[ { "id": 204241, "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-1961", "page_number": 9, "title": "RAS-1961", "content_text": "Vol. 1 (1961)\n\nISSN 1991-7295\n\nJournal of the Royal Asiatic Society Hong Kong Branch\n\nORASHKB and author\n\n6\n\nyear we had 182 of whom 20 were life members and who included several eminent scholars from overseas. But as Sir Robert Black said in his address last month, \"there must be many times 200 people in Hong Kong who are interested both in the cultural life and history of this part of the world which has great riches to offer to anybody interested in research or in studying and enquiring about the inheritance which we all enjoy who live here.\" While we can feel pride in having in our present membership a substantial nucleus not only of scholars but of members generally representative of the cosmopolitan community of the Colony who are keen and enthusiastic, we need more members and hope to appeal to a wider public. As this is a Royal Society, membership is not a matter of form only, and we do not go out into the highways and byways to recruit members, but we feel that the Society can enlarge its activities and membership if the present members will help by bringing within the fold those of their friends and acquaintances who are interested in its activities. There seems to be no reason why in time the membership should not equal that of the Shanghai Branch, which before the war was about 800.\n\nDuring the year the Society has held eight meetings at which addresses have been given, all of them by persons of outstanding eminence in their respective spheres. Most of them were very well attended. Good lecturers are a gift from heaven but so far we have been truly blessed.\n\nWe were particularly fortunate in starting the year with two outstanding meetings. For an opening meeting we had an intensely interesting talk by Prince Peter of Greece and Denmark on \"The Social and Economic Organisation of Tibet\", illustrated by a coloured film taken over a period of seven years during his exploration of Central Asia. The formal inaugural address was given by Professor F. S. Drake of the University of Hong Kong on \"The Study of Asia: a Heritage and a Task.\" It was a memorable address which gave the stamp of learning and authority on the Society's efforts and the text of which is printed in this volume.\n\nOf no less interest and merit were the addresses following:\n\nby the\n\nProfessor John K. Fairbank on \"Chinese Studies in the United States\",\n\nMr. A. C. Scott on \"The Chinese Theatre\" illustrated by Chinese actors in costumes and makeup,\n\nMr. G. B. Downer of the University of London on \"The Yao People of Laos.\"\n\nIn the summer months we followed the advice of the first President of the original Hong Kong Branch, Sir John Davis,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1961.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/vd6724704", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204379, "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-1962", "page_number": 11, "title": "RAS-1962", "content_text": "Nevertheless the monthly meetings of the Society have been consistently well attended with audiences which often have more than filled this room and have averaged well over one hundred at each meeting. This regularity of attendance proves that there is in the Colony a reliable cross section of the community who appreciate what Professor Drake referred to in his inaugural lecture as the Study of Asia and our heritage.\n\nIn the earlier days of the Society up to 1859 when the Government of the Colony provided a home for the Society and its library it was honoured with the presence on its Council of the Governor, the Commander of the British Forces, the Chief Justice, the Bishop of Victoria, the Colonial Secretary, the Colonial Treasurer and the Attorney General, and it had the active support of the heads of the great merchant houses like Jardine, Matheson and Co. and Dent and Co. Although in these busier days we miss the successors of some of these eminent personages we are still honoured today by the patronage of His Excellency the Governor and the support of leading members of a more cosmopolitan community than in the earlier days. We particularly appreciate the keenness of the Hon. W. C. G. Knowles, who has recently joined the Council, and of the Honourable the Chief Justice whose athletic figure some of us recall striding along the slithery slopes of Lantao on the occasion of our archaeological excursion last year. We hope that this year we may provide a further opportunity for members who do not perhaps know one another as well as it might be desired, to join in a combined social and study expedition either to Lantao or elsewhere in the New Territories.\n\nDuring the year 1961 nine public meetings were held at which unusually interesting lectures were given, most of them illustrated with colour slides-\n\nJanuary 23rd\n\nJames Liu\n\n\"The Knight Errant in Chinese Literature\"\n\n\"Tibet As It Was (1936-1950)”\n\nFebruary 10th\n\nHugh Richardson\n\nApril 10th\n\nMay 13th\n\nMiss Mary Tregear\n\n\"Chinese Paintings in Formosa and America\"\n\nExpedition to Lantao to visit archaeological sites", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1962.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9s166f47f", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204381, "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-1962", "page_number": 13, "title": "RAS-1962", "content_text": "should like to appeal to other merchant houses and individuals in the Colony, who probably need only to have the nature and needs of the Society made known to them to follow the generous example of our first benefactors. In the second place, the greater part of the amount of about $7,000 now in hand will soon be needed to cover the cost of the production and distribution of the Journal Vol. II, to a free copy of which each member is entitled by virtue of his subscription. We also urgently need a public address system, made necessary by the steadily increasing size of our audiences. We shall have to consider the purchase of projectors and apparatus for the exhibition of colour slides with which many lectures are now illustrated. Hitherto we have been fortunate in that we have been furnished with all the necessary equipment by the British Council, to whom and to their projectionists I wish to tender the thanks and appreciation of the Society. Furthermore, until now the British Council Room has been our home ever since the first preliminary meeting of the Society in 1959, and all except three or four of our meetings have been held here. Our lecture expenses in 1961 amounted to only $213.75, and most of this sum was incurred when a larger room had to be taken in the Hong Kong Club. Without the generous help of the British Council and its Representative here, Mr. R. E. Lawry, who is our Honorary Secretary, in placing this room and all its amenities at our disposal free of charge the Society could not have been in the financial position it is in today. On behalf of the Society I wish to express our deep appreciation to the British Council and to Mr. Lawry and his staff for all they have done in giving the Society a home for now over two years, and in the absence of a home of our own we hope that the Council will continue its generous support.\n\nFinally, there is one other matter of expenditure we have to consider—the building up of a library. We are already in touch with many learned societies all over the world who send us their journals and publications, usually in exchange for copies of our own Journal. These will form a valuable nucleus of a collection. We need and appeal for money and gifts of books to build up an Oriental Library worthy of the Society, a collection of books and periodicals which we hope may serve to supplement the more general library of the City Hall and which can be made available for research study and reading not only to members", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1962.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9s166f47f", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204526, "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-1963", "page_number": 7, "title": "RAS-1963", "content_text": "# PRESIDENT'S REPORT\n\n1962\n\nThis is the third Annual General Meeting of the Society since its revival in December 1959. During 1962 the work of the Society, judging by the popularity of the lectures and the success of the Journal, has shown a vitality which has justified the initial promise of the first two years, and has established its position as a permanent factor in the intellectual life of the community in Hong Kong.\n\nThe ten public meetings at which lectures were delivered were again all consistently well attended. The first two in January and February were held at the premises of the British Council, through the good offices of the Representative Mr. R. E. Lawry, who is also our Honorary Secretary. By the beginning of our third year the audiences had outgrown the normal capacity of the British Council Room and it was opportune that just then the City Hall with its admirable facilities became available for our subsequent meetings. The term \"lecture\" has now become inappropriate and somewhat of an anachronism in connection with meetings such as those of the Society. I recall an Annual General Meeting of the North China Branch held in Shanghai about twenty-five years ago when the late Mr. A. de C. Sowerby, the well-known naturalist and curator of the Society's museum, in his Annual Report referred to the \"lectures\" which had been given during the year. \"Of these,\" he said, \"two were illustrated with both motion pictures and ordinary lantern slides, seven were illustrated with lantern slides only, the remainder being without illustrations. It is evident that lantern slides form an added attraction, since it was noticeable that, regardless of the subject, lectures so illustrated were markedly better attended than those that were not.\" To some extent the same may be said of the more sophisticated audiences of Hong Kong today. However, the lectures that were not illustrated were of such interest that they brought excellent audiences, while those which were illustrated had the advantage of brilliant colours, such as Mr. Nixon's slides of flowers and Mr. Hugh Gibb's documentary films, and this added greatly to their popularity. The fantastic\n\n1", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1963.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/4m90m091v", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204709, "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-1964", "page_number": 12, "title": "RAS-1964", "content_text": "3\n\nThe expedition to Tung Chung produced a new inspiration for the Society's activities, mainly the idea of our admirable Hon. Secretary, Mr. R. E. Lawry. It is proposed to hold a symposium during weekends to discuss the social organisation of village life and other aspects of life in the New Territories. A programme has been arranged for the weekend May 9th-10th, particulars of which have already been supplied to members. This extension of our activities is in accord with the avowed objects of the Society for it is our aim to direct attention not only to the cultural and literary heritage of the part of Asia in which we live, but also to practical pursuits such as its natural history, fauna and flora, and the lives of the people around us.\n\nA particularly noteworthy and important work of the Society is the production of the Journal, the fourth volume of which may be expected this summer. The Journal, built up on the meticulous standard of editorship set up by Mr. Cranmer-Byng and the Editorial Board of which, until his departure earlier this month, he had been Chairman, has already achieved a well-deserved reputation among the productions of learned societies in the same field. The contributions which come from non-members as well as members are sufficiently varied in nature and interest to appeal to the specialists as well as to the general reader. The Society may well be proud of its Journal and grateful to Mr. Cranmer-Byng and his colleagues for their splendid work and achievement.\n\nThe Financial Statement of 1963, which the Honorary Treasurer will present to you, shows a capital account of £1,699.10.0 and an apparent excess of income over expenditure of HK$2,947.26. The real position in the matter of income, however, is that the annual subscriptions from members during 1963 amounted to $6,177.91, while the expenses amounted to $7,459, leaving a deficit of $1,282. This deficit is met by recourse to income from the small capital investment fund, the greater part of which was established by the generosity of an anonymous donor, when the Branch was revived, for the purpose of establishing a library and for other capital expenditure necessary for the future activities of the Society and not for meeting current expenses. For the small annual subscription of $20, members receive, in addition to the benefit of the meetings during the year, a free copy of the Journal, which is sold to the public for HK$12. To place the Society on a sound", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1964.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qz20zx09r", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204710, "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-1964", "page_number": 13, "title": "RAS-1964", "content_text": "4\n\nfinancial basis it is essential that the membership should be considerably increased if the subscription is to remain at its present modest level which, so far as I can ascertain, is lower than that of any Branch of the Society. A serious aspect of the accounts is that out of a total number of 371 members there are 166 who have not yet paid their subscriptions for 1963. The subscriptions are due on the 1st January each year, but a margin of grace is allowed until June 30th. Some of those who have not paid have probably left the Colony; in the case of others it is probably a matter of forgetfulness or procrastination. As I stressed last year the Hon. Treasurer and the Hon. Secretary are both busy people who have neither the time nor the staff to continue to appeal to and to press members for payment and it would greatly lessen their burden if members made their subscriptions payable by banker's order or became life members.\n\nThe need for an increased membership has recently been emphasized by our Patron, Sir Robert Black, in a message which was authorised for circulation in support of the Society's appeal. A copy of this message, together with a brochure containing a synopsis of the history of the Hong Kong Branch of the Society, is now available to members who are asked to help by recruiting such of their friends and acquaintances as may be interested in the objects of the Society.\n\nThis month we are faced with a double loss of very serious import. Sir Robert Black who has been our Patron since the Branch was reconstituted will be leaving the Colony at the end of this month. Sir Robert has not only honoured the Society with his distinguished patronage, but both he and Lady Black have shown keen personal interest in the Society and in spite of the heavy calls on their time have been regular attendants at our meetings. They have helped to foster the growth of the Society during the first vital years of its revival and stimulated the interest of the public in the activities. At the beginning of the month Mr. Cranmer-Byng left the Colony to take up another appointment in Canada. He took a leading part in the re-establishment of the Hong Kong Branch in 1959, served on the Council until his departure and above all, it may truly be said that the Journal is a monument to his scholarship and editorial ability. His place will be exceedingly difficult to fill. The Rules of the Society", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1964.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qz20zx09r", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205466, "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-1968", "page_number": 8, "title": "RAS-1968", "content_text": "PRESIDENT'S REPORT FOR 1967\n\nThe year 1967 will remain on record as a trying and difficult year owing to the Communist disturbances which broke out in May and made it difficult to hold the monthly meetings. Despite these difficulties the Society continued to flourish. It maintained its membership and held twelve meetings, including the very interesting visit to Aberdeen and old Hong Kong under the guidance of Mr. James Hayes. The list of public addresses attached to this report includes some of the most interesting which the Society have enjoyed, and all maintained the standard of scholarship and interest which have been expected of this doyen of Royal Societies.\n\nIn the last four years the popularity and, in particular, the value of the Society's work has been enhanced by the weekend symposia and excursions to places of interest undertaken with a view to studying the traditional ways of life of the Chinese, in their historical, social and religious aspects, and to placing on record all the knowledge gained through these researches before it vanishes for ever. The symposia and excursions have been highly popular and very well attended; they serve not only to supply gaps in our knowledge of Hong Kong and of the people amongst whom we live but have resulted in the gathering of material of the highest value which have been recorded so far in two publications of great interest and a high standard of scholarship edited by Dr. Marjorie Topley. The first brochure on the Symposium of 1964 (published in 1965) on \"The Aspects of Social Organisation In The New Territories\" is now sold out and will certainly have to be reprinted. The second and larger book of 145 pages published in 1967 and entitled \"Some Traditional Chinese Ideas And Conceptions In Hong Kong Social Life Today\" is now on sale and has already been warmly received and appreciated not only by members of the Society but by scholars and research workers in the field of Asiatic studies abroad. These activities of the Society have been conducted under the leadership and guidance of Dr. Marjorie Topley and Mr. James Hayes, and to them and all the experts who have helped them we owe our deepest gratitude. We look forward to the continuance of their valuable work.\n\nAt the end of 1967 the membership of the Society stood at 420. We were fortunate in the circumstances when so many left the", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1968.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833948d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205854, "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": 160, "title": "RAS-1969", "content_text": "154\n\nNOTES AND QUERIES\n\nEARLY HONG KONG LIBRARIES\n\nVol. VIII of the Society's Journal contained an introduction to Hong Kong's library history under the heading of \"Notes on Hong Kong Libraries in the Nineteenth Century\". It mentioned as foremost of the early libraries in the Colony the Victoria Library and Reading Rooms which had been privately organised in 1848. There was, however, a still earlier library—that of the Asiatic Society of China which was founded in January 1847 and later became the China Branch and, still later, the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society. Some of the founders of the Society had belonged to a Medico-Chirurgical Society founded in Hong Kong in May 1845 and to a Philosophical Society of Hong Kong formed shortly before the Asiatic Society. Both these societies were merged in the Asiatic Society in January 1847, and the books of the Medico-Chirurgical Society were handed over to the Asiatic Society to form part of the new Society's library on the understanding that members of the Medico-Chirurgical Society be admitted as members of the Asiatic Society without ballot or entrance fee.\n\nThe Asiatic Society's library was kept from 1849 in a room at the Court House which had been granted for the use of the Society for its meetings by Sir George Bonham. When the Society ran into difficulties in 1858 it handed over its valuable library of 400 books on trust to the Morrison Education Society which had been formed in Canton in 1835 and which, from 1855, had also kept its library in the Old Court House.\n\nWhen the demand for a proper public library grew on the building of the City Hall the Morrison Education Society presented its own library and that of the Royal Asiatic Society to the City Hall Library which was visited by the Duke of Edinburgh when he opened the City Hall on 2 November, 1869,\n\nHong Kong, 1969.\n\nJ. R. JONES\n\nDEFENCE WALL AT PASS BETWEEN KOWLOON CITY AND KOWLOON TSAI\n\nThis item on one of the antiquities of Old Kowloon City is taken from a pencilled note in one of Mr. Walter Schofield's note-books, dated 15th April, 1928. It is clearly a contemporary description. The note is reproduced", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1969.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9g553n20d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206195, "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": 12, "title": "RAS-1971", "content_text": "In Conclusion, there remain to me now three brief duties to perform and they are the duties of recording thanks.\n\nFirstly they go to you members who have demonstrated your public spirit by coming here this evening and making the number present up to that which is necessary to give this meeting legal status. Secondly, I must also thank the members of the Committee who, by so dextrously and loyally serving two masters during the year 1970, have ensured an even maintenance of policy and achievement during the change in Presidency.\n\nAnd finally, a bitter-sweet item, bitter because it is the last meeting at which we shall have the pleasure of the presence of Mr. Webster as our Hon. Secretary. He is leaving Hong Kong in the very near future on transfer to Istanbul, and this brings to an abrupt end his all too short stay here. We offer him our heartiest congratulations on his new appointment and we would like him to know that he takes with him our most grateful thanks for his invaluable services to the Society for the past two years. The sweet part of this item is the news that the British Council has offered us the continuation of its services, which, I think you should know, include facilities for the venue of all our Committee meetings as well as the procuring of halls for our Society's meetings; a central home for our secretariat; the services of two senior members of its staff on our committee; and the behind-the-scenes help of Mrs. Margaret O'Hara, who is invariably prepared to cope with the hundred and one minor problems which so frequently confront an organization such as ours in its ordinary every day affairs. In fact I am certain that without this sympathetic help from the British Council, we would have no chance at all of running this Society with the efficiency and success that you have come to expect of it. To the British Council, to its local Representative, Mr. G. A. Bridges, and to his staff, we again offer our most grateful thanks.\n\nWith these words of thanks to all our helpers, I beg to table this report of the affairs of the Society for the year 1970.\n\n3rd May, 1971.\n\nL. T. RIDE", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1971.