[ { "id": 206017, "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-1970", "page_number": 97, "title": "RAS-1970", "content_text": "92\n\nA. D. BLUE\n\nand Canton, and the shorter passage between Hong Kong and Macao, was for many Chinese passengers an opportunity for a prolonged gambling and drinking session.\n\nThe peak years of Chinese emigration to South-east Asia were those immediately preceding the world-wide economic depression of the early 1930s. The rubber and tin industries of South-east Asia were particularly hard hit by this depression, and Chinese immigration into all the countries of the region was severely curtailed. There had only been a very partial revival to pre-depression levels when the Pacific War broke out, soon after which Chinese emigration completely ceased.\n\nOwing to the different countries of South-east Asia adopting different methods of classifying nationality, it is practically impossible to obtain an accurate estimate of the number of Chinese in the region at any time; but well-informed authorities agree that at the outbreak of the Pacific War the number of people who regarded themselves as of Chinese race was about 8 million, that is between 5 and 6% of the total population. By far the greatest concentration of Chinese was in Malaya, where in 1947 the Chinese population of the Federation and Singapore was 2,605,000 out of a total population of 5,823,000. Singapore was, and still is, almost a Chinese city, and in 1947 there were 730,000 Chinese in a total population of 941,000. It is even more difficult to estimate how many Chinese were moving between China and South-east Asia in any year, but considering isolated figures relating to different countries, this must have amounted to several hundred thousands when the traffic was at its height. In 1929 Indo-China had a surplus of Chinese immigrants over emigrants of 40,000; while in the same year 195,000 Chinese males entered Malaya. In 1937 again some 8,000 Chinese entered British North Borneo.\n\nAlthough mainland Chinese have been unable to travel abroad since 1949, Chinese still move between Hong Kong, Formosa, and South-east Asia; but their numbers are infinitesimal in comparison with the vast traffic during the colonial era. However, the China Navigation Company is engaged in two specialised passenger trades which bear a little resemblance to the emigrant and deck passenger trades of the old days. One is the carriage of indentured labourers from Hong Kong to the Pacific phosphate", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1970.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ww72j0241", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207801, "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-1976", "page_number": 189, "title": "RAS-1976", "content_text": "174 \n\nA. D. BLUE \n\nproblems involving steam navigation on the Upper Yangtze may be said to have been solved, or at least understood. Only political unrest, civil wars, and the preoccupation of Britain with the First World War prevented further development.\n\nSzechwan suffered severely from the breakdown of the central government after 1915. At times trade was almost at a standstill because of civil war and organised brigandage, and to a lesser extent because of floods and famines. In spite of this, steam navigation on the Upper Yangtze flourished, a tribute to the keen business instincts and adaptability of the Chinese merchants. The first British steamer to appear on the Upper Yangtze since the Pioneer of 1900 was the Asiatic Petroleum Company's Anlan which went into service in 1918, and was followed in the following year by their Anning.* In addition to carrying petroleum products, these ships carried a few European passengers.\n\nThis heralded a period when there was a great increase in steam navigation on the Upper Yangtze, remarkable in that it took place against a background of continuing and increasing civil war, political unrest, and general trade depression.\n\nOther British companies followed the Asiatic Petroleum Company. In 1919 Mackenzie and Company of Shanghai built the famous Loong Mow at Shanghai's Kiangnan Dockyard, 196.5 feet long by thirty-one feet beam, moulded depth of nine feet six inches and gross registered tonnage of 1,112. The twin reciprocating engines and oil-fired water tube boilers were built by Thorneycroft of Southampton, and the luxurious accommodation for both Chinese and foreign passengers led her to be called \"The Queen of the Gorges\". Soon after this the China Navigation and the Indo-China Steam Navigation Company at last built their own ships for the Upper Yangtze, until then having used chartered junks flying their house flags for their Upper River trade. Then the Stars and Stripes appeared with several Dollar Line ships and some small tankers of the Standard Oil Company; and in 1925 by several steamers of the Yangtze Rapids Steamship Company. For a time this latter company operated a through service between Shanghai and Chungking. French, Italian, and Japanese steamers also appeared at this time. By the end of 1925 there were at least thirty-two steamers on\n\n*This company was the Far Eastern branch of the Shell Company.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1976.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/hq382988q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209784, "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": 43, "title": "RAS-1983", "content_text": "21\n\nA prolonged discussion followed, mostly with local researchers into the history, economy and society of the Hong Kong Region. Dr. David Faure offered two contributory reasons for the KMT's failure to deal with land reform in addition to those mentioned by Dr. Myers. One was the effects of the World Depression of the early 1930s; another was the amount spent on military expenditure that might have been usefully spent on land reform. Dr. Myers agreed. Dr. Hayes said that if the time needed for land survey and settlement in the N.T. of Hong Kong (4 years) and its cost were any indication of the size and complexity of the task, it might indicate that it was beyond the KMT's capacity, even in one province. There was also the matter of sufficient trained staff.