[ { "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": 212945, "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-1993", "page_number": 13, "title": "RAS-1993", "content_text": "From the programme, I would now like to turn to other topics which have exercised the Council's attention over the last year. As I mentioned earlier the Society has appeared twice before the LegCo Panel on Information Policy and this was due primarily to the stand which the Society has taken in respect of the Government's intention to move the Public Records Office to an unsuitable and inaccessible factory building in Tuen Mun, a step that is likely to happen in June. I do not wish to tabulate all the arguments that have been rehearsed many times within Council and the media on this subject, except to say that if it had not been for the Royal Asiatic Society's strong opposition to the removal of the Public Record to Tuen Mun then it is unlikely that we would now be looking at a more favourable situation than seemed possible this time last year. As it is we have been informed that the move is only temporary, the Government is actively looking for a site in Central, and provided funds are available the Government is prepared to build or convert some suitable buildings for public records; meanwhile the more important and the most used public records will be moved into a special room within the Government Secretariat. The position will need, however a great deal of attention and watching to ensure that those responsible for the preservation of Hong Kong's public records do really understand what is meant by the word preservation. Hong Kong's efforts in this direction leave a lot to be desired and compare very unfavourably with other countries including China. For this more optimistic emerging picture we need to thank several people including our past President, Dr. James Hayes, who continually prods the Government in the underbelly from down under and the Reverend Carl Smith who, at the height of the controversy last June, agreed reluctantly to appear in a T.V. documentary on the subject and was actually filmed, going to Tuen Mun, and seen groping through the polluted air and smog amongst the surroundings of the future Hong Kong Public Records Office. In addition I would like to thank Dr. Elizabeth Sinn, Mr. John Wilson, Dr. Lau Yee-cheung, and Dr. Choi Chi-cheung for their valuable inputs into these issues.\n\nThe second time members of the Council appeared before the LegCo Information Panel was fairly recently and also to do with public records but in the context of a possible Access to Information Bill. This is a difficult subject and I am not sure one that the Society should become too involved. The Society is more concerned with public records and an Archives Ordinance, since without this there is little point for legislation on access to information if there is no guarantee that the information in question will be available. A letter to the legislative councillors involved\n\nxii", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1993.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833t302", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213260, "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-1994", "page_number": 82, "title": "RAS-1994", "content_text": "62\n\nWhen the Technical College (now the Hong Kong Polytechnic University) moved to its new campus at Hung Hom in 1957, expatriates as well as Chinese staff were not pleased to find a funeral parlour sited next door. Not all the Europeans, the author recalls, blamed the deaths and illnesses that followed (among family members of the staff) on bad fung shui. The Chinese, of course, sought advice and took appropriate action. Nevertheless, generally, if staff were advised to swing their desks around so many degrees, all things being more or less equal, Europeans tended not to argue. After some months people stopped falling sick and nobody mentioned the funeral home any more. Some Britons argued it had all been psychosomatic. But it had been a reality, and, unless it was coincidence, what everyone had been advised to do by the fung shui master seemed to have worked.\n\nThe truth is, however, that although a few Chinese go out of their way to explain to Westerners that they do not believe in fung shui, in some cases because they think that is what Europeans wish to hear, all sorts of people living in Hong Kong do believe in it. This includes Chinese in all walks of life, including the western educated and the erudite, some Legislative Councillors, rich businessmen and 'old one-hundred names' (the average Chinese).\n\nA private social function held in 1994 included 20 Chinese women ranging in ages from approximately 20 to 45. On being questioned by the author 16 said they believed, two more believed 'more or less', and two did not believe in fung shui.\n\nMany Chinese are not prepared to risk 'not believing'. There are indications, however, that, with the spread of westernisation and 'modern enlightenment', the views of younger Chinese are changing (see Appendix B). But the process is slow and opinions are mixed as the following (the words of a well-educated Chinese girl) illustrates:\n\n'I would not go to the trouble and expense of inviting a fung shui man to my flat. But if I knew I was not supposed to do something I would not do it, just in case. I would listen'", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1994.