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/z029vt43g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206242, "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": 59, "title": "RAS-1971", "content_text": "LETTERS FROM CHINA 1835-36\n\n53\n\nwhich were imposed upon their movement by the Chinese authorities. Their effect upon a sensitive person are readily apparent from the letters. The literary interests and charitable works of the writer and his relatives are also of interest, and the mentions of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge in China and the Medical Missionary Society remind us of the starting difficulties that surrounded the first of these ventures.\n\nBoth societies were inaugurated at meetings held among foreign residents at Canton. The Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge in China originated at a meeting of residents on 29th November, 1834. The Medical Missionary Society originated at a public meeting held in Canton in 1838 and, according to Samuel Couling, was \"the first society of the kind in existence\" in China. The Society was formed to develop and finance Dr. Peter Parker's ophthalmic hospital in Canton which had started in Singapore in 1834 and been moved to Canton the following year. (See Samuel Couling, The Encyclopaedia Sinica, Shanghai, Kelly & Walsh, 1917, pp. 345, 520 for further details. An account of the inaugural meeting of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge in China is given in The Chinese Repository, volume 3, page 378).\n\nWith the kind assistance of Mr. H. A. Rydings, Librarian of the University of Hong Kong and Honorary Librarian of this Branch, it has been possible to trace the reference in the letter written from the ship Asia to the Compendium of General History printed at Singapore, being the first work of the Society for Diffusing Useful Knowledge in China. This is Koò kin wàn kwo kang kéén or Universal History, 244 leaves, Singapore 1838. This appears as No. 34 on page 60 of (Alexander Wylie's) Memorials of the Protestant Missionaries to the Chinese, Shanghae, American Presbyterian Mission Press, 1867. Item 17 on page 58 is also relevant. Unfortunately, the mention of the Japanese Encyclopaedia, also in the long letter written on board the Asia, is too vague to allow for any identification.\n\nIt may be of interest to readers that in Volume 4 of this Journal (1964) we printed with Introduction and Useful Notes a recently discovered M.S. Journal of Occurrences at Canton during the Cessation of Trade at Canton 1839 which is considered to have been by W. C. Hunter, a resident of Canton and Macau contemporary with Stewart. Hunter published his reminiscences", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1971.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/z029vt43g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206313, "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": 130, "title": "RAS-1971", "content_text": "124\n\nH. J. LETHBRIDGE\n\ndevolving upon the regular police by law or custom. As early as 1868, the Registrar General reported that the Head District Watchmen from their age and authority are often accepted as arbiters of perplexing disputes'. Clearly, these extra-police duties increased year by year, for in 1935 the Secretary for Chinese Affairs wrote 'it is not generally realised that in addition to their normal ordinary police duties the District Watch carry out a great deal of useful investigation in purely civil cases, wages and family disputes'. Watchmen were also active in counting the number of children at vernacular schools, controlling queues during periods of acute water shortage, gathering information about family budgets, and in the more general task of making known to the Chinese public the policies of the government30. Primarily, of course, the members of the force spent most of their time in apprehending shoplifters, thieves, pickpockets and loiterers in those districts where there were Chinese shops. Their special anti-pickpocket squad, a plain-clothes unit, helped to control an offence once very common in Hong Kong. This was what the subscribers expected them to do31, for the subscribers were nearly all shopkeepers and merchants, members of the propertied and moneyed class in Hong Kong. The District Watchmen, armed and uniformed, must have been a conspicuous sight in the Chinese quarters of the town before the war, well-known as individuals to the citizens in the districts they patrolled. In most cases the watchmen spoke Cantonese like the majority in the urban areas, whereas Chinese regular police were often recruited from Shantung32 and spoke another dialect. The police constables from Shantung, given the complexities of Chinese provincial and dialect differences, were comparative strangers -- tall, muscular men from the North.\n\nThe day to day running of the force was left mainly in the hands of the Head District Watchmen and their aides, the Assistant District Watchmen, and later to the European officer seconded from the police; and all clerical work was done in Chinese in the office of the Secretary for Chinese Affairs, which became the headquarters of the force. The Committee met formally once a month, though extraordinary meetings were often held. But when the Committee did meet, it usually had more important matters to discuss than the routine doings of the force. The Committee of Management, since its advice was solicited by the Secretary for", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1971.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/z029vt43g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206319, "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": 136, "title": "RAS-1971", "content_text": "130\n\nH. J. LETHBRIDGE\n\nPermanent Board of Direction was established by ordinance in 189352, the Tung Wah Hospital Advisory Board came into being in 189633, the Chinese Permanent Cemetery Committee in 1913 and the Chinese Temples Committees in 1928. Two other Chinese committees should be mentioned: the Chinese Recreation Ground Committee, established in 1890, contained the Registrar General and the Chinese unofficial members of the two Councils; and the Chinese Public Dispensaries Committee, formed in 1909, consisted of the Registrar General as chairman, the Chinese members of the two Councils and the Sanitary Board, the three chairmen of the annual committee of the Tung Wah Hospital and a number of other leading Chinese. In 1941, the official Chinese committees, inclusive of the District Watch, were eleven in number. Together their members represented a Hong Kong Chinese élite, in which such values as wealth, prestige and power, to use William Skinner's expressive term, ‘agglutinated’.\n\nNomination to the District Watch Committee was a great achievement, but nomination to the other ten committees and boards was also regarded as an honour and an additional notification of a person's standing within the community. But Chinese appointed to these ten committees and boards exercised either a more specialised or more purely honorific role, primarily because these committees did not hold a constant or uninterrupted dialogue with the Registrar General/Secretary for Chinese Affairs. They met infrequently, sometimes only once or twice a year; and although they gave advice on occasions, the giving of advice was not their primary function. Much of the work of these committees centred on the allocation of charitable funds, the management of property and the supervision of accounts. The District Watch Committee represented the real locus of power: at its meetings the members formulated a Chinese point of view on government policies and general issues. The Committee acted as a permanently installed barometer for the government, giving it a clear indication of the state of mind of the Chinese bourgeoisie. It marked out for government how the élite felt on certain questions39.\n\nThe same people were to be found represented on all the eleven committees and boards (although in slightly different combinations in each case) so that it is a little unreal to distinguish", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1971.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/z029vt43g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206351, "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": 168, "title": "RAS-1971", "content_text": "152\n\nJAMES HAYES\n\nin 1859 and spread outwards through the self-governing and other territories of what became the Commonwealth and Empire. It extended to Britain's Eastern Colonies and to the foreign communities of the treaty ports of China and Japan where, from time to time, various alarms and excursions added self-preservation to the list of factors motivating the continuance or periodic resuscitation of volunteer corps.\n\nIn Hong Kong the Laws of the Colony early provided for their existence as a constitutional force. A succession of Ordinances established volunteers on a proper basis. The earliest of these was No. 2 of 1862, which was repeated with slight variation in No. 18 of 1882. An important re-modelling was carried out by No. 6 of 1893. This was followed by a Volunteer Reserve Ordinance No. 25 of 1910. Both these Ordinances were replaced by a further Volunteer Ordinance No. 2 of 1920, still modelled largely on the important 1893 Ordinance.\n\nVolunteer forces were the rule in the various foreign concessions in China, though save in the larger ones local volunteer forces tended to be formed and reformed whenever events seemed to warrant it. For example, the Shameen Defence Corps was formed after a serious riot in 1884 and was reformed from time to time, e.g. in May 1911 due to the unsettled state of affairs in Canton (see Diary of Events and the Progress on Shameen 1859-1938 compiled by H.S.S. and privately printed about 1938, pp. 19-26).\n\nThe largest of the China volunteer units was, in time, the Shanghai Volunteer Corps. This originated at two public meetings held in April 1853 and its early doings are described in Chapter XXXV of Lanning and Couling's The History of Shanghai, Part I (Shanghai, Kelly & Walsh, 1921).\n\nInteresting details of its development are given here and there in Brigadier J. V. Davidson-Houston's Yellow Creek, The Story of Shanghai (London, Putnam, 1962). As in Hong Kong, the passing of the first emergency resulted in the demise of the Corps. \"Enthusiasm for the Volunteer Corps sank to a low ebb, members neglected to turn up for training and it was soon practically defunct\" (p. 58). The Corps was again raised in August 1860 with the onset of the Taiping rebels, when 107 volunteers came forward for enrolment (p. 65). However, after the successful operations against the rebels the Corps \"wilted and died\" and was wound up in 1867 to \"pay for its debtor's balance by selling its rifles\" although the rifle club continued to function (p. 90). The Corps was again formed in 1870 following the Tientsin massacre and continued in being thereafter, its numbers fluctuating between 250-350 for the rest of the 19th century (pp. 92-93). It then continued to grow in size, like the Hong Kong Volunteer Defence Corps, to meet the difficulties of the troubled 1920s and the war with Japan.\n\nThe number of foreign residents in China is relevant to the size and location of Volunteer Corps. Some figures are given at pp. 292-295 of J. Dyer Ball's Things Chinese or Notes Connected with China, 4th edition, Hongkong, Kelly and Walsh 1903. There were, for instance, 4,424 foreigners in Shanghai (exclusive of those living in the French Settlement) in 1895 and 6774 in 1900. The Hong Kong Census of 1891 listed 10,446 British and foreign residents.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1971.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/z029vt43g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206520, "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": 68, "title": "RAS-1972", "content_text": "62\n\nHENRY JAMES LETHBRIDGE\n\nhad two meetings with the Chinese delegate, Huang Tsun-hsin1, and an agreement was signed at Government House on March 14. On the 16th Lockhart accompanied by the Director of Public Works left for Mirs Bay and proceeded to delimit the boundaries of the New Territory, which were fixed along a line joining the heads of Deep Bay and Mirs Bay, following the Sham Chun River for most of its course. Lockhart had urged the inclusion of Sham Chun and its valley but this was rejected later by the Chinese authorities.\n\nOn 1 April Lockhart and a party sent by the Public Works Department to erect the posts on the boundaries settled upon were stopped by villagers and informed that if they attempted to get on with their work they would be killed. Understandably, the party withdrew to Hong Kong. At the same time, Wei Yuk# 1 an unofficial member of the Legislative Council, procured a copy of a placard that was being posted up in many villages and market towns; the translation revealed that people in the New Territories were being urged to drill with firearms. This was the first sign that the occupation of the New Territories was not likely to occur without incident.\n\nThe Governor, Sir William Blake, accompanied by his Colonial Secretary, Lockhart, hastened forthwith to interview the Viceroy at Canton and they secured from him a promise of co-operation and the sending of Chinese troops to protect the two matsheds at Taipo that were being erected for the occupancy of police and officials from Hong Kong. On 3 April, however, F.H. May, Captain Superintendent of Police, and his small party of Sikhs and Chinese guards were set upon by 'villagers', the matsheds burned to the ground, and the group forced to retreat to Kowloon. The Governor immediately despatched troops by motor torpedo boat destroyer to Taipo. The troops were accompanied by Lockhart, of whom the commanding officer later said: 'I have to record my sense of the tact and judgment displayed by Mr. Stewart Lockhart in eliciting information most unwillingly given; and the interpreter whom he brought with him was simply invaluable owing to his proficiency in both English and Chinese and his knowledge of the system of dealing with the natives.' The interpreter was Ts'oi Yeuk-shan, First Chinese Clerk in the Registrar General's Department, a former pupil at Queen's College. Lockhart and the troops returned to Hong Kong later in the same day.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1972.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gm80qf99h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208295, "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": 19, "title": "RAS-1978", "content_text": "PRESIDENT'S REPORT FOR 1977\n\n(Covering the period April 1, 1977-March 20, 1978)\n\nIt is my pleasure tonight to report to you on the year's activities and progress of our Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society. During this eighteenth year since the Society was resuscitated we have continued to organise a regular programme of lectures and occasional tours drawing on both local talent and the expertise of visiting scholars, and I begin with a short resumé of these events, so that newcomers particularly may gain some idea of the range of our interests.\n\nIn April Mr. Geoffrey Emerson, a local historian of the Japanese Occupation, gave an illustrated talk about the Stanley Internment Camp during the 1942-45 period: a camp where many local residents at the time were forced to live by the Japanese authorities. Several of the persons thus interned attended the talk and some interesting discussion arose. The talk will be published in the 1977 Journal for it is based on original research. Also in April Michael Stevenson spoke on the Chinese Press from his long knowledge as a journalist and particularly his more recent work for the Sing Tao Group of newspapers and as a public relations consultant.\n\nIn May, Tony Reynolds, Head of the Department of Industrial Engineering at Hong Kong University, and member of the Friends Ambulance Service in West China between 1941-46, described his fascinating experiences as convoy leader for a load of medical supplies allowed by the Nationalist Government to be taken to the Shensi-Kansu-Ninghsia Region occupied by the 8th Route Army—the first since 1941. This talk which also gives Mr. Reynolds' impressions from meetings with Mao Tze-tung, Chou En-lai and Marshal Chu Te will appear in the 1977 Journal too.\n\nThe first of two lectures in June was concerned with the History and Music of the Cheng, the Chinese 16-stringed zither, delivered by Professor Liang Tsai-ping who has performed and lectured in both Europe and the U.S.A. as well as Asia; and the second with political and other changes in the Far East in the last ten years, given by Tony Lawrence, for nineteen years Far Eastern Correspondent for the B.B.C. In July Brian Peacock, Curator of the", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1978.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8g84t8593", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208658, "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-1979", "page_number": 115, "title": "RAS-1979", "content_text": "88\n\nREVS. J. SMITH AND WM. DOWNS\n\nsoya bean supply in the Colony is exhausted or it is being diverted to other uses. It can hardly be exhausted, as the British Government must have put in an immense supply. American communal meeting, at which people either stand or sit on the floor, as we have no chairs. Roll call at twelve noon in each Block, to be repeated every 48 hours.\n\n19 Feast of St. Joseph. Benediction at Maryknoll Sisters' Chapel. Good supper tonight—hamburg steak, soya beans, vegetable, rice and one slice of bread. From now on we are allowed only one electric light in each room, and no fans allowed.\n\n20—No soup at noon today, because we have no salt in the Camp kitchen. EXTRA! SENSATIONAL ESCAPE! The whole Camp was electrified this morning by the whispered report that at least five, possibly eleven, internees, have escaped. As reprisals, we are to have a roll call twice a day, at 8 a.m. and 10 p.m., with all lights out at 11, and there are to be Japanese gendarmes on duty throughout the Camp. Our own American patrol is automatically dismissed. No public gatherings allowed. There is to be no diminution of our food rations, however. We understand that when some of the interned soldiers escaped recently from the Shumshuipo Camp, the rest of the internees were put on a diet of rice and water for a week. Brother Anthony ill again. No cigarettes as yet, and the brethren are resorting to all sorts of concoctions, made of pine needles, ginger and other leaves, for tobacco. Internees are seen walking around with their eyes glued to the ground, looking for cast-off cigarettes. How low have the mighty fallen!\n\n21—Latest official instructions: all typewriters and flashlights to be turned in to the authorities; also, we are not allowed to stand on our verandahs or on any eminence overlooking the Prison and look down on the superior beings quartered there, nor may we look on groups drilling. With the ban on public meetings, our proposed American spelling bee has been cancelled. Father Vincent Walsh improved and no operation seems necessary. The new regime on \"The Hill\" brings no relief or betterment in our food situation, though today we each got one duck egg and a slice of bread.\n\n22—Sunday. As usual, with the Bishop and Father Norris preaching. Father Benson has not been well for some time and today goes to the Tweed Bay Hospital, with diabetes and rather...", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1979.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2801w5938", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209220, "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-1981", "page_number": 123, "title": "RAS-1981", "content_text": "THE CHINESE CHURCH, LABOUR AND ELITES AND THE MUI TSAJ QUESTION IN THE 1920'S 109\n\nthe YWCA, the Seamen's Union and a large representation from other unions. The unions were again expressing themselves after the 1921 seamen's strike.\n\nTwenty speakers secured the floor to present their views. All but three were in favour of the Bill. One of the speakers in favour was Mrs. Ma Ying-piu, representing the YWCA. For a woman to address a mixed public meeting of Chinese was an unusual event in conservative Hong Kong.\n\nAs soon as the meeting opened under the Chairmanship of Mr. Lo Chung-kiu, the Chairman of the Tung Wah Hospital Directors, there were signs the meeting might not be as smooth as its organizers had planned. A question of procedure was raised regarding the Chairmanship: why should not the meeting elect its own Chairman as it had been convened by the Kai Fong and not by Tung Wah? The Chairman replied it was invariably the practice for Tung Wah to appoint the Chairman for meetings held on its premises. The matter was not pushed.\n\nThen began a succession of speakers supporting the Bill. Their remarks were frequently punctuated by applause initiated by the large section representing the Seamen's Union. They particularly acclaimed the speech of Mrs. Ma. She put forth the thesis that it was women who were principally responsible for the system. They did most of the buying and selling and were responsible for the mistreatment of the girls.\n\nMr. M. K. Lo spoke in favour of the Bill. Although the Hon. Mr. Chow Shou-son and Mr. T. N. Chau were present, they remained silent.\n\nA speaker from the YMCA attacked the rich, instructing them that they should use their wealth to develop industry to provide employment for the poor instead of selfishly hoarding their wealth and using labour in their homes they need not give wages to.\n\nThings began to get out of order when a speaker against the Bill asked why everything was being done for women when men coolies were being sold daily. Voices were raised demanding the Chairman rule the speaker out of order. But he was allowed to continue though he could hardly be heard above the uproar of protests. He eventually had to stop. At this point there was a stamping of feet and repeated cries of \"vote\".", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1981.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ff36bt18m", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209239, "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-1981", "page_number": 142, "title": "RAS-1981", "content_text": "128 \n\nTA. ACTON \n\nare organised into four regional federations, whose four elected chairmen become important people indeed, and sit on the Hong Kong Government's Fish Marketing Advisory Board. The co-operatives and the regional committees have their meetings in a friendly, informal way in the Liaison Officer's office, whose job description includes a duty to \"convince troublesome committees or members to observe the ordinance and by-laws.” — fortunately, rarely necessary. \n\n30 \n\nIn addition, the Liaison Officers encourage mechanisation, training classes (also held in their offices), sensible insurance, the \"Keep Hong Kong Clean\" campaign, and have the duty \"to assist the fishermen in the organisation of festival opera performances, dragon boat races, and other recreation activities.