[ { "id": 205716, "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": 22, "title": "RAS-1969", "content_text": "16 \n\nT. C. CHENG \n\nDr. Ho died in September 1914 at the age of 55 leaving over ten sons and daughters by his second wife who was a Chinese. \n\nThe fourth Chinese to serve on the Legislative Council was Wei Yuk, son-in-law of Mr. Wong Shing. He had another name Wei Bo-shan17 and Po Shan Road is named after him. He was born in Hong Kong in 1849 of a wealthy family, his father, Wei Kwong, being compradore to the Hong Kong branch of the Chartered Mercantile Bank of India, London and China (now the Mercantile Bank Ltd.). After many years of Chinese studies under private tutors, he entered the Government Central School. In 1867, at the age of 18, he proceeded to England to attend the Leicester Stoneygate School. In 1868 he went to Scotland and studied for four years at the Dollar Institution. After a European tour, he returned to Hong Kong in 1872 and then worked in China for a short period. When his father died in 1879 he succeeded him as compradore to the bank. He was a very public-spirited citizen, well-known for his charming manners and pleasant personality. In 1880 he was elected a director of the Tung Wah Hospital and in 1887 became its Chairman. He was appointed a Justice of the Peace in 1883. \n\nWei Yuk's appointment to the Legislative Council was additional to and not in replacement of Ho Kai, and came about as follows. \n\nDuring 1894, the Governor, Sir William Robinson, forwarded to the Secretary of State a petition signed by the Honourable Messrs. Thomas Whitehead, Paul Chater, Ho Kai and other residents in the Colony, asking for unofficial membership in the Executive Council; \"free election of representatives of British nationality in the Legislative Council\"; \"a majority of such representatives in the Legislative Council\"; and freedom of the official members to vote according to their conscientious convictions.18 \n\nThe Secretary of State, Lord Ripon, criticized the petitioners' demands as lacking in clarity on the ground that the petitioners \"asked for the free election of representatives of British nationality without reference to the qualifications of the voters\". Thus if the petitioners intended that only those from the British Islands should vote and be eligible for election, this would exclude the Chinese who comprised nine-tenths of the entire population. He dismissed the claim to have a majority of elected representatives,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1969.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9g553n20d", "rank": 0 }, { "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": 210197, "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": 168, "title": "RAS-1984", "content_text": "147\n\nThe continued existence of a system of licensed prostitution in Hong Kong soon came to the notice of the moral reform societies in Britain which had succeeded in abolishing such houses at home and were determined to end the system overseas as well. Pressure was brought to bear upon the Colonial Office by written appeals from the societies and by questions and speeches in parliament. So in 1893 a new Secretary of State, Lord Ripon, sent instructions to Hong Kong that the registration of brothels and the periodic examination of their inmates, whether nominally voluntary or not, must cease forthwith. Once again the Governor expostulated, forwarding a petition from the leading Chinese who objected that with the abolition of registration prostitutes would have no opportunity to complain about ill-treatment and that brothels would proliferate in respectable residential areas. The Colonial Surgeon also added his views, claiming that it would be cruel to forbid the women to attend for regular examinations; they were well aware of the need for early diagnosis of venereal disease and came of their own free will. But the Secretary of State, under pressure from moral reformers in Britain, was obdurate, and a bill to repeal the 1890 ordinance and abolish the whole system of control was introduced into the Legislative Council in 1894 and passed by the official majority against the unanimous opposition of the unofficials. Hong Kong's long delaying action to avoid reform was apparently at an end.\n\nThe results of this measure were soon evident: prostitutes ceased to attend for their weekly examinations; a large number of new brothels were opened in areas of the city which had formerly been free of them; and the incidence of venereal disease in the garrison soared. In 1897 half the soldiers in Hong Kong were under treatment for venereal diseases, compared to 15 per cent ten years earlier. In Singapore, which had been given the same directive to abolish registered brothels as Hong Kong, the incidence of venereal disease among troops reached 60 per cent. Faced with this situation the governors of the Straits Settlements and Hong Kong submitted a succession of reports to London and proposed draft legislation which would broadly have had the effect of reintroducing the legal system of control that had existed before 1889. The China Association in London and its branches in Hong Kong and Singapore strongly supported the Governors' views and se-", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1984.