[ { "id": 206323, "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": 140, "title": "RAS-1971", "content_text": "134\n\nH. J. LETHBRIDGE\n\nof its history64. The Hong Kong government utilised a number of Chinese associations that had developed independently, gave official status to a few and drew them for the convenience of administration into its orbit. In doing so, to some degree it had to forego total control over the Chinese population and share such control with a small number of Chinese notables. Both benefited from the arrangement. This system has been called one of 'indirect rule' but I feel the phrase conceals more than it reveals, for a committee such as the District Watch could on occasion shape government policy. Government had to play along with a number of Chinese committees for without their support the regulation of the Chinese masses would have been at best an uncertain matter. The heaping of honours on a small number of Chinese notables was, surely, a recognition of the key part they played in promoting stability rather than prizes given for their alienation from Chinese society. Such prominent Chinese, as I have suggested, were as much watchdogs for the Chinese community, and especially the Chinese bourgeoisie, as barking dogs for the colonial government.\n\nNOTES\n\n1 Lennox A. Mills, British Rule in Eastern Asia, London, Oxford University Press, 1942, p. 398.\n\n2 i.e., Sir Shouson Chow, Sir Robert Kotewall, Lo Man-kam, Dr. Li Shu-fan, and William Ngartsee Thomas Tam.\n\n3 S. F. Balfour states that Hong Kong Island was owned originally by the Tang (Têng) clan of the New Territories: 'Hong Kong Before the British', Tien Hsia Monthly, vol. xi, 1941, p. 464. A translation of a Chinese notice printed in the Friend of China, 24 July 1858, reads: Tung Wing-Fook-Tong (sic) of the Sun-on district, was formerly sole proprietor of the Island of Hong Kong, and of the hills and coast of the North Side of the Harbour under the general name of Tsin Shat-Choy.... Lately Tung Wing-Fook-Tong petitioned the Magistrate of Sun-on to examine Tung's claim to Tsin Shat-Choy and the Magistrate issued a proclamation declaring that Tung Wing-Fook-Tong is the real owner of the Property. The editor asseverated 'as to his having been a Lord of this Isle, as well as of Tsim-shat-choy, —in a word, we do not believe a word of it'. Barbara Ward writes of fishermen that for reasons probably mainly connected with their spatial mobility and the lack of land, these fishermen do not have a developed lineage system nor any real concept of one'. See Barbara Ward, 'Chinese Fishermen in Hong Kong: Their Post-peasant economy', in Maurice Freedman, ed., Social Organisation: Essays Presented to Raymond Firth, London, Frank Cass, 1967, p. 278.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1971.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/z029vt43g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207163, "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-1974", "page_number": 234, "title": "RAS-1974", "content_text": "228 \n\nNOTES AND QUERIES \n\nThe few houses on the southern side of Boundary Street, just completed for the Credit Foncier d'Extreme-Orient, were the only buildings around; further at the junction of this street with Prince Edward Road was 'Mignon', a small bungalow occupied by Miss Santos; the rest was either carved out of Chinese gardens or totally undeveloped. Across what was later on to become La Salle Road was a garden lot of some three acres which Brother Aimar had acquired lately from Mrs. Chan Kwing Min, the wife of the former Waichow war-lord [the present site of La Salle Primary School]; there was a small Chinese house on the grounds, in which the Canadian Sisters of Our Lady of the Angels, newly arrived in the Colony, resided temporarily. There was not a single house standing on the southern side of Prince Edward Road. \n\nThe locality was admirably situated, equally distant from Kowloon City and Kowloon Tong: two abundant reservoirs for a Chinese school population; and Homantin, where a large number of Portuguese families then resided. \n\nThe Hong Kong architectural firm of Messrs. Little, Adams and Wood was engaged to draw up plans. This was the same firm that had designed not long before the nearby Diocesan Boys' School. In their plans for the new College they incorporated features of ecclesiastical architecture that we do not find in the D.B.S. building, such as columned porticos and a domed chapel. The dome is one of the most interesting architectural features to be found in Kowloon. The Great Hall was said to be modelled after the Theatre Royal of Naples, and the mushroom columns in the open area under the Great Hall reminds one of the pillars under the demonstration building of the Medical Faculty in Paris. The buildings were designed to accommodate 700 pupils, 350 of these being Portuguese boys living in Kowloon, and as Brother Aimar remarked at the Foundation Stone Laying, “We thought it only right to provision, as in St. Joseph's, for an equal number of boys of Chinese parentage and for a boarding department.