\" 31 \n\n32 \n\nOne major effect, however, of the development, assisted by F.M.O. loans to credit societies and individuals, of a more capital-intensive, mechanised fishing industry, is a sharp decline in the number of persons actually required to man it or make a living at fishing, especially over the past 10 years. In 1971 there were around 50,000 working fishermen in Hong Kong. *2 By 1979 that number had fallen to around 35,700,13 Those with sufficient initial capital to catch the boat of modernization have done so, and now, though working on water, actually live in houses ashore, whether in Aberdeen or new villages on remote islands. It is those who were too poor to mechanise who still live on their old, leaky boats, going ashore to work in factories, sweatshops or street markets. The Shui-sheung-yan community of the early '50s has become polarised into rich and poor, between well-to-do active fishermen, living on land, and poor ex-fishermen, living on boats until they can secure resettlement. \n\nThe F.M.O. schools system, by making available alternative careers to the children of fishermen, has facilitated, and lessened the pain of this reduction of manpower. \n\nIn all other fields, however, the commitment of the F.M.O. is to active fishermen rather than ex-fishermen. Little connection is made between their work and that of the poorest Shui-sheung-yan. Indeed, Government spokesmen, talking of the poor boat-dwellers often refer to them as \"squatters\", implying that they are not true \"Shui-sheung-yan\" at all, but land-people who have moved into leaky boats typhoon shelters like Yaumatei simply to find somewhere to live or perhaps even to jump the queue for public housing. (This view was not, however, borne out by a survey carried out by students for a community \n\n¦ \n\n¦", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1981.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ff36bt18m", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209273, "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-1981", "page_number": 176, "title": "RAS-1981", "content_text": "162\n\nWEI PEN-T'I\n\nplace for the British to trade in China was the port of Canton, wrote that it was understandable that the British would want to take advantage of the peace and quiet of the Chinese Empire to facilitate their trade overland, but, as there had never been a precedent for their trading in Sinkiang, a fact borne out by old Moslem traders as well as various local chieftains despite British claims to the contrary, local authorities had decided to permit the traders to buy provisions, but had refused them the right to travel. \"We are seeking Your Majesty's advice on the wording of this refusal because we do not know how to draft communications to foreigners,” concluded Wu-lung-a.5\n\nA hypothesis can be drawn here that, to the Ch'ing court, the presence of these traders in Sinkiang was another indication that the British were seeking further penetration into China at that time. Remembering the Amherst ships that surveyed the China coast a few years before, and in view of the intelligence brought by the traders that the British were already in control of both Kashmir and Afganistan, the new Emperor was more willing to let Juan Yüan adopt a hardened policy towards the British in Canton. In fact, Juan Yuan was called to Peking shortly after the news reached the Emperor that the British traders were in Sinkiang.6 He was in Peking from 28 May to 25 June 1822. During that period the Emperor received him in audience five times. Juan Yüan recorded with great pride and joy that he was presented with several embroidered silk purses, and during these meetings with the Emperor the principles of foreign policy were established. These principles were made public subsequently through a court letter to Juan Yuan. They were:\n\n62\n\nThe principle of compensating for life lost with a life was to remain valid.\n\nIn instances where foreign nationals, civilian or naval, committed crimes against the Chinese in China or Chinese waters, they must submit to Chinese justice.\n\nForeign naval vessels as well as their personnel were in Chinese waters, ostensibly for the protection of their commercial vessels. Thus, if they should violate Chinese law, their nation's supercargo must be held responsible for the surrender of the culprits to Chinese authorities.\n\n4\n\nJuan Yuan was also directed by the Emperor to notify the British supercargo at Canton that since there was no piracy in the waters off Kwangtung, there was no need for them to send naval escorts for their", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1981.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ff36bt18m", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209388, "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": 45, "title": "RAS-1982", "content_text": "23 \n\nhave given financial support to the operation of the MAC.\n\nThis description of a president, given by one chairman, contains many of the features associated with the position. Presidents (and all other honorary positions) are not formally elected, but are recommended by office-holders or committee members, or perhaps the interested party volunteers to take up the appointment. In some blocks, the committee as a whole must agree to the appointment; in others, approval of the officers is sufficient. As already explained, a president can be appointed from people who live inside the block, from those who live outside the block but within the estate, and from those living outside the estate. In Lok Fu, the presidents who are appointed from residents of the block are often elderly residents who have served on the committee or were previous officeholders. There are no written criteria for a president but the most important characteristic is enthusiasm for the work of the MAC: people so honored must have expressed their support for the committee and for a long time. Another commonly recognized qualification is the willingness of the individual to give financial aid; the position of president carries with it the understood obligation to assist the committee with funds (although these need not be large), 23 As many of the MACs find themselves with insufficient funds to carry out projects, the funds provided by the presidents make it possible for some committees to offer activities for the residents. As one chairman admitted, “Our committee has seven or eight presidents. They are mainly to give money to sponsor some activities, for example, the trips to eat vegetarian food. As our MAC does not have enough money, it needs someone to help sponsor these activities.” 24\n\nWhat duties are performed by the presidents? The president, while in some committees similar to the chairman in respect, do not actually vote in meetings or formally influence decisions, although they have the right to give their opinions on issues. As explained, they do not even need to attend committee meetings, although they are expected to attend the inauguration ceremonies for the new officers (if any), and any other public function sponsored by the MAC. They are expected to give opinions and advice on committee affairs and problems of the block, and, in\n\nPage 45\n\nPage 46", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1982.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mk61z420p", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209400, "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": 57, "title": "RAS-1982", "content_text": "35\n\nThe 1866-1869 Land Regulations\n\nThe first two sets of Land Regulations had been drafted by the Chinese and/or local foreign authorities; this was not the case with the third Constitution, the one of 1866-1869,\n\nIn the years between 1854 and 1866 a great number of problems had arisen, partially caused by the influx of Taiping rebellion refugees. Moreover, civic discipline among foreigners was waning (taxes were not being paid, nuisances were being caused in the form of building materials left lying around, the authority of the Municipal Council to levy taxes was being questioned, the members of the Municipal Council had been held personally responsible for any deficits and debts of the municipality, etc.). All this contributed to the opinion that something had to be done to increase the authority of the Municipal Council, and on April 15, 1865, a Public Meeting of landrenters appointed a Commission to draft new Land Regulations. This Commission consisted of Henry Dent (member of the Municipal Council 1863-64 and 1864-65), R. F. Gould (former municipal secretary), Thomas Hanbury, James Hogg, and William Keswick (all members of the Municipal Council 1865-66), J. P. Lynill, and G. Tyson. The new proposed Regulations were published on January 22, 186610, and discussed in Public Meetings on March 9, 12, 13, and 1711. After a delay of three years, they were eventually approved by the foreign powers in 1869.\n\nThere were a number of differences between the draft and the final version, but space does not permit me to detail these12. The new Constitution consisted of 29 articles, in which the position of the Municipal Council was strengthened as compared to the former Land Regulations. These Land Regulations were subsequently slightly amended, some articles being added in 1898. In this form, they remained in force until 1943, when the Settlement was returned to China.\n\nIn the course of these years, only a few byelaws were altered or introduced; and thus, during the greater part of its existence, the Settlement had as its constitutional foundation a set of Land Regulations devised essentially by the landrenters themselves in 1866.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1982.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mk61z420p", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209403, "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": 60, "title": "RAS-1982", "content_text": "38\n\nJ. H. HAAN\n\nPublic Meetings and the voters\n\nI have already quoted some of the articles from the 1845 Land Regulations which dealt with the meetings of landrenters.\n\nThese provisions were still rather crude, but in the 1854 Land Regulations they were refined in the tenth article, and in those of 1869 in articles IX, X, XV, XVIII and XIX. Moreover to the 1869 Land Regulations were added \"Rules of Procedure to be observed at Meetings of Ratepayers\". In article IX it was laid down that \"it being expedient and necessary for the better order and good government of the Settlement that some provision should be made for the appointment of an executive Committee or Council, and for the construction of public works and keeping the same in repair the Foreign Treaty Consuls,\n\nL\n\n1\n\nP\n\nor a majority of them, shall, during the month of February or March in each year, and so early in the same as possible, fix the date for the election of the Executive Committee or Council and shall also during the said months give notice of a public meeting to be held within twenty-one days of such notice, to devise ways and means of raising the requisite funds for these purposes\"; and article XV provided that \"it shall be competent for the Foreign Consuls, collectively or singly, when it may appear to them needful, or for the electors, provided not less that twenty-five agree in writing so to do, to call a public meeting at any time, for the consideration of any matter or thing connected with the Municipality”.\n\nMost Public Meetings up to 1896 were probably held at the British Consulate, although a small number were convened elsewhere. The very first one was in Richard's Hotel on December 22, 1846; later some were held at the Shanghai Library (on April 8, 1861 and August 18, 1864). In 1896 a Town Hall was completed (a new one being opened in 1922) and from that date most meetings took place there. Most of the time the British consul was in the chair.\n\nEarlier we saw that foreign residents thought that municipal government ought to be based on mutual agreement and consensus; but, it might well be asked, whose agreement? In other words: who were allowed to participate in the elections and discussions at Public Meetings?\n\nPage 60\n\nPage 61", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1982.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mk61z420p", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209405, "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": 62, "title": "RAS-1982", "content_text": "40 \n\nJ. H. HAAN \n\nIt was one of the first manifestations of the fact that after all the land-renters were not sovereign in taking their own decisions and that for important measures the consent of one or more consuls was necessary. \n\nFor the time being the matter was allowed to rest, but the fact of tenants not having the franchise was again broached in the mid-1860s. Amidst numerous other signs of civic disobedience, a number of tenants refused to pay taxes which they themselves had not voted. Some of them were prosecuted before their respective Consular Courts with the result that in some cases the Municipal Council was proved right and sometimes wrong.23 \n\nThere was a widespread feeling that tenants could no longer be barred from attending Public Meetings; this feeling was expressed at the meeting of April 15, 1865, by the chairman of the Municipal Council, Henry Dent: \"Hitherto the practice has been of only land-renters voting. That this system is wrong in principle can hardly admit of doubt. Ratepayers contribute largely to the taxes and ought certainly to have a voice in matters of taxation. (...)\"24 \n\nApart from the principle involved, it was doubtless also an effort to muster support for the Municipal Council from the tenant-ratepayers. \n\nThe way seemed open for a wider franchise and indeed the new Land Regulations provided for the vote by some tenants (article XIX). The basis was rather restricted, however, and during the deliberations about the Land Regulations on March 12 and 13, 1866, it became clear that many land-renters who until then had exercised sole power—wished to limit the franchise even more than had been foreseen by the Commission which had drawn up the new Constitution. \n\nThe minimum rent which gave a tenant the right to vote was, therefore, eventually put at 700 taels. The only person who pleaded the cause of the tenants was the British consul, Charles Winchester, whose opinion was \"that the article just read (XIX) did not by any means come up to his idea what the franchise should be. One description of right should not alone", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1982.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mk61z420p", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209406, "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": 63, "title": "RAS-1982", "content_text": "41\n\nbe recognized, but as many qualifications as possible should be enumerated\".25 But the landowners would not accept this, the hub of the matter being forcefully expressed by Mr. Hogg that a substantial enlargement of the voting qualifications \"would in fact admit a class that now lived on the property holders and might then outvote them on every important question\" and even if Mr. Winchester made any efforts to tempt his superior (the British minister Alcock) into liberalizing the franchise, he was unsuccessful. The final text of this article read: \"Every foreigner, either individually or as a member of a firm, residing in the Settlement, having paid all taxes due and being an owner of land of not less than five hundred taels in value, whose annual payment of assessment on land and houses shall amount to the sum of ten taels or upwards, or who shall be a householder paying on an assessed rental of not less than five hundred taels per annum and upwards shall be entitled to vote in the election of the said members of the Council and the public meetings.\n\nAlthough it should be borne in mind that over the years rentals increased substantially, whereas the figures in the Land Regulations were not altered, so that more tenants became eligible for the vote, great disappointment was voiced at the time in a rather harsh comment of the North China Herald in which it was stated that \"the Municipal Government has hitherto been conducted on quasi-feudal principles... the extreme difference between the election qualifications (under discussion in Shanghai and those under discussion in Britain) is sufficiently striking. While we have with difficulty gained a £250 franchise (viz Taels 700, the minimum rent which gave a tenant the right to vote — JH), large numbers at home are dissatisfied with a £10 standard and are agitating for a reduction to £6, while we fix the payment of £6 per annum in taxes as necessary qualifications, at home the payment of a £6 rental is thought to be established as entitling the householder to a vote. We see no reason why the outer many should not enjoy a voice and vote as well as the fortunate few\"20\n\nBut however valid the objections of the critics were, these remained the foundations upon which the franchise in the Shanghai International Settlement was based.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1982.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mk61z420p", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209407, "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": 64, "title": "RAS-1982", "content_text": "42\n\nJ. H. HAAN\n\nThis limited franchise might be called the first characteristic of the voting structure in Shanghai. The second was the existence of proxy voting, that is voting by people present at a Public Meeting acting as agents of and voting for persons not present.\n\nNeither in the 1845 Land Regulations nor in those of 1854 had any provision for proxy voting been made, yet even before 1854 it was widely used, so we might put the question as to when it was introduced.\n\nThe first time the matter was considered at a Public Meeting was on June 14, 1851, when the problem was raised as \"to whether persons holding special powers of Attorney to deal with the land of parties absent could claim a vote on their behalf at a Public Meeting in addition to their own\" 27 It was then argued that \"such a system... had never been adopted at Public Meetings of this nature at Shanghai\" and consul Alcock was not inclined \"to admit the principle on the present occasion”.\n\nHowever, there were apparently some difficulties of a legal nature involved and Alcock thought it wise to consult the Attorney General at Hong Kong, whose advice was negative. Earlier I have drawn attention to the fact that the merchants at Shanghai were very self-conscious as to their self-government and the resolution against the interference from Hong Kong has already been referred to. At the same Public Meeting of May 25, 1852, it was decided, by resolution no. 2, \"That all holders of Land within the British limits may specially appoint an Attorney to act for them in their absence; and further that one person may act as Attorney for several renters, and be entitled to vote for each proprietor he may be duly empowered to represent\".28\n\nAs from that date proxy voting became the established practice at Shanghai and it was incorporated in article XIX of the 1869 Land Regulations.\n\nThere were evident dangers in this mode of voting. The already rather oligarchical procedure at a Public Meeting might be still more monopolized if a great number of votes were collected by some persons who might then be able to corner the meeting. Moreover, less scrupulous voters might be willing to sell their own vote to the highest bidder. It should be stressed", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1982.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mk61z420p", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209408, "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": 65, "title": "RAS-1982", "content_text": "43\n\nthat irregularities of the latter kind have not come to light during my own research (they are of course difficult to discover), but a glaring and paradoxical case can be recorded of the former.\n\nIn the years after the system of proxy voting had been adopted there apparently grew up an uneasy feeling about the way it was practised. This can be deduced from the fact that the Commission for revision of the Land Regulations advised in 1866 to drop this system. One of the reasons for this was given at the Public Meeting of March 12, 1866, by one of the members of the Commission, Mr. Hogg: \"it had been foreseen that in a short time there would be very few owners of land left in Shanghai. But there lay the objection, for large numbers of Renters went to England, and naturally left their votes in the hands of some agent. It resulted that a person who had a large business of this description practically held the election of the Councillors. There was a grave objection to a man holding in his hands the turning power in such matter. It was felt to be unfair that a man residing in England should have a voice through his agent in the election of Councillors to represent the interests of ratepayers on the spot\". An amendment was moved, however, permitting the continuance of proxy voting, but this motion was rejected by 71 as against 62 votes, with two gentlemen, Mr. Keswick and Mr. Hogg together casting 51 votes at the Public Meeting. So with the weapon which he wished to abolish, Mr. Hogg defeated the opposition who wanted to retain it.\n\nNevertheless, proxy voting was included in the final Land Regulations by the foreign ministers.\n\nThe system of proxy voting made it necessary that voting lists were drawn up at each Public Meeting in order to establish how many votes each person attending could cast. Not much research has been done in this field, but it should make interesting reading to see in what measure meetings were manipulated by a minority physically present at a meeting. Up to 1866 only incidental references to the number of votes cast by one individual can be recorded. For example, on the voting list of June 6, 1861, one person appeared with 6 votes, two with 4, four with 3, ten with 2, and three with 1 vote.20 At the Public Meeting of August 18, 1864, Mr. Cowie managed to assemble 19 votes.30", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1982.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mk61z420p", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209410, "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": 67, "title": "RAS-1982", "content_text": "45\n\nwords, to return to the question we put earlier: how representative was the electorate in terms of numbers for the total (foreign) population of the settlement?\n\nFor this we have to rely on scattered figures. Even for the years up to 1865, which I have examined carefully, it is very hard to obtain the necessary data. But apart from details the trend is clear. In 1855 the total foreign population of the Settlement was 2434, while the number of landrenters, all of whom then had the vote, was 107.35 Thus this would mean that 44% of the foreigners were entitled to vote.\n\nEighty years later in 1935, foreigners numbered 38,940 whereas there were 3,852 voters, roughly ten percent. So, although we should bear in mind that in 1935 there were many more children included in the total population number than there were in 1855, with the result that the figure for the potential politically active population should be lower and the figure of 10% somewhat higher, it is nevertheless evident that only a small proportion of foreign residents was eligible for the vote. Far less at any rate than in the 1850s and this notwithstanding the fact that land and house values had gone up very considerably; this could only mean that many foreigners still did not reach the very high standards set by the Land Regulations.\n\nThroughout the history of the Settlement the Chinese who constituted the vast majority of the population were not allowed to exercise the vote at Public Meetings or for the election of the Municipal Council as was of course the case in many countries which enjoyed full colonial status. The reasons for Chinese disenfranchisement have already been quoted from the succinct statement by consul Alcock, but it should be added that only at a very late stage did part of the Chinese population become dissatisfied with their not being represented on the Municipal Council and their inability to take part in elections. Later I shall devote some more attention to efforts to secure Chinese representation on the Municipal Council, to which body we must now turn our attention.