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/5h73wh572", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210209, "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": 180, "title": "RAS-1984", "content_text": "159 \n\nThe action of the Secretary of State in overruling the Governor's advice in 1889, 1893, and 1931 was most unusual. It was, doubtless, a highly moral stand, and spared the Secretary from the obloquy of appearing as an advocate of vice in an unsympathetic House of Commons. But the results were disastrous, so disastrous in fact that the official instructions were circumvented in Hong Kong for thirty years with the connivance of the Colonial Office. When they were enforced under a compliant Governor the results turned out to be as bad as had been predicted.\n\n2 \n\n1 \n\nNOTES \n\nHong Kong Government Gazette, 15 February 1873 p. 55. \n\nHong Kong Legislative Council, Sessional Papers 1931, pp. 102 and 111. Correspondence relating to the Working of the Contagious Diseases Ordinances of the Colony of Hong Kong, C3093, p. 21 in Parliamentary Papers 1881 LXV, p. 599. \n\n4 Mr. Labouchere to Governor Bowring, 27 August 1858, reproduced in Report of the Commissioners appointed to inquire into the Working of the Contagious Diseases Ordinance 1867 (Hong Kong: Noronha 1879) p. 207. \n\n6 \n\nOp. cit. note 3, p. 22. \n\nFor a full description of the system in operation in 1878 see Report of the Commissioners, 1879, Appendix, especially the evidence of C. Clementi Smith and A. Lister at pp. 1-8. \n\n+ Ibid, Appendix p. 6. 'The examinations were the greatest punishment (the women) could have and the mere threat of sending them to examination was generally sufficient to keep them in order. See also CO129/259 pp. 132f for the situation in 1893. \n\nQuoted by Governor Sir J. Pope Hennessy in a despatch to the Earl of Kimberley, 13 Nov 1880, in op. cit., note 3, p. 46. \n\n9 \n\n9 W.H. Marsh, Officer Administering the Government, to Secretary of State, 10 Jan 1887 in Parliamentary Papers 1887 LVII p. 689, no. 6. \n\n10 Sir H.T. Holland to Governor of Hong Kong, 2 July 1887 in Parliamentary Papers 1887 LVII, p. 793, no. 30. \n\nSir W. Des Voeux to Lord Knutsford, 8 Oct. 1888 with enclosures in Parliamentary Papers 1889 LV p. 163, no. 22. \n\n12 \n\nKnutsford to Des Voeux, 30 Nov. 1888 and 15 Feb. 1889 in Parliamentary Papers 1889 LV pp. 173 and 204, nos. 25 and 39. \n\n13 Knutsford to Des Voeux, 3 Jan. 1890 and 13 Jan. 1890 in Parliamentary Papers 1890 XLIX pp. 56 and 63, nos. 25 and 27. \n\n14 \n\nDes Voeux to Knutsford, 29 July 1889 in Parliamentary Papers 1890 XLIX p. 38 no. 10 and Marquess of Ripon to Sir William Robinson, 17 March 1893 in Parliamentary Papers 1894 LVII p. 39, no. 13. \n\nPage 180\n\nPage 181", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1984.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/5h73wh572", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210702, "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": 53, "title": "RAS-1986", "content_text": "36\n\nWALTER GREENWOOD\n\nmember, being re-elected in 1891 and 1894, until his resignation in 1895. It was a substantial commitment, involving fortnightly meetings and reading papers in-between meetings. Considerations of space allow reference only to certain events in 1894 and 1895 for which Francis is best known. Suffice it to say that he appeared to try to dominate the proceedings of the Board but at the same time had an ambivalent attitude to it because he considered that it did not have sufficient powers and independence to make it an effective body. For example, in March 1894 he seconded a proposal that it be reconstructed on a popular basis but also argued that that was premature until its powers had been enlarged. Prior to the election in June 1891 the Daily Press said that he had rendered good service and that his keen and ever-ready criticism, sometimes perhaps degenerating into captiousness, had exercised a wholesome influence both on the Board and its officers. The China Mail in its obituary said that he was not an unqualified success and his performance as a member of the Board might have deprived him of support for a place on the Legislative Council.\n\nIn May 1894 plague struck Hong Kong, and a Permanent Committee of the Sanitary Board, comprising three members with Francis as Chairman, was set up to cope with the emergency. It met daily at his chambers at 4 p.m. Its actions were not universally popular. It was in conflict with the Government on occasion, and at one stage was said to be daggers drawn with the Governor. The business community complained that its activities had an adverse effect on commerce, and its relations with the Chinese community were not assisted by wild rumours such as that pregnant women were cut open and children's eyes were gouged out to make medicines for the treatment of the plague. There were recriminations as to whose fault had led to the outbreak and whether the right steps were taken to combat it. Francis bluntly laid the blame on gross mismanagement by the Public Works Department. Whatever the rights and wrongs of particular matters, there were many tributes to his work. The Governor in a dispatch to the Secretary of State, Lord Ripon, in June said that the Permanent Committee acted with extraordinary energy and efficiency and that the Government was indebted to him and others. The acting Attorney General paid tribute to his great assistance, at enormous sacrifice of time, and his wonderful and rapid grasp of any subject and great", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1986.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/jq08c7063", "rank": 0 } ]