\" (South China Morning Post, Nov. 5, 1930.) \n\nThough the land was bought in 1924, the plans for the building were not approved until 1929. The following year Governor Sir William Peel laid the foundation stone. The building was first occupied for classes in December, 1931, and the following month", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1974.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/x633mp077", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210204, "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": 175, "title": "RAS-1984", "content_text": "154\n\nR.J. MINERS\n\ninstructions were sent to Hong Kong so long as the Conservatives remained in power. However, as soon as the minority Labour government of 1929 came into office, various pressure groups, such as the Association for Moral and Social Hygiene and the National Council of Women of Great Britain, set to work, writing to the Prime Minister and the new Secretary of State for the Colonies, Lord Passfield (formerly the Fabian Society reformer Sidney Webb), demanding that Hong Kong should follow Singapore's example and suppress all its brothels. There were also more parliamentary questions from Lady Astor and other sympathetic M.P.s.32 In 1930, there was a change of Governor in Hong Kong: Sir Cecil Clementi left to govern the Straits Settlements, and Sir William Peel from the Federated Malay States was promoted to Hong Kong. Clementi had never shown himself very receptive to policy suggestions from London, and his transfer gave the Colonial Office an opportunity to initiate a change of policy. Before taking up his appointment, Peel saw Lord Passfield in London and was informed that it was the policy of the Labour government that all brothels should be suppressed, but that he should first look into the question and submit a report to London.\n\nPeel sent his views to the Colonial Office in August 1930, three months after his arrival.34 He stressed that the abolition of licensed prostitution and tolerated houses was opposed by the military and naval authorities, senior government officials, and the leading members of the Chinese community who sat on the District Watch Committee. Abolition would probably lead to an increase in the number of sly brothels and streetwalkers, and a greater incidence of venereal disease. It would also make it impossible to deal effectively with the international traffic in women: in Singapore, some measure of control could be exercised at the point of entry where immigrants arrived in a few large vessels, but this was out of the question in Hong Kong, where thousands arrived daily in river steamers, junks, and by land; so the licensing and interrogation of intending prostitutes at the Secretariat for Chinese Affairs was the only way of checking that they were entering the profession of their own free will. The Governor finally suggested that if the Secretary of State was determined upon the suppression of brothels, a start could be made by refusing to register any new prostitutes; but he would prefer to await full details of the results", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1984.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/5h73wh572", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210210, "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": 181, "title": "RAS-1984", "content_text": "160\n\nR.J. MINERS\n\n15 Knutsford to Des Voeux, 12 Dec. 1890 and Des Voeux to Knutsford, 13 April 1891 in Parliamentary Papers 1894 LVII pp. 26-27, nos. 5 and 6.\n\n16 See for example CO129/218 p. 487, letter to the Secretary of State from the National Association for the Repeal of the Contagious Diseases Act, 28 March 1884.\n\n17 Ripon to Robinson, 17 March 1893 in Parliamentary Papers 1894 LVII p. 39, no. 13.\n\n18 Robinson to Ripon, 17 June 1893 with enclosures in Parliamentary Papers 1894 LVII pp. 46-52, no. 17.\n\n19 See the tabulated returns for Straits Settlements and Hong Kong in CO129/286 pp. 86-87.\n\n20 See CO882/6 Confidential Print Eastern no. 69 Correspondence regarding the Measures to be Adopted for Checking the Spread of Venereal Disease 1894-1899; Minute by Sir Edward Wingfield at CO129/276 p. 132.\n\n21 J. Chamberlain to Governor Sir H.A. Blake, 11 May 1899 in CO882/6 p. 117.\n\n22 Minute by J. Chamberlain, 25 Jan. 1898 in CO129/276 p. 132.\n\n23 This possibility had been mentioned earlier in an unpublished letter from the Attorney General; see minute in CO129/286 p. 75 dated 18 March 1899.