\n\nThe Municipal Council\n\nLike the Public Meeting, the origins of the executive branch", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1982.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mk61z420p", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209412, "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": 69, "title": "RAS-1982", "content_text": "47\n\nOnly the first two belonged to houses which had property in the Settlement, but Mr. Langley was the manager of the Oriental Bank which was not registered as a landrenter. At some time during the meeting \"the fact of Mr. Langley not being a land-holder and his being disqualified in consequence, was then argued\", but most of those present thought that it was \"competent for the Landholders to elect at a Public Meeting any person they might choose to take charge of their affairs”.\n\nThus the affair was closed, and during the following ten years there were only renters on the Municipal Council; but in the edition of June 29 1861 a letter to the editor of the North China Herald was printed, which drew attention to the fact that a non-renter was allegedly a member of the Municipal Council. This letter, by \"A Landrenter\" partly read:\n\n\"Sir. It is a generally received axiom that the possession of landed property renders its owner conservative; and on this good principle I was always under the impression that the Municipal Government of this Settlement was founded. Much then was I surprised to find the meetings of landholders purporting to be convened for them alone were attended by non-renters and from amongst them one of our Municipal Councillors was chosen My only reason for troubling you with this letter is to ascertain the opinion of my fellow-landholders as to the eligibility of non-renters to hold Municipal offices .\". The person referred to was probably Mr. William Howard, manager of the Chartered Mercantile Bank of India, London and China, who resigned as from June 28 1861.38\n\nThe opinion of the \"fellow-landholders” was aired at a Public Meeting of March 31 1862, during which the stand of a decade before was reversed in a resolution passed unanimously: \"That before choosing gentlemen for the Municipal Council for the coming year it be resolved that non but bona fide foreign Renters of Land shall be able to become members of the Municipal Council.\"30\n\nThus the matter was after all decided in favour of the landowners, the final Constitution only adding a very high threshold, to bar anyone who might not be considered “respectable”.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1982.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mk61z420p", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209414, "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": 71, "title": "RAS-1982", "content_text": "49\n\nplace was occupied by Japan, which had outstripped the Anglo-Saxon population in the Settlement. Japan got another seat in 1927 and although they pressed for more representatives these demands were resisted.41\n\nChinese representation\n\nThe Settlement was really a foreign one in so far as its government was dominated by non-Chinese, but with the advance of time, introduction of new ideas among sections of the Chinese population, the increase of this population itself and the resulting problems, it was evident that some mode had to be devised for representation of Chinese on the Municipal Council, if not at Public Meetings. The very first proposal for native representation was made in 1866 by the Commission which had drafted the new Land Regulations. It was proposed that a Board of three Chinese was to be established to advise the Municipal Council. This scheme was apparently not approved by the foreign ministers, for it was never put into practice.12\n\nA second attempt was dodged by the ratepayers in 1906. After the Mixed Court riots a new move was deemed necessary to improve contact between the Chinese and foreign sections of the population. Chinese merchants proposed a Consulting Committee which could express native opinion, especially that of a business nature. The Municipal Council inclined to agree with this scheme, but the ratepayers objected to it on the ground that they feared the body would be government infiltrated.\n\nAnother effort was made in 1915 when a Chinese proposal to set up an Advisory Board which would include members of different guilds was passed at a ratepayers meeting, but rejected by the foreign ministers.\n\nFour years later there was agitation among the Chinese residents for direct representation on the Council. This campaign was partly engendered by a threatening increase in taxation, partly by the heightened feelings of nationalism. Both the Municipal Council and the ratepayers objected to direct Chinese membership and as a temporary measure an Advisory Committee was installed in 1921. This body was to be recruited by the Chinese Ratepayers Association which was formed in 1919. The Committee did not", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1982.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mk61z420p", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209415, "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": 72, "title": "RAS-1982", "content_text": "50\n\nJ. H. HAAN\n\nfunction very well and in 1925 there were fresh cries for Chinese representation.\n\nThis time the direct cause was the May 30th incident and as a result of numerous Chinese protests, demonstrations and strikes which took place at that time, the Municipal Council understood that the Chinese could no longer be barred from membership.\n\nIn 1927, for the first time in the Settlement's history, three Chinese took their seats on the once exclusively foreign Shanghai Municipal Council and three years later their number was increased to five.\n\nAll members were chosen by the Chinese Ratepayers Association, mostly from industrial and commercial circles so that the Chinese members came from the same business background as the foreign members.\n\nThus the electoral basis for Chinese differed materially from that for foreigners, which was understandable from the foreign point of view, for direct election would have meant that eventually the Council would become Chinese dominated. Besides, it suited most Chinese guilds and other business circles which were not used to open voting procedures, but preferred to be represented on an indirect functional basis. Moreover, it should be borne in mind that in the neighbouring Chinese Greater Shanghai Municipality, established in the same year of 1927, there also was an appointed Municipal Council.\n\nThe elections\n\nIn contrast to most governments and municipal councils in other countries, the Shanghai Municipal Council tenure of office was for only one year. Until 1865 the Councils were elected at a Public Meeting which was held especially for that purpose, as well as to discuss the budget (first introduced in 1854) and other financial and municipal matters. In the early years the months in which these electoral meetings were held varied, some being convened in January (1856, 1857, 1859), some in February (1858, 1860), March (1849, 1855, 1862), April (1863, 1864), May (1852), June (1851), July (1854) or August (1850). The", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1982.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mk61z420p", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209421, "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": 78, "title": "RAS-1982", "content_text": "56\n\nJ. H. HAAN\n\nthe fact that so many foreigners came from countries in which one form or another of representative government was part and parcel of the political structure, in Shanghai it was hard to speak of democracy apart of course from the Chinese having practically no official say in it.\n\nIn the very early days there was a real form of direct democracy in the Settlement. There were few people, few enough to make this kind of democracy feasible; nearly all were land-renters and there was a widespread feeling of doing something positive when introducing representative government into part of the Chinese empire.\n\nSometimes there were fierce clashes between the land-renters and the Municipal Council, as in 1852 when the Municipal Council even decided to resign because a Public Meeting had rejected their drainage plan, a decision which was only reversed when another Public Meeting repealed the rejection;55 or in 1854 when a large number of renters objected to the expense of police barracks and the increase in taxation, and the newly established Municipal Council was threatened in its very existence; or in 1864 when the whole budget was rejected and a new one had to be drafted.57\n\nDiscussions at these meetings were often very spirited affairs, with letters to the editor appearing in the columns of the North China Herald.\n\nGradually, however, the meetings seem to have become \"cut and dry affairs\"; sometimes debate became more heated, but lethargy prevailed, as became clear when the very important proposal to restrict Child Labour came up for discussion in April 1925, when not even the quorum to make a decision binding was present.\n\nOne of the defects of the system was that it was not really a representative one. There were in the 1930s over 3500 rate-payers with the right to attend Public Meetings. If every one of them had wished to make use of this right, the meeting would have been turned into a complete Babel.\n\nAny person speaking at a Public Meeting was only speaking for himself, and it was difficult to be clear as to whether he had", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1982.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mk61z420p", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209422, "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": 79, "title": "RAS-1982", "content_text": "57\n\nany supporters to give his words more weight. In other words: there were no political parties which might have mustered support for one cause or another and through which persons not eligible to vote might have been represented at a Public Meeting.\n\nMoreover Public Meetings were in principle held only once a year to discuss matters of a financial and municipal nature. Only if there were other important affairs for which approval of the ratepayers was necessary, would more meetings be convened.\n\nAnd there lay the second defect, and a very glaring one when compared to parliamentary systems in Europe or America.\n\nApart from the annual meeting, the Municipal Council was irresponsible in the sense that it did not regularly have to answer questions about its policy.\n\nLikewise information about the sessions and policy making of the Municipal Council was considered too scarce and meaningless. Until 1860 no minutes were published if ever they were taken, which is not certain. It was only after the Herald, in its issue of October 13, 1860, had accused the Municipal Council of negligence with regard to a big fire on Nanking Road, that the newly appointed municipal secretary, Edwin Pickwoad, offered to release the council minutes for publication.\n\nFor a time the minutes, as well as committee reports and annual reports were published in the North China Herald, until in 1908 the Municipal Council decided to issue its own bulletin, the Shanghai Municipal Gazette, first in English only, but afterwards also in Chinese.\n\nBut the value of these minutes as a true insight into the decision-making process of the Municipal Council was doubted from a very early stage, when the North China Herald wrote on October 29, 1864, with regard to plans for improvement of the Bund: \"The very brief allusions which are contained in the minutes of the Municipal Council meetings to the subjects which have been discussed, are not always intelligible to general readers. In many instances the object of publishing minutes, which we presume is to afford information regarding the current Municipal affairs, is completely defeated by this brevity\".", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1982.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mk61z420p", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209423, "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": 80, "title": "RAS-1982", "content_text": "58\n\nJ. H. HAAN\n\nSeventy years later it was complained that \"official business in this important municipality is conducted in secret. Members of the Municipal Council are bound not to disclose matters discussed in meetings and no reporter of a local newspaper has ever attended a meeting of the Council. The Council does issue a so-called Municipal Gazette, probably the dullest official journal in the world, which contains brief reports usually starting out \"Notice is hereby given\" or \"I have the honour to convey\n\netc.\"\n100\n\nNow it is, of course, true that in Western countries with a parliamentary government, meetings of the cabinet or other governing bodies were (and are) not open to the public. But there the rulers were responsible to representatives of the people, be it in parliament or its local equivalent. Nothing of the kind happened in Shanghai, which apart from the other structural and institutional regulations which halted democracy as understood elsewhere, made the whole administrative system come to be looked upon as oligarchic.\n\nSummary\n\nSummarizing this article we might say that the Settlement government rested on a base which became increasingly outmoded in Western countries where democracy allowed ever more people to participate in politics. Franchise according to tax paid was gradually abolished in the West, but in the International Settlement at Shanghai it remained till the last day of its existence. In the beginning, consent of all residents was claimed to be the foundation of municipal government, but as time progressed the administration degenerated into an oligarchy with or without the negative implications which the term suggests. Political interest was low and nobody really tried to change the system. Though Justice Feetham published a massive report about the situation in the Settlement and offered valuable advice in 1931, nothing was done. Only in the heyday of Chinese nationalism were some minor facelifts agreed, without altering any of the fundamentals.\n\nIt was only after the return of the Settlement to China in 1943 and especially after the communist takeover in 1949 that", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1982.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mk61z420p", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209444, "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": 101, "title": "RAS-1982", "content_text": "79\n\n58\n\nofficials and gentry-merchants (shen-shang) are [agents]. There is no need for [professional] agents.\n\nWe have no means to prove or disprove Chang's somewhat extravagant claim, but we can be certain that there was at least some truth in it.\n\nIn Ho Amei, we have an example of Chang's \"Man in Hong Kong\". Ho is one of the most colourful personalities in 19th Century Hong Kong, and, as such, was one of those whom the Rev. Carl Smith has chosen to write about in several of his works on the Chinese in Hong Kong. Ho Amei had worked in Australia and New Zealand, in mining and emigration; for a while he worked at the Registrar-General's office in Hong Kong. He also worked in the Chinese Customs Service for a time. In 1882, he started the Telegraph Company in Hong Kong which the Chinese Government took over 2 years later. Then and after, he had many business connections with the Chinese Government, in emigration, mining, railways and telegraphy. In 1884, he was secretary of the On Tai Insurance Company, a position which entitled him to sit at the meetings of the predominantly European Hong Kong General Chamber of Commerce.\n\nThroughout the Sino-French War, he regularly sent telegrams to the Canton authorities reporting on French movements around Hong Kong. As we have seen, at the meeting of the Chamber of Commerce, he condemned the French for searching junks. At the same meeting, he spoke out for China's right to block the river entrance in Shanghai in case of a French attack, an opinion which found no sympathy in the Chamber. Indeed, he was voted down as \"an interested party\".01\n\nInterested party he certainly was, but what we must not overlook amid the complexity of his material interests was his courage in speaking up for China, knowing full well his lone opinion would not reverse the resolutions reached by the predominantly European members of the Chamber. There was no need for him to please the Canton Government with a declaration of allegiance at a Chamber of Commerce meeting; it demanded loyalty of him in other ways. The public stand he made, and it was well publicised in the papers, was made out of his own convictions on the question of China's sovereign rights. He protested against the French not as a Chinese agent, but as a", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1982.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mk61z420p", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209585, "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": 242, "title": "RAS-1982", "content_text": "220 \n\nCARL T. SMITH \n\nestablished brothels, a gambling hall, opium divans, a temple, his family house and the Theatre. \n\nAs the location and arrangements of Acqui's Theatre were not very satisfactory, there was a movement to build something more suitable. Immediately after the first performance of the Amateurs, it was announced that plans for a new theatre were under consideration. The China Mail, 8 January 1846, gave its full support: \n\nWe are glad to learn there is at length a fair prospect of a Theatre being erected in Hong Kong. The project was suggested last year, and as it not only met with general approbation from the public, but received the sanction of His Excellency and the support of the civil and military servants of the Government, it is rather inexplicable how it was suffered to drop. We are indebted, we believe, to the same parties who lately favoured the public with an amateur performance in the Lower Bazaar, for taking the matter up again, and they seem now to have begun very properly by first testing the feelings of the middle classes upon the very important point of subscriptions. We are assured that the amount already subscribed for is more than half what will be required to erect a spacious building, adapted alike for the purposes of a Theatre and a Ballroom, or a hall for public meetings. With some proofs of support from the community at large, we trust the Governor's patronage will be continued, and the merchants and official gentlemen will take the matter up in good earnest, and complete what has already been auspiciously begun. When the plans are sufficiently matured we would suggest the propriety of bringing them before the public in a well-defined shape, by circular, or advertisement in the public papers. For this purpose our columns will be at the service of the committee gratuitously. \n\nA meeting to enlist shareholders was held at the house of Leonard Just, a watchmaker, in February 1846. The eventual outcome of the meeting was the erection of the Victoria Theatre on the hill behind the Hong Kong Club. The lot was up Wyndham Street somewhat to the south of Wellington Street.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1982.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mk61z420p", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209588, "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": 245, "title": "RAS-1982", "content_text": "223\n\nseamen's boarding houses and did not welcome pious competition, Rather than lease it to the Bishop he preferred to turn it into a sail-loft. However, the meeting at the City Hotel to revive interest in drama raised enough money by subscription to lease the building for another season.\n\nThe building was to be used not only as a theatre, but as a venue for Balls, meetings and other public purposes, but further funds were needed for refurbishing the building which had fallen into disrepair through infrequent use and the natural effect of time. The newly formed Theatrical Committee reported that “the interior will require repainting, and considerable alteration in seats. The roof ought to be lined with wood. This would improve appearance and acoustics. The stage should be lengthened by carrying it back some twelve or fourteen feet\". The Committee also reported that they had been successful in securing a group of amateurs who agreed to perform on the condition that tickets be issued gratis, \"so as to secure attendance alone of the respectable portion of the community\". This stipulation suggests that the earlier efforts of amateurs may have failed because rowdies had taken over and driven away audiences.\n\nAlthough the season got off to a good start, there was not sufficient financial support to sustain it. No more performances are reported in the Theatre. The last notice I have found of the building is in 1859 when an auction was advertised at the “Old Theatre next to the Oriental Hotel\".\n\nPORTUGUESE AND GERMANS\n\nThrough the years notices of performances by Portuguese amateurs appear. The first mention is in 1847 for a production at the \"Theatro da Sociedade\" at which music was provided by the visiting Macao Band. In 1852 the \"Theatrino Particular\" on Wellington Street announced a performance of Portuguese amateurs. One of the pieces presented was by young boys aged between eight and fifteen. The next year the boys performed in the Victoria Theatre under the direction of the schoolmaster, Mr. J.J. da Silva e Souza. As an entre-act four young girls performed a Spanish dance, the \"Guarrache”.\n\n!\n\n:", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1982.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mk61z420p", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209769, "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-1983", "page_number": 28, "title": "RAS-1983", "content_text": "6\n\nyelled at her 'are you in charge here?' 'O no,' said she, ‘not me'. The officer demanded that she bring out the in-charge. Sister went in and the mother superior came out. When she came up to the officer, he yelled at her: 'aren't you afraid of me?' 'Of course not' she replied 'I know you have come to protect me.' It seems that protecting Sisters was not in the Japanese handbook for battle, and when the Japanese don't know what to do, they stand there and suck in their breath loudly. Well the officer stood there sucking in his breath for a long time, and finally turned to the soldier with him and said. 'In that case, you write out a notice and put it on the front door of the convent that nobody can come in here without my written permission!' Carmel Convent was untouched for the rest of the war! All the other places for miles around were looted from top to bottom.\n\nAfter the war, the house resumed its original purposes, headquarters, language school, and rest house. When the Communists took over China, our priests as well as practically all the other foreign priests stayed here. At the same time, the house became the headquarters for a massive relief effort providing all the primary necessities to the huge deluge of refugees that poured into Hong Kong from China.\n\nThe house has now been made into two sections, one section for public use for retreats, meetings, seminars etc. The other section's for our own headquarters and rest house. The back part of the property towards the mountain has been sold off for a housing project known as Stanley Knoll. But we still have the glorious and spectacular view of the sea to the South.