[
    {
        "id": 206399,
        "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": 216,
        "title": "RAS-1971",
        "content_text": "190 \n\nREV. JAMES LEGGE\n\nthe excitement and activity. Then came the close of the war in America, which had produced a feverish activity in the cotton market, ultimately disastrous to many. There followed, in 1866, the commercial disasters consequent on the fall of Overend and Gurney, and the panic at home, with the crashing of banks and the downfall of Houses which had been supposed to be firm as the foundations of the mountain behind us. It was a time of trouble and darkness. Sir Hercules came to the Colony when the tide was rising, and he had it at the flood for the greater part of his time. There remains the Robinson Road to perpetuate his name. When he went away, Mr. Mercer took his place as acting governor, an able man and accomplished, who would have done better for himself had he ventured to assume more responsibility. Then came Sir Richard MacDonnell to the helm at a time of great difficulty; but here I must bring my reminiscences of Hongkong to a close. The events of Sir Richard's incumbency are fresh in the memory of most of you, fresher, indeed, than in my own, for I was absent from the Colony during his administration for three whole years. There are none of us but would rejoice to hear of the reinvigoration of his health. In these recent years the capabilities of the telegraph wire and of the Suez Canal have come fully into play. Their effects on the Colony have already been great, and they will yet be greater.\n\nAnd now, as I draw to a conclusion, permit me to observe that the more than thirty years of my residence in the East have witnessed events of almost unparalleled magnitude and change all over the world. What wars and revolutions have taken place in Europe! in America! in India! in Africa! But great as they have been, they have not been greater than those which have taken place, here in the Far East. When I think of China opened as it has been, and of Japan pursuing with much more willing and rapid steps the career of progress, I can scarcely realize the contrast between the state of things in 1839 and 1872. We sometimes doubt if China be really moving, but moving it is; and if I sometimes fret at the slowness of its advance, and wish that there were more in it of the mobility of its neighbour, yet in the end that slowness tends to increase my respect for the country and its people. There must be a great future yet for the country. In Great Britain there is an area of 12,000 miles of coal fields,",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1971.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/z029vt43g",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 214988,
        "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": 84,
        "title": "RAS-2000",
        "content_text": "40\n\nAmongst the equipment issued to each coolie in France were boots, ankle and puttees, two pairs of socks, one towel and one piece of soap, one groundsheet and one blanket in the summer and three in the winter, and an enamelled mug instead of a tin mug.\n\nTransportation to France\n\n31\n\nThe Chinese Labour Corps was officially formed on 21 February 1917 with Lt. Col. B.C. Fairfax appointed as the officer-in-charge as early as 15th November 1916. In the meantime, the first labourers left China in January 1917 and the first to leave France to return to China left in November 1918. Some of those sent from China died en route to France on the sea voyages. These ships travelled either via South Africa or Suez to England via the Panama Canal or sailed to Canada, the labourers being transported across Canada by train and then sailing on to England. These routes were chosen so as to confuse German intelligence and to avoid the submarine menace. None was lost in this way despite a German presence still in northern China at that time. Thence both groups were shipped to France.\n\nThose travelling via Canada landed at William Head, Vancouver Island, the old quarantine station and, following authorisation, travelled by train to Halifax, Nova Scotia. They were guarded, to prevent escape, and consequently the usual poll tax of Can$500, levied by the Canadian Immigration Department, was waived. Over a thirteen-month period, over 84,000 were so transported. From Canada, they would be shipped to the UK to Liverpool or Plymouth, then from Folkestone to Noyelles-sur-Mer in France.\n\nG.E. Cormack, who acted as an escorting officer to five hundred labourers, was stationed at the collecting depot, a German silk factory near Qingdao. This town had earlier in the War been captured from the Germans by the Japanese, assisted by a small British force. On a monolith at one of the forts was a Prussian eagle with an inscription in German stating that this town had been captured by the Germans from the Chinese. Over this, there was a Japanese inscription stating that Qingdao had been captured from the Germans by the Japanese! China had declared war on Germany on 14th March 1917.\n\nAgain, to quote from G.E. Cormack's memoirs, he sailed, with",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2000.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/nk328168n",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 216101,
        "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": 400,
        "title": "RAS-2002",
        "content_text": "334\n\nWhen I arrived in the mid-1950s, only one government department - Medical and Health - was headed by a Chinese. But he was not a local and came from Malaya. Today, of course, the boot is on the other foot. Only persons of Chinese nationality can become Government Secretaries.\n\nAlthough the Peak Reservation Ordinance was not brought back into force after World War Two, there was, nevertheless, quite a bit of covert racism - certainly among staff in the college where I taught. My old boss told me, when he learned I intended carrying on studying Cantonese, 'Only policemen and cranks learn Cantonese.' Immediately I thought, \"Yes, and I'm one of the cranks!\" One British colleague would openly say to other Europeans that he had lived in Hong Kong for 20 years and was proud that he could not count, in Cantonese, beyond three. 'After all, this is a British colony!' He used to say that no Chinese had crossed the threshold of his home as a guest. 'As a tradesman, yes. But not as a guest.' Another colleague who was not quite so racist frequently said, \"The Chinese are all right, but they need a European behind them.\"\n\nBut then I recall being stationed in the Suez Canal Zone in 1942 in, at the time, the largest military camp in the world. At Qantara railway station there were 10 toilets labelled as follows:\n\nOfficers European\n\nOfficers Asiatic\n\nOfficers Coloured\n\nWarrant Officers and Sergeants European\n\nWarrant Officers and Sergeants Asiatic\n\nWarrant Officers and Sergeants Coloured\n\nOther Ranks European\n\nOther Ranks Asiatic\n\nOther Ranks Coloured",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278",
        "rank": 0
    }
]