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zk522640g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213876, "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-1996", "page_number": 228, "title": "RAS-1996", "content_text": "202\n\nstate through the mandarinate and extended downward. Dependence on the favour of aristocratic protection found in Europe was represented in China by dependence on the favour of personified officialdom from the central extending all the way down to the localities. Accordingly, the rivalry within central officialdom would extend downward to their protégés in the local regions. The Cantonese experience can illustrate this point.\n\nAs such \"reform-minded\" officials such as Li Hongzhang and Zhang Zhidong were competing for national influence, their protégés recruited in the provinces were also competing among themselves. After the opening of Shanghai and Tianjin, increasing numbers of men from Ningpo and Zhejiang were appointed compradores of western firms or advisors to the reform-minded officials. Even within the Cantonese group, some were more influential than others.\n\nIn terms of national influence, those Cantonese engaged in economic reforms always gained the upper hand from those engaged in legal reforms. As shall be seen, for those Cantonese engaged in economic reform (from Tang Jingxing to his nephew Tang Shaoyi, and through him to Liang Shiyi), they eventually advanced to positions in Beijing and monopolized the influential Board of Communications, which commanded huge economic resources in steamships, railways, mining and telegraph. This group of Cantonese was known as the Communications Clique. Their interests were vested in a China united under the central control of Beijing. This partly explains why Liang Shiyi and his clique were willing to finance Yuan Shikai's government after 1911, as well as his monarchical movement in 1916.\n\nThose Cantonese advisors such as Wu Tingfang and Ho Kai (He Qi) who were engaged in legal and diplomatic reforms, had not established their power base in Beijing and so eventually they based their influence in south China. After all, they were appointed Legislative Councillors in Hong Kong, the highest political posts that the Hong Kong Chinese could expect. They were sympathetic to the revolutionary activities in south China. As shall be seen, they sided with Guangdong in reform, in revolution, and in independence. Remarkably, both the Communications Clique and the \"legal-reform group\" turned out to be political patrons for competing groups of Cantonese merchants in Hong Kong.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1996.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/3n209j641", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213878, "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-1996", "page_number": 230, "title": "RAS-1996", "content_text": "204\n\nHong Kong to Beijing. Speculation arose over whether Li would really depart from Canton. The Governor was informed by the Chinese Legislative Councillors that while Li did not dare to disregard the imperial edict, he would welcome an excuse for refusing.\n\nIn the meantime, the Governor of Hong Kong sent an urgent telegram to London asking for permission to detain Li by military force. London called upon the British Consul in Beijing for advice. This Consul, always on good terms with Beijing, advised that Britain should remain neutral. On the day when the Governor met Li, he recorded something very interesting:\n\nThe Viceroy then asked... whom the Powers wanted to see to be Emperor. Who would England like to see Emperor?... I answered that in such an event the Powers would probably ask the advice of the strongest man in China that they could find as to what was best to be done.\n\nEnding his record, the Governor predicted that Li would remain in Shanghai until \"the tide turn[ed]”. His prediction proved to be correct. Through Hong Kong, Li travelled northward, and stayed in Shanghai for three months, before he departed for Beijing probably after the \"tide really turn[ed]\".\n\nThe Late Qing Reforms\n\nTo curb this rising provincialism, the Manchu government put forward a constitutional reform in 1904. Part of its aim was to institutionalize and to centralize the practice of networking. The Manchu government introduced reform to re-define élite status in China - the imperial examination was abolished, a merchant charter was introduced, China's first legislation on chambers of commerce came about, and the first company laws were implemented. Accordingly, all commercial associations were to be reorganized as chambers of commerce. Through the medium of these chambers, merchants and companies were required to register with the Beijing government. These policies intended to organize a national system of chambers of commerce which corresponded to a hierarchy of regional assemblies leading all the way up to the Senate in Beijing. In economic terms, several Commissioners of Business Promotion were appointed by Beijing to supervise the", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1996.