\n\nI thank you for taking the time to come to see the house, and I thank you especially for your kind attention. As the Chinese are wont to say: the first time you come, you are a stranger. The second time you come, you are a friend. I hope we will be friends.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1983.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j9607p61v", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209889, "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-1983", "page_number": 148, "title": "RAS-1983", "content_text": "126\n\nmatters only. It was not a kaifong that looked after the general affairs of the area. This duty seems to have been performed in the early period by a committee of merchant and trade guild elite figures drawn from a wider area. This body sat in the Man Mo Temple in nearby Hollywood Road, and a special kung sor (kung so) or 'public affairs office' was built for its meetings in the first year of the T'ung Chih reign (1862-1863). This is the date of the inscription above the door of the building, which is still in existence. This Kaifong was later (from 1871) effectively subsumed in the Tung Wah Hospital Committee.”1\n\nThe Earth God Shrine at Li Po Lung Path, Kennedy Town\n\nThere was another, lesser Fuk Tak Kung shrine in an adjoining, equally old urban area at Li Po Lung Path, Kennedy Town. When I made enquiries in 1974, no one could tell the whole history of the shrine or in which year it was established.\n\nAccording to an old kaifong Mr. Chow Kwok-kwan, one of the former managers of the shrine, who was 90 years old in 1974, the shrine was already located on the slope behind 14 Li Po Lung Path when he first came to live in the district in 1914. At that time the shrine was only a wooden hut measuring about 12' x 5' with a height of about 8'. He was told by some elderly kaifongs that the shrine had been there for more than twenty years, which may link its origins to the great plague of 1894, as with the altar at Sheung Fung Lane. At first the shrine only housed the Sam Shing Kung, the deities representing Heaven, Earth and Man, the three Powers of Nature; another deity was added to the shrine: the Fuk Tak Kung or earth god (To Tei) who is responsible for the peace and prosperity of the district. Finally, an image of Kwun Yam, Buddhist Goddess of Mercy, was also placed there. In view of its shabby state, Mr. Chow himself reconstructed the temple as a brick structure of more or less the same size about the year 1940.\n\nLater\n\nIn June 1966 it was destroyed by torrential rain, but up to 1974, when I made my enquiries, none of the interested parties had come forward with a reconstruction or resiting project.\n\nSince 1940, it had been the regular practice for the residents of Kennedy Town to celebrate at the shrine annually, usually on...", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1983.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j9607p61v", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210201, "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": 172, "title": "RAS-1984", "content_text": "151\n\nHong Kong authorities saw no need to take active steps to improve the situation.\n\nParliamentary pressure over social hygiene in Hong Kong largely lapsed after 1894 once the legal framework for the licensing of prostitutes and the registration of brothels had been repealed by the Legislative Council and thereafter Hong Kong was left free to set up its new extra-legal system of control without further interference from London. But after the end of the First World War agitation on the subject revived. The League of Nations appointed an Advisory Committee on the Traffic in Women and Children which published reports highlighting the connections between state regulation of prostitution and the procurement of women. The first warning to Hong Kong of the revival of concern in Britain was the arrival in the colony in 1921 of a Commission from the National Council for Combating Venereal Disease which had been sent out to report on conditions in the Far Eastern Colonies. The Governor, Sir Edward Stubbs, had objected to any such visit and forbade government officials to give the commissioners any assistance; he also informed them when they arrived that they were not to hold any public meetings or advertise their presence in the press. In spite of this studied discourtesy the commissioners, Mrs. Neville-Rolfe and Dr. Hallam, set out upon a thorough exploration of the seedier areas of the city and various medical institutions, and were able to make contact with some business and religious groups and with some of the leading Chinese. On their return to London they submitted a scathing report to the Colonial Office on medical and social conditions. According to the commissioners, no serious attempt had been made by the government to improve the standard of health of the native population in 85 years of British rule; the infant mortality figures were disgraceful; the Tung Wah hospital was very dirty and badly equipped; the Po Leung Kuk, a place of refuge for Chinese girls, was largely used as a recruiting ground for cheap supplementary wives by members of the committee. The Colonial Office was given its first description of the working of the system of tolerated brothels, which Mrs. Neville-Rolfe dismissed as ineffective in preventing the kidnapping of girls into brothel slavery; on the contrary it was alleged that the artificial value put on the Chinese girl by the system of recognised brothels is the main inducement to the kidnappers.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1984.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/5h73wh572", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210257, "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": 228, "title": "RAS-1984", "content_text": "207\n\nTHE SHANGHAI MUNICIPAL COUNCIL,\n\n1850-1865:\n\nSOME BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES\n\nIntroductory remarks\n\nJ.H. HAAN\n\nIn a former article* I gave an analysis of the administrative structure that developed in the International Settlement of Shanghai during the nineteenth century. Appended to that article was a list of Municipal Council members for the period 1850-1865.\n\nHere I intend to give some biographical details about those members, not only with regard to their commercial positions, but still more to show in which other organisations they were active. This may serve as an indication of the social ambitions of the Council members.\n\nFrom the data I have been able to assemble it will appear that in this respect some were far more active than others, but that most in some way or another devoted themselves to public tasks other than the purely political one for which they had been chosen by the landrenters.\n\nThe organisations, committees, etc., in which they participated may broadly be divided into two categories: those that were of a political nature and those that were of a more social nature.\n\n1. Political Committees\n\nAs from 1862 a number of committees were appointed by Public Meetings of Landrenters, mostly in order to devise methods to improve the effectiveness of Municipal Council rule.\n\n* JHKBRAS, Vol. 22 (1982) p. 31 “Origin and Development of the Political System in the Shanghai International Settlement”", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1984.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/5h73wh572", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210586, "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-1985", "page_number": 193, "title": "RAS-1985", "content_text": "174\n\nWEI PEH T'I\n\nback gate, sing a hymn to draw the crowd, then Mr. Malcolm steps out to preach to them. A great many of them won't come here, so we go to them. When they are eating their food you may think a queer time to hold a meeting, but do you know how they eat their food! And it's perhaps the only time to catch the men. The men do not eat with their wives and they do not know such a custom as tablecloth and knives and forks, except as they have heard of the extravagant foreigners. But the man of the house takes his bowl of rice, if he can afford it, or if not his bowl of dough strips and perhaps a bowl of salted garlic or some kind of greens. If it's the first or fifteenth of the month he will have another bowl with some stewed meat and onions etc. These he puts down on the ground and he sits on his front door step holding his bowl of dough strips which he pushes into his mouth with his chopsticks, stopping once in a while to take a little relish from one of the bowls on the ground. Those on the ground are public property if anyone else is eating with him, all dipping into the common bowl. Such is the life of our back lane. The women eat when their masters have finished. And perhaps our meetings disturb some of their calculations, for the men may have their bowl along with them and the housewife may not have another. However, there are people in Taiho who spend more money than we do over their everyday meals, and they do not eat them on their front steps, but they do not live in our back lane.\n\nWe think these back lane people keep very many from coming here, one man trying to frighten some women away from us said \"the Boxers will finish them all off yet!\" And several apparently friendly women invited me to drink tea with them one afternoon when I was passing. I refused as I was in a hurry, and had no sooner passed than I overheard “Foreign devil”. There seems to be an organized opposition against all of us. The city is largely Mohammedan, and they seem almost impossible to work with. \"All things are possible with God” and “to him that believeth.\" So we will continue to hope and pray. We have our little encouragements. I could write you several. The Lord has not forgotten us, nor these people. I have taken up this letter with things of not much account, if it's unprofitable. I am sorry to have taken your time. I will write next time more of my", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1985.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gt54s866x", "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 }, { "id": 210708, "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": 59, "title": "RAS-1986", "content_text": "42 \n\nWALTER GREENWOOD \n\nsaying he expected a C.M.G. and this I believe dished his chances. In any case I submit that it is highly improper for a Government pensioner, who has been knighted, to publish such a statement and I think Sir Edward Ackroyd should be called upon for an explanation through the Colonial Office\". It may be that if Francis had not made his protest the Government would have had second thoughts. But as the China Mail observed it was not in his nature to allow the neglect to pass unnoticed. The handsome, paltry, historical silver inkstand was ordered to be returned to the Crown Agents to be sold for the benefit of the Colony.\n\nFrancis was prominent in public affairs in a number of respects in addition to those already mentioned. To take a few examples. He was on the committees formed to organise the celebration of the Queen's Golden and Diamond Jubilees. As to the former he favoured it being marked by a contribution to the British Indian and Colonial Institute, which had the support of the Royal Family, but in the end the committee decided on a statue which is now in Victoria Park. On the latter occasion he was awarded the Governor's Jubilee medal for his services. He was also on the Hong Kong Golden Jubilee committee. He attended a number of the protest meetings which were a feature of life in Hong Kong, and usually had something to say. His last public appointment was as Chairman of the Food Supply Commission in 1900. He had a number of business interests which, presumably, were not regarded as inconsistent with his status as a practising member of the Bar. The most interesting relate to Borneo and newspapers. In 1889 he paid an extended visit to Borneo and whilst there purchased the island of Balambangan. His main interest was in the prospects for growing tobacco. Whilst in Borneo he \"took the trouble to learn all about it” and of course lectured about it on his return. On the death of Fraser Smith in 1895 he acquired an interest in the Daily Telegraph which he retained until 1900. He was said to have directed the policy of the newspaper during that period. It was also said in an obituary that he was proprietor of the China Mail for a time.\n\nHe was a member of many clubs and societies. He was a founder member of the Jockey Club and secretary of its first rule committee. He took a prominent part in disputes between the", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1986.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/jq08c7063", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210829, "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": 180, "title": "RAS-1986", "content_text": "163\n\nThe boys were received into the home of Dr. Legge's father in Huntley, Scotland. Here they attended the parish school. While Dr. Legge was going about England and Scotland telling about his work in China, the Rev. Mr. Hill, minister of the chapel at Huntley, superintended the general and religious education of the boys. As sometimes happens to young people who find themselves in an alien culture, they responded to the expectations and subtle pressures of their hosts and were baptised in October 1847.\n\nTheir baptism created great interest in England and Scotland and was widely reported. The fact that the boys were baptised in the same church from which William Milne, the first Principal of the Anglo Chinese College, had gone forth to China, made their baptism seem particularly significant.\n\nA report of the event notes: “A deep hush pervaded the whole of the vast assembly, which the occasion had brought together. Hundreds of eyes glistened. Hundreds of hearts thrilled with emotions of love and praise.\"\n\nNot only did it raise the expectations and vision of England, but it also acted in a similar manner on the boys themselves. Dr. Legge states that \"they were full of schemes for the benefit of their countrymen — thinking and talking of the various ways in which they can render the knowledge they have acquired available to others.\"\n\nNot long after their baptism, Dr. Legge took them on a trip through England preparatory to their return to Hongkong. The trip was intended to increase interest and support for the work in Hongkong.\n\nThe boys made a triumphal tour down from Scotland, thronged Manchester, to London. Everywhere public meetings were held. Crowds thronged to see and hear the young men. With these living examples of the success of his school, Dr. Legge found it easy to raise funds to support a theological class to be opened in connection with his Hongkong school.\n\nMeeting followed meeting, excitement followed excitement, and climax followed climax. Both Dr. Legge and the boys found\n\nPage 180\n\nPage 181", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1986.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/jq08c7063", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210861, "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": 212, "title": "RAS-1986", "content_text": "195\n\n\"For the purpose of their better organisation in this country they divided that province of China, of which Canton is the capital, into four departments. All of the Chinese in this state, with the exception of about 30, are members of one or other of these departments.\"\n\nThere was also a committee of merchants to mediate when the companies could not agree among themselves.\n\nOriginally, when there were only some few hundred Chinese in San Francisco, there were only two groups, the Canton men and the Macau men. As more and more immigrants arrived, other associations were formed, and the Canton group quarrelled and divided. In time there were six such associations.\n\nThey evoked unfavourable comment when the general public learned of their activities. They exercised considerable control over the affairs of the Chinese. They acted as travel agents, employment bureaus, welfare dispensers, lodging house keepers, guarantors of conduct, keepers of the peace, courts to mete out verdicts and punishment, and public spokesmen and diplomats.\n\nIn 1853 a Grand Jury looked into these matters. Its foreman was Charles Gillespie. He had resided some years in Macau, Hongkong and Canton. In 1848 when he came to San Francisco he brought with him as servants the first three Chinese to reside permanently in California.\n\nThe findings of the Grand Jury were as follows: \"They have regular meetings, which are presided over by the heads of the four great houses\n\n\"They have posted up printed handbills in their own language and signed by themselves, forewarning all from transgressing their laws and threatening them punishment. The Grand Jury have had much difficulty in the matter. Our police not understanding their language, and the great awe in which the sufferers stand of their self-elected masters, render the proper handling and thorough investigation of this evil a peculiarly perplexing one, and suggests the propriety of appointing some officers well versed in the Chinese language.\"", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1986.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/jq08c7063", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210910, "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": 261, "title": "RAS-1986", "content_text": "244\n\nCARL SMITH\n\nHe then upheld the honour of the foreign merchant: “I think we may with truth say that our merchants in China are not hard and unreasonable men. I believe in no part of this world can a body of gentlemen be found showing so large an amount of consideration and kindness towards each other, and towards the weak, the poor, the sick, and the bereaved, as has been manifested for half a century past by the wealthy, and often times by the unfortunate, merchants in China.”\n\nThen he exposed the sensitive point in the foreign residents' attitude towards the Chinese. \"We are surrounded by a native population of 100 to one, and it is only by a preservation of that superstitious veneration for the prestige of the British character by which we are enabled to keep the masses of China in check. The progress of education among them is greatly calculated to break down that prejudice and reverential fear with which they regard all things foreign. They are becoming more and more familiar with us, and as a consequence in some degree there is a growth of that contempt which is proverbial. But our danger is not from the natives by whom we are surrounded, but from the masses of the Kwangtung province, which has been truly described by Keswick to be the most violent and the most demoralised of the whole Chinese empire.\"\n\nSharp finally concluded with the assurance that, “This is not a mutinous meeting, it is an orderly, quiet, constitutional meeting.”\n\nT. I. Bowler, one of Hongkong's characters, saw a plot behind the conduct of the Chinese at the meeting, saying: “As it is evident that attempts have been made to cause dissension, I move, that this meeting views with annoyance and displeasure the efforts which have been made to bring about dissension between the Chinese and Europeans.\" The chairman declared the motion out of order.\n\nThe Chinese reaction to the entire proceedings, as voiced by Ng Choy, was one of regret. He wrote to the newspaper: \"Many public meetings have been held since the Colony was established, but I think this was the first public meeting that my fellow countrymen ever attempted to take part in. I am sorry that a little more consideration...", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1986.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/jq08c7063", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210923, "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": 274, "title": "RAS-1986", "content_text": "races \n\nto be included...?\" \n\n257 \n\nThe learned barrister may have spoken eloquently but accord-ing to his critics not wisely. \n\nGROPING TO CLOSE THE COMMUNICATION GAP \n\nThe Chinese deputation which called on the Acting Governor in 1883 to draw his attention to certain concerns of the Chinese community was attacked from several quarters. \n\nWithin the expatriate group in Hongkong there was a mistrust of the practice of Chinese having the direct ear of the Governor. It was felt that the previous Governor, Sir John Pope Hennessy, had manipulated such meetings to promote policies which favoured the Chinese to the disadvantage of the interests of the European population. They felt that the old established indirect approach through the Registrar General was the best way for the Govern-ment to relate to the Chinese. The Registrar General was the offi-cer responsible for matters affecting the Chinese. His modern counterpart is the Secretary for Home Affairs. \n\nNot everyone in the foreign population looked with disfavour on the idea of Chinese deputations. The senior partner of Jardine, Matheson and Company, F.B. Johnson, expressed his support. He felt it was his duty, as he said, not merely as a member of the Legislative Council, but as a resident of the Colony to be present and \"to show every possible sympathy he could with the move-ment this deputation had met to advocate.\" \n\nIn commenting on these remarks, the editor of one of the Hong-kong papers was not very kind to Johnson, describing him as \"one of those eccentric and ostentatious gentlemen who will rather commit any absurdity than be debarred from a public indulgence in windy and meaningless platitudes.\" A species not unknown in Hongkong today. \n\nThe Chinese criminal power group was also not happy about the visit, especially as it was to present matters which touched upon their activities. They were prospering under the status quo", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1986.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/jq08c7063", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210995, "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": 57, "title": "RAS-1987", "content_text": "32\n\nlooking as though they would roll down any moment, it formed a dramatic and distinctive backdrop to the Walled City.\n\nThe City was primarily a garrison town. In 1898, the garrison numbered 544, with a civilian population of only 200, largely dependents of the military. By then the watch towers were being used as family dwellings. Besides the several official buildings there was also the Lung-chin i-hsüeh ## (Lung-chin Communal School), named after the small Lung-chin river nearby. The school's raison d'etre is significant. Just as the British presence in Hong Kong had necessitated strengthening the civil and military establishment at Kowloon, so had it highlighted the need to strengthen the inhabitants' moral fibres against Western decadence and materialism. The Hsin-an Magistrate, commenting on the founding of the school in 1847, declared that since Kowloon had become a point of interaction with barbarians, the inhabitants needed to be fortified morally, thus making a school necessary, and he even hoped that they might exert a civilizing influence on the intruders.