[ { "id": 204614, "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": 95, "title": "RAS-1963", "content_text": "82\n\nJ. L. CRANMER-BYNG\n\nexpansion. Thus a new student-interpreters' mess was built and also a new house for the Counsellor in a pleasant garden. A barrack was also built for the Legation guard on the site of the former Chinese Board of Works, Board of War, and Court of State Ceremonies, an area with historic associations. The barracks were large enough to house 500 men though normally not more than 100 were stationed there at any one time. As a result of this enlargement the British Legation now covered about thirty-five acres, and was the largest foreign Legation in Peking. While this reconstruction was going forward the opportunity was taken to make the Legation more self-contained so that if ever it were again besieged it would be in a better state to resist. With this object in view the Ministry of Works built a thoroughly ugly electricity power-plant and a water tower. A large coal dump was also formed so that now the Legation had its own supply of water, coal and electricity.\n\nGradually memories of the siege became less vivid and life settled down into a routine which was much the same as before the siege. Perhaps the only difference was that by 1908 there were signs of some modernization in Peking itself such as macadam roads, handsome cabs and electric light. Meanwhile visitors to Peking continued to enjoy the hospitality of those living in the British Legation, and no clear change can be seen until 1928 when the Kuomintang was victorious over the Northern warlords and the capital was established at Nanking. As a result the British Ambassador moved south of the Yangtze and resided mainly at the British Consulate in Shanghai while the majority of his staff moved to Nanking, though the student-interpreters continued to study at the Legation in Peking which now became a Consulate. When war broke out between England and Japan in December 1941 some British nationals and American nationals, who were sick or elderly, were interned in the Legation. The Swiss Consul looked after the buildings, aided by Chinese employed by Her Majesty's Ministry of Works. The buildings were reoccupied as a Consulate at the end of the war, but in 1948 the Chinese Communists captured Peking, and at first the government of the Chinese Peoples' Republic refused to recognize the status of the British Consulate there. However, in January", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1963.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/4m90m091v", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208706, "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": 163, "title": "RAS-1979", "content_text": "136\n\nREVS. J. SMITH AND WM. DOWNS\n\nFathers Downs and Madison, with Sister Paul and four of her Sisters, journeyed on by bus to Liuchow, then by train to Kweilin.\n\nAt Kweilin, we met the members of the first group and here left Sister Paul and her Sisters. As it was the time of the Chinese New Year, we had to remain in Kweilin for about a week, then Fathers Downs, Siebert, Gaiero and Madison set out by train and bus on the long hike to Kaying. We reached Kaying on the 19th of February, just one month to the day after stepping aboard the steamer at Hong Kong, and just in time to attend Kaying's First Synod. From Kaying, a few hours by bus brought us to Siaoloc, where the Language School once more resumed its oft-interrupted classes, and here at Siaoloc this chronicle of the wanderings of the Stanley Maryknollers comes to a glorious end! Laus Deo!\n\n(By Father William J. Downs)\n\nPART III: FATHER MEYER ON INTERNMENT: JANUARY 12, 1942 - AUGUST 15, 1945\n\nNearly sixty priests, Brothers and Sisters were interned at Stanley in January, 1942. Within a year, all but three priests and four Sisters had left on exchange repatriation or been released into Hong Kong and gone back to their Missions. In September, 1943, occurred the last repatriation, when Father Murphy, a Canadian missioner who was ill, and the four remaining Sisters left for Canada.\n\nA special cable had come through the Swiss Consul in Tokyo, \"All Maryknollers are to leave occupied areas.\" When Father Hessler and I told Mr. Maejima, the Camp Superintendent, that we chose to stay, he seemed nonplussed. Weren't we ordered by the cable to return? We explained that in the Catholic Church such an order was always contingent on providing for the needs of souls, and that since the Italian Fathers of Hong Kong were not permitted to come into the Camp, we had volunteered already a year ago to remain.\n\nNothing more was said, but our names did not appear on the repatriation lists, and we learned later that Mr. Maejima and his colleagues of the Hong Kong Foreign Affairs Office had been impressed by the Catholic position.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1979.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2801w5938", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211691, "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": 106, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "81\n\nwhich had been allocated for that purpose, but as they had to start with exactly nothing it was difficult. I was dumped off my lorry in front of the hospital-to-be at about 1 o'clock, and it was 5 p.m. before the staff had cleared a room and found enough beds to get the most elementary of wards going. There I stayed exactly two months. Meanwhile my wife had found a corner for herself in a room with three other married couples and a baby. She got on very well with two of the other couples (and the baby), but the third couple were very disagreeable and behaved in an almost incredibly disgraceful way towards the other people in the room, but particularly to my poor wife. So when I was fit to be moved from the hospital we tried to get quarters elsewhere but the billeting committee couldn't fix us in anywhere and the Japanese Chief Supervisor was unhelpful, so I just had to make one more in an already overcrowded room. And there we stayed, with one brief excursion to the French Hospital to have my knee X-rayed, until the Americans were repatriated early in July when we were moved into the block vacated by them where we shared a room with Mr. and Mrs. Witham and their baby and one other couple. Here we were perfectly happy and were facing with equanimity the prospect of internment for the duration when on July 20th we were told that we could, if we wished and if we paid our own fares, go to Shanghai. No further explanation was forthcoming and the permission did not extend to the rest of the Embassy and Consulate personnel in the camp. Of course I said we would go (the Swiss Consul sent in enough money