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/3n209j641", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213883, "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-1996", "page_number": 235, "title": "RAS-1996", "content_text": "209\n\nmembers of the Alumni Association. All of them had at one time or another worked as compradores for foreign firms; the two Eurasian families, Ho Tung and Lo Changzhao (E) had almost monopolized the compradoral posts of Jardines and the Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank up to the 1940s. Liu Zhubo, He and Lo's sons were at one time or another appointed Legislative Councillors of the Colony. When the First World War broke out in Europe, these three partners contributed a huge sum of money to the British Government for the purchase of an aeroplane. The plane, as requested by the donors, was named \"Da You Bank of Hong Kong\".\n\nThe wealth of this western-educated group did not derive from the joint-stock company. They owned their own native bank despite the fact that they were compradores in western firms. It seems likely that this was an attempt to avoid the disclosure of financial accounts as required by the company ordinance. As these Eurasian families monopolized the compradoral posts of many of the foreign firms, including the Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank, it is highly likely that capital was transferred between their accounts in the compradore offices and those in their private businesses.\n\nAs they had exclusive access to capital, they did not rely on a capital market in the same way as the overseas returning migrants did, though we cannot tell whether this capital market was governed by the invisible hand of the economy or the invisible hand of political intimidation, as the governor suggested.\n\nFollowing the example of the Siyi men, Hong Kong-born, western-educated groups participated in the political arena in China. In 1913, the Governor reported to the Colonial Office that \"several leading Chinese\" in Hong Kong had informed him that they would welcome the reorganization of the administration of the Canton Province under \"tactful and conscientious British supervision.\"\n\nAccording to Liu Zhubo's proposal, a loan of 25,000,000 taels was to be raised in Hong Kong to redeem unsecured currency in Canton. In return, Liu requested of the Beijing Government the privilege of establishing a central bank in Guangdong \"with a monopoly of the Provincial Government business\". To guarantee the smooth functioning of this arrangement, Liu suggested \"inviting the Government of Hong Kong\".", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1996.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/3n209j641", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213971, "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-1997", "page_number": 40, "title": "RAS-1997", "content_text": "course, think about The Little Man; it can't think about little men.\" This is not to decry what individual officers could, and usually did, do for personal complainants in specific cases.\n\nSir David Trench had his own ideas; thoughts from on high are less easily smothered than unsolicited disturbances from below. The received wisdom, which equally impressed most of the interlopers, was that since most of the population might want to return home across the border at some time, the electoral roll would be far too fluid to embrace a stable, identifiable and representable society; and that in any event direct elections to Legislative Council (Legco) were unthinkable, because they would be hi-jacked by the Communist Party of China (CPC) and the Kuomintang (KMT) from Taiwan; the fundamental Chinese political battle would then be fought out in the streets and on any hustings of Hong Kong, which the Chinese People's Republic (CPR) would never be willing to stand idly by and watch being conceivably won by Hong Kong Chinese Nationalist sympathisers. However Trench recognised that Legco was not the only possible forum for expression of popular feeling.\n\nTrench had no problems with sharing some of the lifestyle of the taipans and Chinese millionaires who were so noticeable among those traditionally appointed by governors to Exco and Legco, and whose nature he did little to change; despite the familiar jibe that he ranked third, after the taipan of the Hongkong & Shanghai Banking Corporation and the Chairman of the Royal Hong Kong Jockey Club, all knew that in the last resort he recommended the names of Executive Councillors to the Secretary of State. In his earlier days, however, he had preferred the raffish and disrespectful ambience of the multi-racial Foreign Correspondents' Club to that of the Hong Kong Club, Fanling [the Governor's official residence in the New Territories Hon. Editor] and the Jockey Club; while he enjoyed the actual sports of golf and racing for their own sakes; he never lost touch with his humbler post-war acquaintances in the Chinese community, such as his language teacher. He insisted that the introductory review chapter of one year's colonial annual report should spell out the wide sweep and valued authority of the great number of statutory, non-statutory and ad hoc committees which he believed to be a valid response to critics who would not understand why the people had no democratically elected voice in his councils. Yet his broad sympathies told him that, even so,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1997.