\n\n10\n\nBuilt of blue baked bricks on a granite foundation, with granite lintels and frames to the entrance, the school was an imposing building with two main halls and two courtyards, much like the grander ancestral halls of the New Territories. Local literati were elected to the school board each year. The source of fund was irregular. A generous official occasionally made a donation; in the 1880s, a special rate was levied on the sale of suckling pig meat to subsidize the school expenses. Characteristically, public meetings, often attended by officials, were also held there. Its reflecting wall bore the characters \"Hai-pin Tsou Lu\" to denote a place of high moral and academic excellence by the sea, emphasizing how strongly Confucian orthodoxy still prevailed in this outpost of Empire. In 1897, an annex, a fine two-storeyed building called the K'uei-hsing ke (Kuei-hsing pavilion) was added, K'uei-hsing being the god who protected the literati. This shows that fifty years after its foundation, the school was still a going concern.\n\n14\n\nA small paper-burning pavilion stood near the East Gate. Traditionally, the Chinese literati revered the written word and, to", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1987.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/rx919b522", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211085, "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": 146, "title": "RAS-1987", "content_text": "121\n\nof Chinese public opinion in Hongkong.”\n\nPerhaps it was unfortunate that Dr. Ho Kai assumed the responsibility of speaking for the Chinese before he had become thoroughly reacquainted after his long absence with the Chinese community in Hongkong. In terms of intimate knowledge of Chinese affairs and opinion in Hongkong, Ho A-mei was eminently more qualified to represent the Chinese, but other factors handicapped him as a candidate for a seat on the Legislative Council,\n\nWHEN THE CHINESE HAD TO CARRY A PASS AND LANTERN\n\nHo A-mei's long residence in Hongkong was periodically punctuated by his participation in public meetings and discussion of controversial issues. There was the City Hall meeting of 1878 to discuss public security, and in 1883 the Chinese delegation to the Governor and the Chinese meeting to discuss a statue in memory of Governor Macdonnell.\n\nIn 1895, only a few years before Ho A-mei retired from Hongkong, he chaired a meeting held at Tung Wah Hospital to air the grievances of the Chinese against the requirement for them to carry lanterns and passes when on the streets during certain hours.\n\nThe eventual abolition of these requirements was an important step in the slow process of improving relations between the Chinese and foreigners.\n\nAs background for Ho A-mei's part in pushing for the repeal, it is necessary to review the circumstances under which the 1857 ordinance setting forth these rules was enacted and also to refer to the discussion regarding “class legislation” at the time Governor Hennessy was attempting to introduce a policy of fairer treatment of the Chinese in Hongkong.\n\nThe original ordinance \"for better securing the peace of the Colony\" was enacted as an emergency measure at a time of crisis when the foreign community was gripped by fear and panic. It contained a clause that the Governor in Council could at any time", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1987.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/rx919b522", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211101, "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": 162, "title": "RAS-1987", "content_text": "137\n\npublic meetings, fomenting agitations in regard to liberty of the subject and such things as the average Chinaman will never be able to discuss with safe familiarity for several generations to come.\n\nHe admitted there might be exceptions to his sweeping indictment. “A few there are among the Chinese who are quite at home in these essentially Western matters; but very few indeed, and to their credit be it said they have discretion enough to see that their day is far off. These master-minds of regenerate China had no share in the ludicrous proceedings at the Tung Wah on Sunday.\" Did he specifically have in mind Dr. Ho Kai?\n\nAs for those who did \"speechify\" at the meeting, in the editor's opinion, they had made fools of themselves.\n\nThe paper called for stern action against the two main speakers. It took particular exception to the remark made by Ho A-mei that any legislation or Government action that is directed against the Chinese exclusively should be resisted. It suggested that “if the Government fails to make an example of a man who publicly promulgates this sweeping doctrine, then we shall consider that the Government fails in its duty. A maxim like that must be taken seriously and crushed forever.\" The writer sees in the words of Ho A-mei the seeds of revolt and the breakdown of British authority.\n\nIn his remarks, Ho A-mei had called for more police vigilance. It was not the light and pass regulations that were needed to prevent criminal activity, but more detection and prevention by the police. The China Mail rose to the defence of the law-enforcers and charged A-mei with \"laying calumnies against the police.\" In fact, according to the editor, \"there are mis-statements enough in his speech to brand him forever as a man not fit to be allowed to speak in public.”\n\nAnd as for Mr. Ho Tung, his speech \"should remove him from the roster of Justices of the Peace.\" The writer saw him as a dangerous rabble-rouser who should be checked before he caused greater damage to British authority. “Apart from the absurdities in which he wallowed, he gave utterance to sentiments which can", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1987.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/rx919b522", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211107, "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": 168, "title": "RAS-1987", "content_text": "143\n\nThe editor pointed out that his newspaper had taken a stand against the Light and Pass Ordinance from the beginning and that it would continue to condemn it. But there would be no action against it, “because we are different from the Chinese; we are not to be bullied or hectored or ordered about to do this and that at the good pleasure of any 'Passed Cadet' or 'Jack-in-Office' without rhyme or reason. We are not to be brought into the majestic presence of an Official Ogre and frightened out of our wits.\" Treatment could be meted out to Chinese which would not be tolerated by British residents.\n\nThe editor maintained that he had the backing of the majority in the Colony. If he meant by this the majority of Europeans, his statement was probably incorrect.\n\nAt any rate he claimed; “What we say is backed by the opinion of the whole Colony, except some few whining toadies who are practically beneath contempt. The Government may take steps against us, but they will at once have the whole Colony to deal with and we hardly think His Excellency the Governor would care to undertake to suppress the whole Colony's opinion.”\n\nThe editor gave fulsome praise to Ho Tung and Ho A-mei for their effort at political experimentation on behalf of their countrymen.\n\n\"All honour, then, to the enlightened and outspoken orators who have made such a bold stand, and have taught their less advanced Chinese brethren a valued lesson in the hitherto unknown art (among the Chinese) of holding public meetings to consider public opinion.”\n\nThe speakers, according to the writer of the editorial, were to be honoured as \"pioneers of the glorious Anglo-Saxon principle of freedom of speech in this much governed and grossly mismanaged Colony, and (they) can do no harm by impressing on their fellow-countrymen the fact that every Briton has the right to convene public meetings of his fellow citizens and express his views in a fair and straightforward manner.\"", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1987.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/rx919b522", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211156, "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": 217, "title": "RAS-1987", "content_text": "functions.\n\nA nineteenth century Chinese account of the Chinese community in early Hongkong states that the donors, Loo King and Tam A-tsoi, \"judged the people in public assembly.\"\n\nIn 1851 the temple management was broadened. At that time the shopkeepers and firms subscribed to repair and probably to enlarge the structure. They elected a committee.\n\nFor some years the temple on Hollywood Road with its adjoining Kung Soh (public meeting hall) served as an official centre for the Chinese community. With the opening of Tung Wah Hospital in 1872 a new focal point for community identity emerged.\n\nTUNG WAH OFFICIALS UPSET EXPATS\n\nThe formal inauguration of a Chinese Chamber of Commerce Hall in 1895 was the culmination of many years of discussion and planning for a proper meeting place for the Chinese community to discuss matters affecting its welfare.\n\nFrom 1873 to 1895 these meetings had been held at the Tung Wah Hospital. Earlier still, community leaders had met at the Kung Soh or meeting hall beside the Man Mo Temple on Hollywood Road.\n\nA notice in the Daily Press of January 2, 1873, mentions the move to the new Hospital: \"The old Joss House Court the Kung Soh, in the Hollywood Road, — has, we hear, been given up in favour of another building not far off.\"\n\nThe article describes how the court functioned: \"It seems that there a vast number of disputes are settled, and that it is an understood rule that matters should be brought to the cognisance of the proper authorities only if they cannot be arranged in this manner.\n\nWe understand the committee of the Chinese hospital is the same body of men who head the kaifong, and that they discuss municipal and semi-political matters in the hall of the hospital.\"", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1987.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/rx919b522", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211160, "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": 221, "title": "RAS-1987", "content_text": "196\n\nCHINESE GET A COMMUNITY HALL\n\nAFTER LONG BATTLE\n\nThe opening of the hall of the Chinese Chamber of Commerce in 1895 was the culmination of many years of agitation for such a community centre.\n\nBefore it was built the Tung Wah Hospital served as a place for public meetings. Its past and current directors were the recognised leaders of the Chinese in Hongkong and had assumed responsibility for matters which affected their community.\n\nAfter the opening of the hospital in 1872, the committee was frequently criticised for assuming functions beyond that of hospital management.\n\nStrong objections were raised against alleged quasi-governmental functions undertaken by its directors. It was also charged that it was not appropriate for the main hall of the hospital to be used for public meetings where matters of general interest to the Chinese community were discussed.\n\nIn September 1881, the editor of the China Mail expressed his growing exasperation at the state of affairs. \"The Tung Wah Hospital subject we have worn nearly threadbare, but with little result.\" He felt it was time that the proper role of the hospital was defined.\n\nHe combined criticism of Tung Wah activities with the animosity the expatriates in Hongkong felt towards Governor John Pope Hennessy's liberal policy toward the Chinese.\n\nThe editor believed that what he called the presumptions of the directors could be blamed on the Governor:\n\n\"When the directors act as a sort of Small Cause Court, Chamber of Commerce, Tribunal of Arbitration, Hongkong Association and Advisers General of the Government, it cannot be said they are much to blame. His Excellency, the Governor, has recognised the 'good offices' of this admirable institution in his despatches", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1987.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/rx919b522", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211181, "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": 242, "title": "RAS-1987", "content_text": "217\n\nA letter appeared in the Daily Press endorsing the idea of a contribution to the Imperial Institute. The correspondent claimed that a contribution from Hongkong could benefit both the donor and the project: \"If Hongkong can help to prevent (the institute) being a failure, it would be rendering an invaluable service to the Empire, and a double service to the Colony.\"\n\nThe double benefit, for Hongkong would be that of promoting the Colony's trade and of “getting us out of our mess.\" The mess, of course, was the inability of the community to express common agreement on a memorial. It was making the people of Hongkong look foolish.\n\nHe suggested to the proposer and the seconder of the park project that they withdraw their motions, for surely “they will not miss the chance that withdrawing their proposal would give them of making a friend of the Queen as well as remaining (signed) 'Friends of the Governor'.”\n\nAgain, the proposal met little response, but Hongkong's lack of interest did not materially impede the project. Other sections of the Empire were more liberal and enthusiastic.\n\nIn May, 1888, the Queen granted a charter of incorporation to the Imperial Institute of the United Kingdom, the Colonies and India and the Isles of the British Seas. A building was erected in South Kensington.\n\nIt served as a centre for scientific research and a bureau of economic resources for the Empire. In 1962 a new building was erected and the name changed to the Commonwealth Institute.\n\nHOW SPORT CAME TO THE VALLEY\n\nIt was usual for a planning committee to predetermine the agenda for public meetings in the Hongkong of the nineteenth century.\n\nIt was decided that at the public meeting on March 2, 1887, to plan Hongkong's observance of Queen Victoria's Golden Jubilee a", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1987.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/rx919b522", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211197, "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": 258, "title": "RAS-1987", "content_text": "233\n\nThe speaker believed that the meeting was with him in a desire to express appreciation “of the kindness of Her Majesty.” He set before them the means of doing so. He proposed the Chinese put up a building for a Chamber of Commerce.\n\nSuch an institution, he maintained, was not only much needed, but indispensable, because \"Hongkong was the entrepôt for the commerce of Asia; and yet the Chinese had no place where they could discuss matters relating to commerce and trade in particular, and also hold public meetings.\"\n\nBesides a hall the building would contain a free library and a reading room where both Chinese and English books and periodicals would be available. The library would be named after the Queen,\n\nWhile the Portuguese and even the Japanese had a meeting place, the Chinese had none. To them it was a disgrace that there was no hall where they could hold official receptions and celebrate public events.\n\nThey were holding their meeting in the Tung Wah Hospital. The Chinese had used it as a meeting place since it was opened, but it was only out of necessity. They did so \"because they had subscribed to it, and had no other place to go, but it was really a Chinese hospital and not a place for meetings to be held.\"\n\nIt would take time to build a suitable hall. As a temporary measure it was proposed to use a building next to the Man Mo Temple on Hollywood Road.\n\nIn presenting the plan, Ho A-mei reviewed some of the past history of a search for a site for a meeting hall. During the administration of Governor Hennessy the grant of a space in the Chinese Recreation Ground was sanctioned, but it was cancelled by his successor, Governor Bowen.\n\nAt the time, the Registrar General had told them that if they really wanted the site they could probably get it if they pressed for it. But this did not seem advisable as the site was far from ideal.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1987.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/rx919b522", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211203, "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": 264, "title": "RAS-1987", "content_text": "239\n\nAs evidence he said: \"We have only to watch the amusements of the juveniles on some level bit of ground to mark how ready they are to discard the old games of shuttlecock and kite flying for the more exciting amusement of cricket or leap frog.”\n\nHe observed: \"During the season of our athletic sports it has often touched me to see how eager are the Portuguese and Chinese to imitate our own youngsters in racing and jumping, and how ingeniously they turn the Tanks in Bonham Road into happy hunting grounds.”*\n\nHis formula to nourish a healthy and vigorous population in Hongkong was to provide them literally with “a wide field.\" A prescription that is still valid.\n\nAs an example of civic endeavour to provide recreational facilities, he cited the movement in England promoted by Miss Olivia Hall and Lord Brabazon to convert neglected graveyards into playgrounds.\n\nHe concludes with the pious remark: “Let us strive for such improvements in our own Hongkong and the blessings of posterity will rest upon us.”\n\nJUBILEE MEETING GROWS TENSE\n\nAND GETS OUT OF ORDER\n\nThe first public meeting to consider plans for Hongkong's celebration of Queen Victoria's Jubilee was followed by a separate meeting of the Chinese and two meetings by the Europeans. The two expatriate meetings illustrated the need to adhere to parliamentary procedure in conducting a meeting.\n\nNeither meeting successfully settled the issue for which they were called. Instead they added to the confusion of the community in its attempt to formulate plans for the Jubilee.\n\nThe chairman of the first public meeting had been the Chief Justice. Under his direction it had proceeded in an orderly fashion, even though its decision regarding a park as a memorial to the", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1987.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/rx919b522", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211204, "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": 265, "title": "RAS-1987", "content_text": "240\n\nQueen had to be abandoned.\n\nInability to proceed with the agreed plan resulted in the two subsequent meetings. These were chaired by the Honourable Phineas Ryrie. Many of the difficulties which resulted can be attributed to the manner in which he conducted the meetings.\n\nIt is not a simple matter to keep a meeting in order and progress towards its goals when the atmosphere is charged with tension created by strongly held opinions and personal ambitions. The meetings chaired by Mr. Ryrie were like this.\n\nA good chairman is not only fair and impartial but also firm and decisive. He gives room for free expression of opinion but does not permit the meeting to digress into irrelevant matters or get muddled in improper procedure. To do this he must adhere to accepted parliamentary rules.\n\nMr. Ryrie was a public spirited man who had long — perhaps too long — been prominent in public affairs. He was the senior unofficial member of the Legislative Council and therefore a natural choice for chairman. His handling of the meetings, however, suggests he may have been tottering into old age. He was a man of decided opinion and also irascible, a dangerous combination.\n\nAs senior partner of the firm of Turner and Company, he belonged to the small interlocking circle who sat on the boards of the leading companies and institutions in Hongkong. As such, he had presided over many meetings. These, however, were usually quite routine and required a minimum of parliamentary skill.\n\nIt was a different matter to chair a meeting in which there were strong differences of opinion accompanied by a feeling of frustration over the mess in which the community was increasingly getting itself involved.\n\nThe main business of the meeting was to decide on another memorial now that the idea of a park in the Wongneichong Valley was no longer feasible. Before the meeting people who wished to have a scheme considered were asked to submit them in writing.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1987.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/rx919b522", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211205, "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": 266, "title": "RAS-1987", "content_text": "241\n\nOnly one letter was received. It was from Dr. Patrick Manson who proposed building a sanitarium at the Peak for the sick and convalescent.\n\nThe meeting started inauspiciously. It had been called for 4.30pm at the City Hall. When the hour arrived there were only four or five people present. Obviously they could not proceed. Half an hour later there were sufficient present to begin. The attendance, however, was far below that of the first meeting.\n\nOn looking around it was noted that high-ranking government officials had decided not to attend the meeting. They had become somewhat wary of public meetings. They found themselves in an embarrassing position due to their presence at the previous meeting when a plan had been adopted which reflected badly on Hongkong's regard for Governor Sir George Bowen.\n\nThe Governor was on leave and it was not expected his appointment would be renewed. Rumours, however, reached Hongkong after the meeting that he was to sail for the East. It was not clear whether he was returning as Governor of Hongkong or for some other purpose. As it turned out, his term was not renewed. At any rate, prudence dictated that Government officers should avoid meetings which reflected the local animosity towards Sir George.\n\nAfter the opening formalities, the letter of Dr. Manson was read. The chairman then asked for an expression of opinion on the sanitarium scheme. No one responded, instead Mr. W. E. Crow, a government pharmacist, introduced the idea of a public library and reading room,\n\nFollowing Mr. D. R. Crawford's seconding of his proposal, Mr. Crow asked for clarification on a point of procedure. Would Dr. Manson's project be voted on before his own, or would his be voted on as an amendment to Dr. Manson's? The chairman ruled that as Dr. Manson's proposal had not been seconded and Mr. Crow's had, it was the latter which should be voted on.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1987.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/rx919b522", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211211, "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": 272, "title": "RAS-1987", "content_text": "247\n\nAt this point the Anglican Bishop, the Right Reverend J. S. Burdon, calmly addressed the meeting with the voice of reason. He remarked: \"I have very grave doubts whether any public meeting gathered here is ever likely to come to any definite resolution.” This would seem to have been a fair estimate of the mood of the assembly.\n\nHe proposed that a representative committee be appointed to collect all the probable schemes with all facts necessary for their implementation. The schemes with detailed plans could then be presented to the public in written form and considered at a later meeting. He thought there probably would be only three institutions submitted for consideration, Dr. Manson's sanitarium, Mr. Crow's library, and his own pet scheme, an institution for female education. There was as well, he added, the suggestion of a statue of the Queen. His effort to steer the meeting into less troubled water was greeted with applause.\n\nMr. Stewart-Lockhart endorsed the bishop's suggestion. The meeting should be adjourned at this point as it seemed to be at a deadlock, for, as he summed it up: \"There was a question as to whether a resolution had been carried or not. Some were under the impression someone had counted wrong and others that he had counted right.