\n\n24 Memorandum by Secretary for Chinese Affairs, 4 June 1923 in CO129/480 pp. 254-259.\n\n25 The following paragraphs are based on the S.C.A. memorandum; a long description by Dr. Wellington, Director of Medical and Sanitary Services, not dated item 5 in CO129/533/10 of 1931; and note by the Chief Justice, J.H. Kemp dated 16 May 1931, item 3 in CO129/533/10.\n\n26 Macfarlane and Aubrey: Journal of the Hong Kong University Medical Society, Vol. 1 April 1922, quoted in CO129/480 p. 260.\n\n27 In CO129/472 pp. 356-382, April 1921.\n\n28 See CO129/474 pp. 338-358; CO129/484, pp. 257-8; CO129/485 pp. 2-18 and 122-6.\n\n29 See CO129/472 pp. 603-5; CO129/475 pp. 326-331; CO129/483 pp. 66-75 and pp. 156-170.\n\n30 Straits Settlements Legislative Council Sessional Papers 1923: Report of the Venereal Diseases Committee, 17 December 1923, pp. C286-327; CO882/11 Confidential Print Eastern no. 147 Correspondence 1923-1925 Relating to Social Hygiene in Singapore.\n\n31 First Report of the Advisory Committee on Social Hygiene, August 1925 Cmd 2501. See also Report of a Committee appointed by the Secretary of State for the Colonies to examine and report on Straits Settlements Ordinance no. 15 of 1927, March 1929, Cmd 3294.\n\n32 CO129/522/3.\n\n33 Unpublished memoir by Sir William Peel deposited at Rhodes House, Oxford. House of Commons Debates, 27 June 1930 p. 1500, speech by Dr. D. Shiels.\n\n34 Peel to Passfield, 22 August 1930 in CO129/522/3.\n\n35 Peel to Passfield, 9 June 1931 in CO129/533/10.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1984.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/5h73wh572", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210738, "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": 89, "title": "RAS-1986", "content_text": "72\n\nD.A. GRIFFITHS AND S.P. LAU\n\ndens, Ford retired in 1903 but before doing so his final important contribution to the conservation of Hong Kong's flora is contained in a letter of August 31st 1899 to Sir William Thistleton-Dyer at Kew and in the same letter he records the collection of two hitherto unnamed species of oak:\n\n\"The N.T. was formally taken over as April 17th. About a month afterwards I made occasions for visiting some parts of it and finding that the natives were cutting down trees to a great extent, because as they told me, they were afraid that when the new administration was in operation they feared they would not be allowed to do so. I represented to the Govt. the importance of my gaining an intimate knowledge of the whole country with a view to the expansion of my dept.'s work when it could be set in operation to good effect. This was at once approved by Sir Henry Blake, who, I may mention, takes the greatest interest in our work, and gives his strong support to me in every way, both officially and socially.\n\n\"When I was staying for a few days in the N.T. with our Colonial Secretary while he was on special duty as Commissioner, I gathered two species of Quercus, specimens in front of which I send herewith. I think they are new, if, I should esteem it a favour if you could cause them to be named after Sir Henry and Lady Blake respectively, this kindness would, I feel sure, please them and would help or commensurate the taking over of the N.T. Lady Blake has been most industrious in painting HK & Chinese plants, and amongst them she has painted the oak with the longest acorn. Lady Blake's Christian name is Edith, Quercus edithae might be suitable for the oak.”\n\nA note added to the letter after it had been received at Kew states:- \"Both new, Quercus blakei & Q. edithae will be published in Ic. Plant.”\n\nAfter his retirement in 1903 Mr. Ford was succeeded by his", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1986.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/jq08c7063", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211440, "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": 156, "title": "RAS-1988", "content_text": "132\n\n-\n\nAnna,\n\nshe took along the children of good friends with her as well Bessie, Clara, Dora and Laura Chung, and Alice Ping Lam. In spite of the primitive surroundings, it was a treat for city children to enjoy the freedom of the outdoors. How nostalgic is the smell of sweet ripening rice in the fields. The memory of early morning breakfasts of steaming rice, hot tasty dishes and strong tea. The smell of smoking guava wood under the big wok! The feel of crispy rice from the bottom of the wok! The clear, cool, invigorating mountain air! The soft dawn suddenly bright from the glow of the rising sun seen through the wide, paneless windows of the large kitchen where we ate! And the never satisfied appetites for anything edible around the farm! We did not have a care.