, a boatman from Kau Sai, made a distinction between Hoh and Chan. Hoh maintained order here, according to Mr. Loh, but Chan was a genuine bandit.75\n\nThe Wai Ch'i Wooi and the K’ui Ching Shoh\n\nThe only government in Sai Kung in the very turbulent months immediately after the coming of the Japanese was the Sai Kung Market Chamber of Commerce. Mr. Lei Shiu Yam was its chairman. It was recognized by the Japanese Government as the Wai Ch'i Wooi, the local governing body that was set up in all local areas of Hong Kong and the New Territories in the early months of the occupation. The Sai Kung Wai Ch'i Wooi was located on the first floor of No. 34 Main Street, Sai Kung Market. It had little formal authority and no military power,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1978.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8g84t8593", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210216, "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": 187, "title": "RAS-1984", "content_text": "166\n\nR.A. BOWLER, D.S.C. YANG AND A.J.E. SMITH\n\nIndustry organisation\n\nThe Hong Kong oyster industry is a typical unsophisticated artisan fishery with low capital investment and organised on a family basis. Each family may use several areas distributed throughout Deep Bay so that some protection is afforded against localised events which may damage or destroy the oyster beds. Essential equipment comprises a sampan, wooden sledge, tongs, shucking hammer and some artificial substrate to which the oyster may attach and grow (Morton and Wong, 1975). The Lau Fau Shan Oyster Industry Association, the New Territories Oyster and Crustacean United Industries, and to some extent the Lau Fau Shan Chamber of Commerce, are three organisations which represent a majority of active farmers in the Hong Kong industry.\n\nProduction figures have been kept since 1977 by the oyster organisations, and these figures are shown in Figure 2 in comparison with records from the Annual Reports of the Agriculture & Fisheries Department of the Hong Kong Government, and those from previously published reviews (Mok, 1974b; Morton and Wong, 1975). Official exports from China are also shown in Figure 2 and are discussed below.\n\nThe apparent discrepancy in the records of the oyster industry and the Hong Kong Government reports may arise from the interlocked nature of the Hong Kong and China-based industries and the tendency to produce in accordance with market needs. Any supplement to the Hong Kong industry production by the practices of purchasing beds and oysters outlined later in this paper would not be determined by the Agriculture and Fisheries Department figures which attempt to measure purely Hong Kong production.\n\nInterviews in 1984 indicated that about 300 households are directly involved in the Hong Kong oyster industry representing 1,200 to 2,000 individuals. In addition, a further 1,000 are employed on a part-time basis. Additional people are involved indirectly in the restaurant and processed oyster-products industry.\n\nThe industry in China has by contrast some 20,000 individuals", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1984.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/5h73wh572", "rank": 0 } ]