\" An adjournment would allow feelings to cool, proceeding with the meeting would only further inflame them.\n\nThe chairman's wisest act during the course of the meeting was to see the sense in the proposal for an adjournment. Accordingly, he seconded the motion. It was unfortunate, however, that before doing so, he did not take up the Bishop's suggestion and have a committee appointed to receive and consider plans.\n\nThe next meeting was set for four days ahead. With fortune smiling, tempers would have cooled, proposals would have taken on solid form, and community feeling would have become more harmonious. The interval between the meetings was, however, perhaps too brief for this to happen.\n\nThe chairman, Mr. Ryrie, was criticised in the press for his inept handling of the meeting. It was reported that an attendant", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1987.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/rx919b522", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211212, "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": 273, "title": "RAS-1987", "content_text": "248\n\nhad been heard saying as he left: “Anything more idiotic than a public meeting in Hongkong I never saw.\" The editor felt the whole affair had been a ridiculous farce reflecting little credit on the common sense of the community.\n\nIt was also reported that the published account of the meeting upon which I have based my account gave but \"a faint idea of the vast amount of meaningless talk and the playing at cross purposes which took place.\"\n\nThe paper was particularly critical of Mr. Ryrie's refusal to have a recount on a disputed vote. It pointed out that he himself had spoken in support of the motion, then when the vote on the motion he had supported was challenged, he paid no heed to a request for a recount or a statement regarding the number of votes cast.\n\nThe editor graciously excused Mr. Ryrie from \"a desire to catch a vote by a trick, rather than to hold the scales fairly and impartially.\" He believed that “in the case of Mr. Ryrie, whose love of fair play is proverbial, it is impossible to draw such an inference, and we are driven back on the supposition that the extraordinary course he adopted was due simply to testiness of temper.\"\n\nThe news writer regretted that Bishop Burdon's suggestion of a committee to consider plans was not adopted. He viewed as remote the possibility that the next meeting would arrive at a definite opinion regarding a memorial. A committee would have been able to give considered deliberation to each scheme, as it was, he said that \"a scheme would likely be adopted by a 'flukey' vote.\"\n\nNot only Mr. Ryrie but also Mr. Crow came in for criticism. In the 1880s there were strict social divisions in Hongkong. Stepping out of one's place upset the social order. One newspaper correspondent intimated that Mr. Crow had been presumptuous in speaking out at the meeting to propose his suggestion for a memorial.\n\nAt public meetings it was customary that resolutions and remarks were made only by well-established community leaders.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1987.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/rx919b522", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211295, "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-1988", "page_number": 11, "title": "RAS-1988", "content_text": "left vacant on a popular visit.\n\nVenues\n\nWith a predominantly Hong Kong Island based membership, some of you have rightly said that it would be more convenient to have our lecture meetings in Hong Kong rather than in Kowloon. We have borne this point in mind, and through Dr. Patrick Hase, and by making joint presentations with the Urban Council, have been able to use the Extension Activities room on the 2nd Floor of the City Hall High Block for 7 of our talks this year. We are grateful to the Chief Librarian, Urban Council Libraries, for use of this amenity with its excellent location and facilities, and courteous and helpful staff, and look forward to continued programmes there. At the same time, we express our thanks and appreciation to the Chief Curator, Hong Kong Museum of History, for the continuing use of his well-equipped lecture hall in Kowloon Park from time to time. Without permanent premises of our own, we are doubly grateful. This closer connection with the Urban Council's Museum and Public Library Service has, I feel, been mutually beneficial.\n\nPublications\n\nThe Journal is our main publication. It has been running behind, and I am glad to report the completion and issue of two numbers during the year, those for 1984 and 1986. The 1987 Journal is with the press. I wish to thank Dr. Patrick Hase and Dr. David Faure for editing them, and Dr. Faure again for his work on the 1987 number.\n\nLooking through these and past issues, one becomes strongly aware of the Journal's permanent contribution to Hong Kong Studies. It's almost as if anyone interested in the subject can't afford to be without a set! And indeed we have sold nearly 30 sets in the past year. With more attention being paid to Hong Kong Studies — especially in China, where I hear there are some 20-30 centres established for this purpose — the value of the material stored in the Journal has become apparent to many. No other academic publication has for so long concentrated on Hong Kong, and our contributors have surely aided its readers towards a better understanding of the place. To give but one example, Hong Kong's commercial development and interaction with China come vividly to life!", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1988.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211494, "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-1988", "page_number": 210, "title": "RAS-1988", "content_text": "186\n\ncollection of books, and also a repository of natural and scientific productions. In the Library, every valuable book extant in Chinese, and every foreign publication regarding China and its inhabitants, should have its appropriate place...3\n\nMeetings followed at monthly intervals at which addresses were given on various aspects of Chinese history and culture by members of the local foreign community. Membership increased gradually and soon included many individuals whose names are remembered today as important figures in nineteenth century Chinese affairs, including Sir Robert Hart, Dr. S. Wells Williams, W. H. Medhurst, and Alexander Wylie. On July 20, 1858, the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland approved their request for affiliation. That same year the Journal of the North China Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society began its ninety-year publication span.4\n\nHowever, Rev. Bridgman's health soon failed and he passed away in Shanghai in 1861. The society lost its momentum and passed through what one writer described later as a \"period of suspended animation\". It regrouped in 1864 under the presidency of Sir Harry Parkes who was followed two years later by George F. Stewart, U. S. Consul General in Shanghai.\n\nFrom the beginning the society accepted donations of books and journals, which were dutifully listed in the annual reports, but the lack of permanent facilities prevented the establishment of a formal library. At first, the society used the meeting rooms of the Shanghai Library which was housed in the Masonic Hall on Ningpo Road. From there it moved to the new Masonic Building (1869) and then the Commercial Bank Building on Nanking Road (1870), before finding a permanent home on Museum Road the next year.5\n\nAlexander Wylie, the noted sinologist and supervisor of the London Missionary Society's printing office in Shanghai, amassed a personal collection of both Chinese language books and books in Western languages concerning China which he urged the Royal Asiatic Society to purchase, as he was returning to England for home leave. After much deliberation, a public appeal, and a generous donation from the Shanghai\n\n17\n\nPage 210\n\nPage 211", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1988.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211499, "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-1988", "page_number": 215, "title": "RAS-1988", "content_text": "191\n\n24\n\nacquire new books. Everything seemed to be going well until the outbreak of World War I. Mrs. Ayscough's 1917 report summarized those war years!\n\n+\n\nThe continuance of the abnormal conditions caused by the war have rendered the normal development of libraries impossible; all exchanges from Europe are irregular in their arrival, and those from enemy countries arrive not at all.\n\nThat interest in Far Eastern affairs is greater than of yore is evidenced by the fact that the library is used by resident members, while those members who live in the interior, seem more and more anxious to avail themselves of the privileges granted to those who pay the registered postage on books they desire to take from the library,\n\n25\n\nOnce the war ended, the library rebounded quickly. To increase donations of new books, the society decided to review only those books which had been deposited in the library and letters to that effect were sent to publishers in Europe and America. About this time Samuel Couling, author of the Encyclopedia Sinica, wrote:\n\n26\n\nThe Royal Asiatic Society Library in Shanghai can have nothing said against it but one thing. It is admirably catalogued and attended to, the room is comfortable, and it is generously kept open during long hours for the studious public. Its only fault is that ... its outlay on books must be limited, so that although it possesses many works of great value there is always the chance that the very book a student needs most is not there. The library is a credit to the Society rather than to the public spirit of Shanghai.”\n\nThe fifth edition of the catalogue was printed in 1921, this time in shelflist order, and showed 3,092 titles, up by almost one-third from the last catalogue of 1909. The range of publications was impressive. In addition to the expected monographs and journals, there were extensive document holdings issued by the Shanghai Municipal Council, including minutes of the ratepayer's meetings, Water Works reports, Recreation Fund reports; publications of the Chinese Maritime Customs Service including tariff tables, lists of lighthouses, buoys, and markers, trade", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1988.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211612, "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-1989", "page_number": 27, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "2\n\nfor 1959 and 1972 when he was on leave). After the Kwong Chow was demolished, these events were held in the Ying King Restaurant, in Wanchai. Many architects, engineers, surveyors, Public Works Department staff, and contractors attended these functions. Speeches were made, and all present, at a given moment, paid their respects by bowing three times to a portrait of Lu Pan.\n\nBut a builder's life is not all brandy and shark's fin soup. Steep, rugged, rocky Hong Kong is not ideal terrain for many projects. In the early days of the Colony, when roads and reservoirs were built (the first reservoir, at Pok Fu Lam, was completed in 1864), there was little in the way of mechanical equipment. It was not until 1962 that the first crane was used to construct a building, the Hilton Hotel (originally named the American Hotel).\n\nEven today, for structures up to 150 metres high, the ubiquitous bamboo, which typifies an exemplary man's life in that it grows tall, straight, and yet is flexible and versatile, with rings marking important achievements in a person's career — is still used for scaffolding. It bends rather than breaks and is about one-third the price of steel. Bamboo is, or has been, also used for making (among other things) chipboard, woven bed mats, furniture, water pipes, fishing rods, summonses for secret-society meetings, and Chinese medicine. In addition, bamboo shoots provide a tasty dish.\n\n10\n\nAlthough some old building techniques, like bamboo scaffolding, are still in use, many have long since disappeared, along with the ancient structures built using them.” A few of the latter are, however, still left.\" These include \"walled\" villages, such as Kat Hing Wai at Kam Tin, and the 600-year-old, three-storey Tsui Shing Lau at Ping Shan in the New Territories. This was built in a geomantically favourable location to placate the God of Literature and originally had seven floors. But the upper part was damaged in typhoons. This Man Pat (its local name) Pagoda was built to improve the performance of the Tang clan of Ping Shan in the imperial examinations. Academic results indicate the edifice proved effective.\n\nIn the urban area, Victoria Prison, off Arbuthnot Road in Central, which was completed in 1843, is said to be the oldest jail still in use for that purpose in the Commonwealth. Hangings used to take place there (the last in Hong Kong was at Stanley Prison on November 6, 1966),", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213191, "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": 13, "title": "RAS-1994", "content_text": "now no longer on the second floor of the Murray Road Car Park and last month some of the more important records were placed in a special room in the Central Government Offices West Wing and these are accessible to members of the public. The other records have been placed in Tuen Mun in, I believe, reasonable surroundings. However, more importantly it has been reported that the Government has agreed to build a special purpose building for Public Records in Kwun Tong. This is very good news even though the building is unlikely to be completed for another two or three years. I should again like to thank all those who helped in this campaign. One of the incidental results of the move of the Public Records is that the Society's stock of journals which were there (rather surreptitiously I may add) is now temporarily (I hope) stored in the library of The Chinese University of Hong Kong. And in this connection I hope you will have a good look and buy some of these back journals at the back of the room,\n\nPublications, visits, lectures and other educational activities are the ingredients of the Society and what makes it move. However none of these can work well unless there is a satisfactory administration to back it up. The Society has been fortunate in the people who help in this direction. We have our Treasurer, Mr. Robert Nield, who helps us (even orders us!) to keep on the right financial track; he will tell us later that the Society's finances are in reasonable shape and we will not need to raise our subscriptions in January 1996, but may well need to do so in January 1997. Our Secretary, Mr. David Sheil keeps us in order at our Committee meetings and even from his Lamma outpost. Our Assistant Secretaries - you will note I have said Secretaries rather than Secretary, because we have had two in the last year. Mrs. Sharon Bruce who served in this capacity for eight years did a splendid job - her sympathetic listening and quiet efficiency served the Society extraordinarily well. Unfortunately she left in December and her position has been taken over by Mr. Martin Barnett. We welcome him; he promises to professionalise us, but not, I hasten to add, too much. He has already put our membership records on computer thereby giving us more information on the profile of our members than we ever had in the past.\n\nLastly, I think it would be useful to give some thought for the future. The Society by nature caters very much for the local amateur and professional academic interested in local affairs covering a wide range of interests, from political and social history, anthropological matters, archaeology, architecture, geography, and many other matters which stimulate the mind. This is how it should be. However, we cannot be\n\nXI1", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1994.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zk522640g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213337, "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": 159, "title": "RAS-1994", "content_text": "141\n\nHowever, if most English-speaking members of the Chinese community are still not very interested in joining our Society, it may not be attributable solely to their perceptions of us. When in 1986-87 our minds were focusing on this topic, none of us thought to consider a factor with a direct bearing on the subject. I was reminded of it only the other day when one of my younger Chinese friends sent me a copy of his recent book on Hong Kong history. The covering letter mentioned this other, and as I now see it, very significant fact.\n\n12.\n\nThe crucial driving force for me to attempt the book is that I want it to encourage the younger generation to know something about Hong Kong's past, which is almost totally unknown to them (myself among them not long ago) chiefly due to our education emphasis supplied.\n\n11.\n\nWhy should this have been so? For political reasons and public security considerations, there has been understandable caution in teaching modern Chinese history in the schools. There had been a similar reluctance to teach Hong Kong History, other than through civics teaching which was never an examination subject. \"My friend Tim Ko's endeavour was fully justified. Perhaps partly by intent, Hong Kong's history had been neglected in the schools. It was only in 1990, after a working party had considered the introduction of Local History into the school curriculum at the junior secondary level, that a pilot scheme was begun. In the 1994 public examinations, Hong Kong History was included among the set papers for the first time, but this is still only on an optional basis.\" The universities have also been slow to develop Hong Kong historical studies.\n\n6.\n\nAdministration and Venues for Lectures and Council Meetings.\n\nThese are fairly pedestrian subjects, but ones that will be of interest to our future historian. I propose to say little more here than to mention that lists of Councillors and Office Bearers appear in the yearly Journals, and that our succession of trusty Assistant Secretaries, who labour behind the scenes and provide indispensable support for the smooth running of the Society, usually feature in the annual President's reports, also printed in the Journal. Our administrative problems and current worries over the years get an airing there and in the annual reports of the other principal office-bearers, which, like the Presidents', appear regularly in the Journal.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1994.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zk522640g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213338, "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": 160, "title": "RAS-1994", "content_text": "142\n\nThe Society's archive, which is currently held under Mr. David Gilkes' arrangements in the Main Library of The Chinese University and comprises papers on the formation of the Branch together with most of our Council Minutes over the years, is another source of information for our historian. Venues can be ascertained from these papers.\n\nIf Ian Diamond, Hong Kong's first Government Archivist and our former Hon. Secretary and Vice-President, will forgive me for mentioning it here, the venue that I best remember was the small room in the Public Records Office used for our Council meetings in the early 1980s (when Ian was on overseas leave we went to the \"Bull and Bear\" across the road!). A portrait of Her Majesty the Queen hung, as a scroll painting, on the wall; but as the years went on, the scroll became considerably the worse for wear, browning and curling in at the sides. We used to comment on this quietly periodically, but nothing happened. Finally, at one Council meeting, from the chair, and meaning no disrespect to Her Majesty, I took the bull by the horns and in a loud voice asked Ian when he was going to \"remount the Queen\"; whereupon the meeting became somewhat disorderly.\n\nThe Future: Post 1997\n\nTurning from past to future, at the time of writing, our Society is just as active and energetic as in the past; but with 1997 just around the corner, it is only natural for us to wonder what will happen thereafter. I remain of the view that we have a valuable role to play; but as in other Asian countries - and despite the hoped-for continued participation of a small nucleus of local Chinese who will remain dedicated to the work and ideals of the RAS - it is likely that it will, as hitherto, continue mainly to be set among and directed at Hong Kong's expatriate community. There will be a difference here, too: for as has already been happening in recent years, this will more and more be composed of transients, with far fewer long-term non-Chinese residents than in the long post-war period. There will, correspondingly, be an even greater need for the RAS to provide more \"cultural bridges\" to the local community. Thus, the study of Asia - and of Hong Kong and China with it - will surely continue to be (in Professor Drake's words) the Society's main \"Heritage and Task\".\n\nHowever, the likely change in expatriate membership may cause problems in recruiting some of the leadership and expertise upon which", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1994.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zk522640g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214118, "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": 186, "title": "RAS-1997", "content_text": "155\n\nAsiatic Society has really been a “labour of love\" and James has described the Branch as the \"Joy of his life\". Although now living \"Down Under\", he likes to stress he is \"only a fax away\". He makes regular visits back to Hong Kong.\n\nFollowing Dr Hayes as President was David Gilkes. Almost all his nearly 30 years as a member of the Branch in Hong Kong was spent as an office bearer.\n\nIn addition to Dr Hayes the Reverend Carl T. Smith, at present as Honorary Vice-President, an American, is another Branch member with an international reputation. He has made major contributions to local history with many publications to his credit. One of his greatest achievements was working through all the records in the Hong Kong Public Records Office (Smith 1995: 315). As a result the \"Carl Smith Card Index System\" has been microfilmed by the Utah Genealogical Society and a copy of the system is in the Public Records Office where it is known as the \"Smith Collection\",\n\nOther Hong Kong RAS present or past members of note include J. D. Romer, normally known to the Chinese as the “Snake King”. In Cantonese, this expression has a double entendre. Romer was, however, certainly not a lazy person! Worldwide, the Romer Tree Frog (Philautus romeri) is found only on one or two of Hong Kong's islands. It is little bigger than an adult's thumb nail and was first identified by Romer (Dudgeon 1994: 168),\n\nThere is also Keith Stevens, now an overseas member living in England, where his house has a large “god room\". His personal collection, said to be the largest private collection of Chinese gods in the world, consists of about 1,500 images of deities (Stevens 1997).\n\nThe future\n\nA well attended seminar was held in May 1987, the purpose of which was to look at the future of the RASHKB. At the time, a questionnaire was also issued to all members. Since then, the future role of the Branch has been discussed at various Council meetings.\n\nIt was quoted in a publication entitled, A Handbook to Hong Kong,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1997.