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/wp98g7579", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214390, "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-1998", "page_number": 248, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "214\n\nceeded one hundred and the same year two District Watchmen were deployed to work in the emigration sub-division of the Registrar General's Department. During 1910 and 1911 it was felt necessary to employ 124 District Watchmen of different ranks but in 1912 the number was reduced to one hundred and remained unchanged until 1924.\n\nExpansion into Kowloon\n\nSince its formation in 1866 the District Watch Force had operated only on Hong Kong island. In May 1915 this changed when the new District Watchmen Station at Yaumati was opened and six District Watchmen were 'sent over.' In 1913, following the addition of a Cadet officer to the Secretariat for Chinese Affairs, the Government decided to expand the duties of the District Watchmen to include work connected with the registration of householders under the Registration of Chinese Ordinance. Perhaps the Government felt some apprehension that those responsible for paying for the Watchmen's services might balk at the addition of these duties because the Financial Secretary, in presenting this matter to the Legislative Council, maintained that this work 'if efficiently carried out should be of great value in checking serious crime in the Colony.' It is also clear from this speech that these extra responsibilities had required the expansion of the Force into Kowloon.19 Despite the fact that Legislative Councillors were only advised about these additional duties in October 1913, it is clear from the Annual Report of the Secretary for Chinese Affairs that the District Watchmen had begun making house calls in connection with the registration campaign at the beginning of May 1913. Daily reports were made by the Chief District Watchmen to the Secretariat for Chinese Affairs and the Police were informed immediately about the large number of opium divans and sly brothels which the District Watchmen's investigations uncovered. Thus, once again, the Hong Kong Government appropriated men from this privately funded organization to carry out work which was essentially public in nature.\n\nBetween 1897 and 1918 the District Watchmen continued to patrol on police beats under the supervision of European police. The following year saw an important change in the supervision of the District Watch Force, one that would bring its members into even closer contact with the regular police. At the end of 1919 Police Sergeant Timo-", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 216097, "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": 396, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "330\n\nthe long queue. After a few words from him and a few glares from odd people lined up, formalities were completed. My barging in seemed, more or less, to have been accepted.\n\nIn January 1955, I remember going to a new workshop which was being built for the government Public Works Department at So Kon Po, on Hong Kong Island. There, old women were straightening nails, for reuse, which had been knocked out of timber formwork into which concrete was poured. They were paid $1.50 a day. Tradesmen were paid $5.00.\n\nWhat were my other impressions of the winter of 1954/55? I could not get over how crystal clear the sky was as I stood on Hong Kong Island gazing northward over the Kowloon foothills. Leading on, jumping to 1964, businessman K.A. Watson of the Traffic Advisory Committee, said: 'Hong Kong might one day have a smog problem as bad as Los Angeles unless action is taken to eliminate vehicle exhaust fumes.' No one took much notice.\n\nIn those days if one spoke of 'the Government' one meant the one in Whitehall. But if one wrote 'government,' with no definite article and a small 'g,' then one meant the administration in Hong Kong. Interestingly, during the 1957/58 legislative year, only one question was asked in the Legislative Council among the eight unofficial (non-government) Councillors and they only, between them, made a total of 12 speeches.\n\nHong Kong was a pretty colonial place in those days and there was always a military parade with bands marching along the streets of Kowloon on the morning of 21st April. It was a public holiday and the Queen's Birthday. It was a jingoistic occasion with a few Britons carrying furled umbrellas and wearing bowler hats. In the 1950s the Murray Parade Ground was regularly used, near the Garden Road-Queen's Road corner, opposite the cricket field where Chater Garden is situated today.\n\nWe went into \"whites\" on about 1st May and this, for most of us in government at least, meant shorts with shirts tucked in and knee-length socks. We changed back to heavy clothing on about 1st November. My old boss, typical of the more senior, used to come down on the Peak", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 } ]