\n\nBetween chores we would wander into the dense guava bushes growing wild in the uncultivated areas, and would pick, taste, discard or eat only the sweetest fruits. The white-seeded ones were the best. There were mangoes and bananas, all for the picking. We got our vitamins the joyful way. Or we would wade in the deep cold stream or in the drained rice fields to catch snails, opelu and catfish that were left in the puddles after the harvest. While the older children kept an eye on the younger ones, without supervision from the busy adults, we always found something to occupy our time and were never bored.\n\nUncle decided to make a change in 1916. He moved to a small leasehold, located off Lilipuna Road not far from Kamehameha Highway, owned by Joseph Whittle, a sign painter. The neighbours were John William Grote and Henry Cobb-Adams. The former was the postmaster and the latter the tax collector in Kaneohe. Uncle increased the amount of vegetables he produced and replaced the buggy with a large horse-drawn wagon to take his produce to the Honolulu market. When the lease expired in 1918, he moved to a property owned by the widow of William Henry, who had been a gaoler at the Oahu Prison. This farm was on the Maikai side of Kamehameha Highway, separated from the Cobb-Adams property by a narrow stream. Aunt had a green thumb and from selected seeds sent by Step-Grandmother from Shekki, she was able to raise high quality vegetables that brought a good price and profit.\n\nAs business increased, Uncle invested in a Reo truck and started the first truck farming business in that community, acting as agent for other farmers on a commission basis. Although Cousin Mary learned to drive", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1988.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211526, "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": 243, "title": "RAS-1988", "content_text": "219\n\npremier and treasurer of Manitoba in 1885, and while there was quite prominent in the political affairs of the province, being sent to England to negotiate a large loan. On his return from England, he was ordered to Hongkong, to take a position in the diplomatic service. Before leaving this country, he came to Portland with a letter of introduction from Sir William Van Horne of the Canadian Pacific Railroad to Theodore B. Wilcox of the Portland Flouring Mills Co.\n\nRennie at that time knew nothing about the flour business, but he made such a good impression on Mr. Wilcox that he was engaged by the Portland miller to put in the time he could spare from his diplomatic duties, in selling flour. He was successful from the beginning, and in 1895 his business had grown to such proportions that he resigned from the government service and devoted all of his attention to the flour trade. He was a tireless worker, and as he had very liberal contracts with Mr. Wilcox, he was soon enjoying a very large business. On this business he always endeavored to stamp his own personality.\n\nWhile the Wilcox brands were soon famous from Vladivostok to the Malabar coast, and far into the interior of China, it was Rennie alone, of whom the Chinamen knew, and with whom they dealt. This great success and the attendant profits it brought, was probably responsible for Rennie's belief that he could make a grand success out of the milling business.\n\nHis studied effort to keep his own name and personality in the foreground, had given him great prestige in Hongkong and other trade centres across the Pacific, and to him it seemed easy to transfer this prestige from the Americans to a mill of his own.\n\nApparently confusing flour making with flour selling, Mr. Rennie plunged into the business on a big scale. Had he been content to feel his way with a small mill, where the capacity could be increased as the demand for the product developed, he might have made a success, or at least the failure would not have been serious. But Rennie, the greatest flour salesman in all the Orient, had aspirations to be a great miller, and with the money he had saved during his successful career as a salesman, and several hundred thousand dollars subscribed by English capitalists at Hongkong, he built a two thousand barrel mill. The capital", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1988.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215282, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-2001", "page_number": 59, "title": "RAS-2001", "content_text": "where the territory was not debarred from doing so by treaty. In preparation for the negotiations at Ottawa the colonies were also asked to consider what preferences might be accorded them by the dominions and what preferences they might give to the dominions in return on the lines of the Canada-West Indies agreement.”