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/wp98g7579", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214140, "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": 208, "title": "RAS-1997", "content_text": "179\n\n(3) Held by Public Records Office\n\n(a) RASHKB files some dating from 1959 when the Branch was reformed. These files relate to meetings of Council, general correspondence, President's papers, historical papers, activities programmes, minutes of Council meetings, papers for RAS symposia, HK Arts Centre membership, Board of Governors to Chung Chi College, newsletters and related papers, membership lists, information on other societies, and various other files and papers.\n\n(b) Photographs and Papers\n\nA collection of papers and photographs, largely concerning Shanghai, China and the Sino-Japanese War, from the 1920s up until shortly after the People's Republic came to power in China in 1949. There is also an album of photographs, 37 × 27 centimetres. All the above papers and photographs are from the collection of the late Arnold Graham Esq., late of Shanghai and Hong Kong. They were donated to the RASHKB by his daughter, Mrs Rothay Woodcock, who is at present in New Zealand.\n\nIt is intended that more of the Branch's photographs, such as old buildings in Hong Kong, some of which were used for the RASHKB publication Hong Kong Going and Gone, will be added to the RASHKB collection at the Public Records Office First, however, they have to be sorted and listed and further work done on them.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1997.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/wp98g7579", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214160, "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": 18, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "is worth ten pressed men (or women) this Group has been able to carry out some really meaningful tasks and provide a community service. Our thanks are due to all these volunteers and especially to our two very experienced RAS Chartered Surveyor members, Bill Greaves and Bob Horsnell, who lead this Group (see Appendix D).\n\nFriends' of RASHKB\n\nAfter the setting up of such a Group was initially proposed in the summer of 1997, by Keith Stevens, the 'Friends' of the RASHKB, in Britain, got off to a good start in 1998. A separate report about this Group has been compiled by its Chairman (RASHKB Immediate Past President), David Gilkes. We are grateful to all our overseas members who have worked hard to establish this Group which is now, I am pleased to report, on a sound footing.\n\nLibrary and Finance\n\nBoth our Honorary Librarian, Julia Chan, and our Honorary Treasurer, Robert Nield, have prepared their own 1998/1999 reports. I thank them both for their guidance and for the special expertise they bring to our Council.\n\nAccommodation\n\nWe are extremely grateful to PricewaterhouseCoopers for providing us with accommodation, for our Council and committee meetings, conveniently situated in the heart of Central. We are also extremely grateful to the Public Records Office, at Kwun Tong, for providing us with storage space and assistance in other capacities during the past year. We are also grateful to the Urban Council for allowing us to conduct our lectures in the City Hall as joint Urban Council RASHKB functions.\n\nThe Council\n\nAlthough a large amount of the more routine administration and other work is carried out by individual Council members, much of it in their own homes, nevertheless all the important decisions are taken ‘in Council.' It meets once every six weeks or so with a break during the\n\nxvii", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214168, "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": 26, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "# Appendix D\n\nThe RAS Volunteers\n\nThe main task of the RAS Volunteers is to assist the Government Antiquities and Monuments Office (AMO) by inspecting, reporting on and, if deemed worthy, grading, old, interesting Western and Chinese style buildings. Such research also often involves visits to the Public Records Office, libraries etc. to obtain further information. The results of inspection and research, by the RAS Volunteers, are finally passed to the Antiquities Advisory Board for formal recommendations for possible grading and preservation.\n\nDuring the 1998/99 year two formal meetings have been held between the Volunteers and the AMO and a visit was paid to view the Reverend Carl Smith's Card Index System.\n\nBuildings inspected and researched during the year included churches and religious buildings, military installations such as old gun emplacements, terraces and an old pawn shop in Johnston Road, Wanchai. A full programme of structures, to which visits have to be paid, lies ahead. New members, especially those with an appropriate expertise to offer, are welcome to join the Volunteers.\n\nThe RAS Volunteers are led by two experienced surveyors who are both long-time residents of Hong Kong: namely Bill Greaves and Council member Bob Horsnell. We are grateful to both of them for the amount of work they put in leading the Volunteers. We are also grateful to the Volunteers themselves.\n\nXXV", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214410, "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": 268, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "234\n\nit to the nearest river, washed all the sea salt away with the flowing water and then dried it by the above mentioned method. And so his tea will go to England, and being well roasted, will give a fine brew. And as it is well known that the English are not interested in the aroma of the tea, but in its colour, there is the hope, through this bit of speculation, of acquiring not only fine profits but a fine reputation.\n\nDon't think however that it's only speculation that occupies the minds and constitutes all the activity of the local population. There is a club here with a good library, which orders many journals; on top of this there is a reading room - a small public library, established and maintained by a few private individuals; finally there is a branch of the London Asiatic Society, which has monthly meetings and publishes its reports. I was invited on the 8th November (new style calendar), to a meeting of the Society, where among the outside visitors there was quite a number of ladies. The President of the Society, Sir John Bowring, who had been in Russia, had in the past expressed the view, that the \"Russian Government was so jealous, that there had never been an instance of even one single person being sent to the Peking Mission, who could speak another language, apart from his native Russian, and this was with the specific aim of preempting the possibility of communicating to Europe information acquired in Peking.\" Now one of the members of the Society, Mr. Shortred proposed to rectify this view and pointed to me as someone who had been at the mission and who could supply positive information. I replied, that the Russian Government had never had any such thought in mind, that on the contrary it, itself, even tried to disseminate information, received from Peking; that previously, mainly students from seminaries, where although other languages were taught the predominant language was Latin, had been selected for the mission; but that more recently people were being sent there from theological academies and universities - places of higher learning where everyone acquires a basic knowledge of several European languages. As for the view of Mr. President, it is very possible that soon after their return from Peking the members of the mission that he had seen were in no condition to converse freely in any European languages, simply because they had no practice in ten years, even though each one of them read and probably wrote one of the European languages. Sir John Bowring stated, that since the time he had been in Russia, much had undoubtedly changed there. Incidentally it is worth noting that Sir John Bowring is himself regarded as a great linguist. He", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214604, "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-1999", "page_number": 19, "title": "RAS-1999", "content_text": "May, 1999, at the School of Oriental and African Studies, London University, after which he gave a talk entitled: 'Hong Kong: From Memory Lane to Post 1997 Handover'\n\nRASHKB Library and finance\n\nBoth our Honorary Librarian, Julia Chan, and our Honorary Treasurer, Robert Nield, have prepared their own 1999/2000 reports which they will present at this Annual General Meeting. I thank them for their assistance and for the special expertise that they bring to our Council. Our RASHKB Library is on permanent loan to the City Hall Urban Council Library and we thank the City Hall and its staff for all their assistance during the past year.\n\nAccommodation\n\nWe also owe a debt of gratitude to PricewaterhouseCooper, who have helped us in various ways. With their offices situated in the heart of Central District, for example, they have provided us with very convenient accommodation for our Council and committee meetings. Similarly, we are grateful to the Public Records Office, at Kwun Tong, for providing us with storage space for our publications and for other assistance rendered by them during the past year. We are also indebted to the Government Leisure and Cultural Services Department for permitting us to use the City Hall accommodation for lectures which are run as joint RASHKB/Leisure and Cultural Services functions.\n\nThe Council\n\nAlthough a number of decisions have to be taken outside Council (because of the time factor) by individual office bearers or a few together, the majority of the important decisions are taken in Council. This meets every six weeks or so with a longer break over the summer. During the past year the Council has consisted of Doctors Elizabeth Sinn and Michael Lau, both Vice Presidents, Robert Nield, Peter Halliday, Julia Chan, Valery Garrett, Bob Horsnell, Tim Ko, and May Holdsworth. Doctors Patrick Hase, Joseph Ting, Peter Barker, and Janet Lee Scott have also been members of Council while the Reverend Carl Smith, Honorary Vice President, and Sarah Parnell have been co-opted on to the Council.\n\nxviii", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1999.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s178b887x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214927, "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-2000", "page_number": 23, "title": "RAS-2000", "content_text": "submission to the Inland Revenue Department for charitable institutional status.\n\nAccommodation\n\nAgain we are grateful to our many good friends on whom we rely for accommodation. They include the Public Records Office, where our Journals and some of our archives are stored, the latter on permanent loan. We are also grateful to the City Hall where our lectures (which are run as joint functions with the City Hall) take place and again to PricewaterhouseCoopers who kindly allow us to hold committee meetings on their premises. A heartfelt thank you to all concerned.\n\nThe Council\n\nOther than those that have to be taken at AGMs, all-important Branch decisions are made in Council to whom our membership has delegated the running of our Branch. The latter functions completely autonomously from our Headquarters in London and separately from other Branches in Asia. Over the past year the RASHKB Council has comprised two Vice Presidents, Drs Elizabeth Sinn and Michael Lau. Other members have included Robert Nield, Julia Chan, Valery Garrett, Bob Horsnell, Tim Ko and May Holdsworth. It has also included Drs Patrick Hase, Joseph Ting, Peter Barker, Peter Halliday and Janet Lee Scott. The Reverend Carl Smith, our Honorary Vice President, and Sarah Parnell as Assistant Secretary, and her successor, Mary Painter, have been co-opted, non-voting members. We are grateful to everyone who sat on the Council and gave of his or her time.\n\nAcknowledgements\n\nHaving thanked Council and Activity Committee members, speakers and leaders of groups and various other persons, who have I failed to mention? Firstly we must thank HKBRAS members, Angus Forsyth and John Budge, for their valuable professional advice. Past Council member Geoffrey Roper still helps in various ways quietly behind the scenes as do some spouses of Council members. We value everyone's assistance. So many people and institutions have rendered help to us over the course of the year. It is quite possible that someone who deserves to be thanked has inadvertently slipped through the net.\n\nxxii", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2000.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/nk328168n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215739, "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": 38, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "can be accessed more easily by the public. The work of putting all this material onto CD and entered into the library is likely to take some time, but I hope that most of the work will be complete by this time next year. Keep your eyes on the Newsletter for information on these developments as they are achieved!\n\nThe Society has been successful over the last year in attracting donations to the library of a significant number of important books on Hong Kong and the Far East, I would like to recommend this to you. Should any of you have books no longer of interest, please consider donating them to us. The executors of several recently deceased Members have chosen to donate some of their holdings of books on Hong Kong: this is also a practice which I would like to recommend to you all! Members should bear in mind that the library would be particularly interested in donations of books which may be seen as \"out-of-date\" but which would nevertheless have a historical interest - commercial reports, Government papers and so forth would certainly be of interest to us!\n\nFriends of the Royal Asiatic Society, Hong Kong, in the United Kingdom\n\nMembers are, I am sure, well aware of the existence of the Friends in the United Kingdom. This body allows Members moving from Hong Kong to the United Kingdom to continue their interests in the culture and history of the Hong Kong area, as well as providing a social venue where they can continue to meet up with old friends who, like them, have moved from Hong Kong to the United Kingdom. I and my predecessors have, in the last several Annual General Meetings, urged all Members leaving Hong Kong for the United Kingdom to join the Friends, and I do so again now. As to what the Friends do, I will shortly read an Annual Report on their activities sent to us by the Chairman of the Friends, Mr David Gilkes.\n\nConclusion\n\nI would like to conclude this Report by thanking all Members of the Society in general, and all Members of Council in particular, for their support of the Society during this past year, and for their friendliness and helpfulness to me personally at all times. I would also\n\nxxix", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215990, "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": 289, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "223\n\nstamp in Hong Kong in 1994. For those who have purchased a copy of this book, the author is willing to send a copy of this stamp. Those with philatelist interests who have not been able to obtain the book may also contact the author.\n\n7. See the numerous references to Wong Shing in Carl Smith's Chinese Christians, and Legge's reference to Wong's Christian character in 1859 to counter public doubts in Britain about the authenticity of the conversions of Chinese Christians (EMMC, April 1859, pp. 266-267). After Legge departed for the last time from Hong Kong for England in 1873, Wong Shing and Wáng Tāo purchased from the London Missionary Society the Anglo-Chinese Press through Legge's arrangements, and so initiated the first major Chinese language newspaper published by Chinese editors.\n\n8. Nothing previously was known about Luó Zhōngfán until research in Legge's personal library uncovered his work. It has been discussed in two essays by Lauren Pfister, \"Some New Dimensions in the Study of the Works of James Legge (1815-1897): Part II,\" Sino-Western Cultural Relations Journal 13 (1991), pp. 33-46, and in a more extensive manner in the essay, \"Discovering Monotheistic Metaphysics: The Exegetical Reflections of James Legge (1815-1897) and Lo Chung-fan (d. circa 1850)\" in Ng On-cho, Chow Kai-wing, and John B. Henderson, eds., Imagining Boundaries: Changing Confucian Doctrines, Texts and Hermeneutics (Albany: SUNY Press, 1999), pp. 213-254. Wang Tāo passed through different jobs as an aid to Walter Medhurst in Bible translation during the Delegates' Committee meetings (1847-1852), later working with Legge on the Chinese Classics (1862-1873). In the period between 1868 and 1870 Wáng spent nearly two years with Legge and his family in Scotland collaborating on the Chinese Classics and learning much about English and European cultures. How much Wang's work actually influenced Legge's translations and interpretations of the Ruist canon has been discussed in detail in my article, “王韜與理雅各對新儒家憂患意識的回應”戟林啟彥,黃文江主編《王韜與近代世界》(香港:香港教育圖書公司,2000),頁117至147, an English version being published a year later as \"The Response of Wang Tao and James Legge to the Modern Ruist Melancholy\", History and Culture (Hong Kong) 2 (2001), pp. 1-20. Wang Tāo's writings on those European experiences and advocacy of institutional change in China catapulted him into the status of a well-known reformist figure in the 1870s and 1880s, making it possible for him to return to Shanghai as a leader in non-traditional education. His career was chequered by covert associations with the Taiping insurgents and habits which called his character into question in some circles. A substantial and earlier study of Wang's life has been written by Paul Cohen, Between Tradition and Modernity: Wang Tao and Reform in late Ch'ing China (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1974). It now is also available in a Chinese version, published by a mainland Chinese press.\n\n9. Numerous details about these people have been provided by Carl Smith in his Chinese Christians.\n\n10. A moving depiction of Liang's early role as the first Chinese evangelist and of some of his sufferings has been published in the first volume of the series of books by A. J. Broomhall entitled Hudson Taylor And China's Open Century", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 216129, "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": 428, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "362\n\nMay 1859 after the departure of Sir John Bowring, but was revived with the approval of the parent Society in London and reconstituted as the Hong Kong Branch in December 1959 under the active patronage of the Governor, Sir Robert Black. It is currently very active and is in a sound financial position.\n\nThe Library\n\nSimilar to other branches, the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society set up a collection of books within its field of interest, relating to Asia and its culture. As a result of the merger with the Medico-Chirurgical Society, it had the benefit of inheriting all the books from this Society.\n\nThe Society in Hong Kong was not as fortunate as its Shanghai counterpart where the Government, in 1868, provided a site for its building at a nominal rent and later granted it in perpetuity to the Society.2 For many years, the Hong Kong Branch did not have any permanent site, and thus its collection moved from place to place.\n\nIn the early days, in 1849, as allowed by the then governor Sir S. G. Bonham, the collection was housed in a room at the Supreme Court building where the Society had its meetings. In 1859, when the Society ran into difficulties, the, by now, valuable collection of 400 books was placed in trust with the Morrison Education Society (formed in Canton in 1835) which, from 1855, had also kept its library in the Supreme Court house. In November 1869, when the Duke of Edinburgh visited the Colony to open the first City Hall, the Morrison Education Society presented its own library as well as that of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society to the first City Hall Public Library to serve as the reference collection. This laid the corner stone for the future relationship of the Society with the Hong Kong Public Libraries which eventually would become the permanent home for the Society's collection. In fact, following the resuscitation of the Hong Kong Branch in 1959, the President's first annual report stressed the need for ‘a meeting place of our own where we can build our Oriental library which should fill a special need'3 and expressed the hope that some accommodation could be made available in the City Hall. However, this was not realized until after several movements of both the Society and the collection.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 216130, "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": 429, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "363\n\nIn 1957, with the generous support of Mr. R.E. Lawry (Honorary Secretary), the British Council in Gloucester Building became the home of the Society where it held its meetings and lectures to members. The Library's collection was accordingly kept in the British Council's Library. But shortage of space soon became a problem which necessitated the splitting of the collection. Mr. H.A. Ryding, the then Hong Kong University Librarian as well as the Society's Honorary Librarian, extended an offer to house some of the rarer volumes and the growing stock of exchange periodicals. This unsatisfactory division of the Library persisted after the closure of the British Council Library in 1975 when all the books were moved to the Public Records Office Library with the kind permission of the Government Archivist, while the periodicals (current and bound volumes) and pamphlets were sent to the Hong Kong University Library.\n\nIn 1977, when the Society joined the newly built Hong Kong Arts Centre as a constituent member, it was able to rent a small room for use of members and place its growing collection in the Kotewall Library within the Centre. The Hong Kong Arts Centre is a privately funded body dedicated to the promotion of culture and performing arts. Its focal position for the arts in Hong Kong together with the great efforts of the Honorary Librarian, Mr. Ryding, resulted in a spectacular increase in the use of the Library. The collection also grew rapidly through enthusiastic contributions from members. Unfortunately, in 1985, prompted by financial considerations, the Arts Centre reorganised and the Society had to move.\n\nWith the help of the Hong Kong Library Association, the Society's Library found a new home in 1985, on permanent loan to the Urban Council's Kowloon Central Library, the newest and largest addition to the Urban Council's Public Library Service at that time. The event was marked with an exhibition, in November 1987, of the Society's collection of books on China and Hong Kong with a supporting series of talks to publicise the valuable collection. A catalogue of the exhibited collection was also compiled and published for the occasion.4\n\nIn 1994, recognising the need for a central location for members to use the books effectively, the Chief Librarian of the Urban Council, Mr. Michael Mak, agreed to members' petition to relocate the books to the Reference Library at the Hong Kong City Hall, when the High\n\n363", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 } ]