for the fares) and we were shipped to Shanghai with some 60 other people who had also been allowed to leave the camp. I assumed that once I was in Shanghai I would be entitled to be repatriated with the rest of the Embassy people; but as soon as the ship berthed in Shanghai a Japanese Vice-Consul came on board and told me that though I had been allowed to come to Shanghai I was not going to be repatriated. It looked as if I was going to share with Sir Mark Young (who is interned at Woosung) the melancholy distinction of being the only British officials in Japan and occupied China. We were taken to the Cathay Hotel where the outport Consulate staffs and other persons destined for repatriation were being collected. We were given a comfortable suite and, except for the restriction in our movements, had nothing to complain about. I telephoned to Mr. Le Rougetel who had not been told that we were coming. He got the Swiss Consul-General to inform the Foreign Office and it seems that a special exchange agreement was made for me and my wife. So on August 17th we embarked on the \"Kamakura Maru\".\n\nAs regards conditions in Stanley Internment Camp I wrote a few notes,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211692, "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": 107, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "82\n\nand left copies with the Swiss Consul-General in Shanghai for his own information and for that of the Red Cross representative. In their original form I showed them to three responsible British subjects who left the Camp at the same time as I did, and they agreed that the notes gave a fairly accurate picture of the situation, though perhaps the colours were not dark enough. A copy of these notes, somewhat amended, is attached. A point which perhaps ought to have been made is that prior to internment at Stanley most of the \"enemy nationals\" in Hongkong and Kowloon had already been interned in Chinese hotels for periods varying from two weeks to six weeks in conditions of great discomfort and hardship and that they were seriously debilitated when they reached the Camp. They, and all the other \"enemy nationals\" who had so far escaped internment, were then thrown into the camp without adequate preparations having been made for their reception. In the Science Block of St. Stephen's College men, women and children found themselves herded together in large class rooms without beds, mattresses or furniture; there was only one lavatory for the block and no arrangements had been made for cooking food. Though the Japanese never actively ill-treated the civilian internees their whole attitude was unhelpful and unsympathetic. Consequently conditions were very bad during the first 2½ or 3 months. Then the Japanese began to realise the seriousness of the situation and conditions improved considerably, as I have indicated in my notes. Conditions were about at their worst in the middle of April, and when I was taken to the French Hospital on April 21st to have my leg X-rayed Dr. Selwyn Clark and Dr. Court both impressed on me that the food situation, not only in the camp but in the Colony generally was extremely serious since the Japanese were shipping all foodstuffs to Japan and were bringing nothing in. They said they expected the crisis to come at the end of July and they urged me to represent to the Foreign Office that if no relief was forthcoming the whole of the foreign community ought to be removed before the end of the Summer. I accordingly wrote a short message on these lines to H.M. Consul at Macao, which Dr. Selwyn Clark said he would be able to send through.\n\nI did all I could to get the Japanese to admit my diplomatic status and to include the whole of the Embassy and Consulate group in any exchange arrangements but, except for Mr. Yano's original assurance, they took the attitude that, as we had not been at our posts we had no special status, and beyond that there was a blank wall; we were not allowed to know even what had become of the Embassy and Consular establishments in occupied China.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212225, "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-1990", "page_number": 167, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "Under police escort, the Japanese broke through the screens and dashed at the ambulance, which was being brought up behind. They rescued Mr. Hayashi and carried him off in triumph, whereafter the meeting was declared adjourned. Next day the Japanese Consul General called on the Municipal Council to express apologies for the incident. Mr. Hayashi, it was learnt, had been removed to Japan, where he presumably became a national hero. The adjourned meeting was reconvened for a later date, when the proposed motion was carried, under the covering protection of a strong contingent of Japanese Consular police.\n\nThe compromise arrangement, which was also put into effect, placed the affairs of the Municipal Council in the hands of a nominated commission, to be known as the Provisional Council. It consisted of 4 Chinese, 3 Japanese, 3 British, 3 American, 1 German, 1 Dutch, and 1 Swiss. That gave a proportion of 8 Axis versus 8 non-Axis votes. It will be seen the balance depended on the ability of the Dutch and Swiss members to hold out. The Chinese members would inevitably be puppets of the Wang Ching Wei regime, and therefore tools of the Japanese.\n\nWith this little flurry, the tempo of terrorism in the Settlement tended to increase. The British had already withdrawn their contingent of troops to Hongkong, where they were required to strengthen the garrison. There was an argument with the Japanese about whether their troops were to be brought south of the Soochow creek into the centre of the Settlement to man the British sector, or whether the Americans were to be allowed to take it over. In the end a compromise was arrived at and the Shanghai Volunteer Corps took over the sector.\n\nI had been for some time trying to persuade my wife that it was necessary to leave Shanghai; the optimistic atmosphere which the women found amongst their friends in the Clubs and at the bridge tables made the task anything but easy. I think, perhaps, the attack on the Chairman of the Council helped to decide the issue. It was impossible to obtain passages direct to England, but passages could still be obtained on Japanese liners for America, and so my wife, with several other wives, left for San Francisco in a sister ship of the \"Asama Maru\". Owing to blocked currencies, it was not everyone who could afford to send their wives to the U.S.A., but I was fortunate enough to be able to buy sufficient dollar exchange to tide...", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 } ]