\n\n34\n\nThe governor, Sir William Peel, discussed Hong Kong's position while visiting the Colonial Office in June 1932. Officials agreed with him that Hong Kong's status as a free port made it impossible to impose anything like a general tariff. Any such tariff would ruin the entrepôt trade which was vital to Hong Kong's existence and no practicable means could be devised of landing goods in bond for re-export without involving so much inconvenience as to drive the entrepôt trade to other neighbouring ports. Peel was prepared as a gesture to give a preference to empire products on articles such as spirits and tobacco which were subject to excise duty and to impose a higher rate of first registration tax on foreign motor cars than on cars imported from Britain and Canada. He did not ask for any preference from the dominions in return since in his view the bulk of Hong Kong exports consists of foreign goods the proportion of the cost of which, due to treatment in Hong Kong, was not large enough to secure a preference...” This showed a surprising ignorance of Hong Kong's growing trade in domestic manufactures which were largely exported to neighbouring Asian countries.\n\nThe Ottawa conference convened in July 1932. The British delegation was led by Stanley Baldwin, the former prime minister, and four other cabinet ministers. Canada, Southern Rhodesia and Newfoundland were represented by their prime ministers; Australia and New Zealand by former prime ministers; South Africa and the Irish Free State by their finance and trade ministers. India, which had been given the freedom to establish protective duties in 1923, was represented by Sir Atul Chatterjee and other members of the Viceroy's Council. The interests of the colonial empire were safeguarded by the secretary of state for the colonies, Sir Philip Cunliffe-Lister and one civil servant from the Colonial Office, G.L.M. Clauson.\n\nThe conclusions of the conference were embodied in agreements between the United Kingdom government and the governments of the dominions and India. Britain consented to continue the free entry of goods grown, produced or manufactured in any part of the empire, and to impose additional duties on specified foreign goods which would give empire produce a preferential margin higher than the 10 per cent tariff already imposed by the Import Duties Act. Britain also agreed to 'invite' the non-self-governing colonies and protectorates to extend to all the dominions any preference at present extended to any part of the empire, and to increase the margin of preference or impose specific duties on a long list of items requested by the dominions. In return the dominions confirmed the existing", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 216396, "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-2003", "page_number": 155, "title": "RAS-2003", "content_text": "105\n\nH.M.S. HERMES1: CHINA STATION, 1930/33\n\nJONATHAN PARKINSON\n\nIn volume 41 of the Society's Journal, pages 326/328, to illustrate his article Keith Stevens kindly reproduced photographs of the aircraft carrier HERMES at Hankow during the great floods of 1931.\n\nThis was not her only rather unusual experience of this commission.\n\nOn passage from Sheerness, where on 3rd October 1930 she had re-commissioned under the command of Captain E.J.G. Mackinnon, DSO, HERMES spent Christmas at Singapore. Approaching Hong Kong on Friday, 2nd January 1931 she passed Gap Rock2 at 0357 hours and four hours later flew off her aircraft of Flights 403 and 440 to Kai Tak. At 1039 she secured to No. 1 buoy in Victoria Harbour.\n\nThe Governor of Hong Kong at the time was Sir William Peel. He spent most of Tuesday, 20 January at sea in the ship witnessing flying exercises. The destroyer THRACIAN, Commander N.L. Veresmith, conveyed His Excellency from and back to the colony.\n\nAfter lunch on 5th June HERMES slipped for Wei-Hai-Wei. There the climate in summer enabled exercises to be carried out with greater zest than in the steamy waters off South China. Once clear of Lyemun Pass her aircraft flew on. She had an easy passage up the coast and through the Formosa Strait. During the morning of 9th June when crossing the Yellow Sea full power trials were carried out during which she achieved 25 knots. Just before noon, HERMES once more proceeding at her economical speed of 12 knots, the easternmost promontory of the Shantung peninsula was sighted.\n\nTwo hours later the atmosphere onboard changed abruptly.\n\nA signal was received from MARAZION,3 Commander E.A. Aylmer, reporting that the submarine POSEIDON had been sunk in a collision.\n\nCaptain Mackinnon altered course and increased speed to 19 knots. Another boiler was flashed up and shortly thereafter our ship was...", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2003.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2v242g390", "rank": 0 } ]