\n\nThe discussion then turned to tenancy itself. Dr. Patrick Hase said that, if the N.T. was in any way typical of the situation in the sub and top soil ownership situation, the amount of true tenancy was small, consisting of a small number of landless peasant families and others who had to rent land from others to make up for their own insufficient holdings. He also queried whether one could apply a broad brush. There was surely a difference between subsistence areas such as the Hong Kong Region and highly developed market-economy regions centred round big cities, as at Canton and in the Yangtze delta.\n\nDr. Hase went on to say that in discussion of tenancy an important factor in assessing its effect was the percentage of the crop taken in tenancy, either by the sub-soil owner or by the surface owner from sub-tenants. In the Hong Kong Region the percentage of the crop represented by the first was very low, below 25% and getting less as more land was opened. The latter was (and had long been) customarily set at around 50%, and there were no signs that it had created economic deprivation and social tensions. Dr. Hayes added that the desperate economic situation of the peasants attributed to the tenancy position, as reported by the Institute of Pacific Affairs' social scientists in the 1930s, seemed very unreal to those of us working on the Hong Kong Region.\n\nDr. Quested asked \"who, then, were the tenants?\" and what had been their experience and significance. Dr. Myers said they", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1983.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j9607p61v", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209785, "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": 44, "title": "RAS-1983", "content_text": "22 \n\nwere the sub-tenants of surface owners or, as explained above, those surface owners with insufficient land. Their true situation \n\nin the 1930s, if as serious as reported, was attributable not to a tenancy situation whose nature was not understood by KMT officials or social researchers of Marxist leanings but to the outflow of silver and the world-wide depression of the 1930s. \n\n!", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1983.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j9607p61v", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211444, "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": 160, "title": "RAS-1988", "content_text": "136\n\nenticing, wholesome meals to nurture Father back to health. Communication with her was interrupted by the Second World War and after 1949, and it was during these intervening years that she died, followed later by the death of Uncle Tin Suk, from injuries he had suffered falling down a well. Ging Heen, the only offspring of Uncle Tin Suk, is also now deceased. The details regarding his wife and children are not known to us.\n\nUncle Pong sent for Aunt Pong and their first child in 1922, and they lived with us temporarily until they bought a home on Lusitana Street. They sold this home in 1932, during the Depression, in order that Aunt Pong and the eight children could manage life easier in Shekki. They left the same time Mother, Dora and I did, on the Empress of Japan. Later, before the Second World War began, Aunt Pong sent the children back to Honolulu, two by two. Left with two of them, she was not able to return until the end of the war. The family settled in the neighbourhood store operated by Uncle Pong at the corner of Kaukini and Fort Streets, on property owned by us. This property was later condemned by the city to enlarge Kawananakoa School. Uncle Pong died from diabetes and Aunt Pong from cancer.\n\nThe Pong children are:\n\nHelen Wai Hing married Long Wa Lui\n\nViolet Wai Lin married Mun Git Chan\n\nElla Wai King married Joseph Loui\n\nErnest Dung Sun married Wai Quon Yee\n\nHerbert Cheong Fat married Dimmie Kam\n\nLily Wai Chiu married Stanley Chang\n\nClaron Ah Hoon married Pacita Tan\n\nRichard Kwock Hung married Kwei Fong Miu\n\nMy Jong grandparents and their children are all gone now. My Mother's health began to deteriorate following a bout of shingles and she passed away on 20 November 1974, after being incapacitated for about a month as a result of a stroke. Although I still feel the loss of those I love, I am comforted by, and hold on to, the many memories that are intertwined with their caring, nurturing, and warmth.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1988.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212015, "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": 430, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "405\n\nmotivating factor, intimate to Schwartz's soul, for dismantling other political assessments gone askew. In addition, the appeal Schwartz has continued to make to the universality of certain profound questions, rendering China a case in point rather than a quixotic exception, may have something to do with the modern Jew's need to be reconciled with the nations. Although one can exhume no overwhelming evidence for or against this statement, Schwartz's penchant for locating polarities may have as much to do with the dipolar dialectics of the Book of Changes as it does with a Buberian-like discourse of I-Thou and I-It. Certainly, his support of the personal dimension of a preternatural Heaven in the Zhou dynasty texts, a claim which is currently very controversial but which has textual support, is not antagonistic to Schwartz's personal background.\n\nReaders will benefit greatly from the erudition and articulate argumentation of these essays. Still all should bear in mind, as Nathan emphasizes, that especially in cross-cultural studies evaluation is an undeniably complicated task which 'is a way of respectfully sharpening and focusing discussion, not ending it', (p. 301).\n\nLAUREN PFISTER, Hong Kong Baptist College\n\nDavid Faure, The Rural Economy of Pre-Liberation China; Trade Increase and Peasant Livelihood in Jiangsu and Guangdong, 1870 to 1937, Hong Kong: Oxford University Press, 1989. xiv + 283 pp. Appendix. Notes. Bibliography. Glossary. Index.\n\nThe topic of late Qing and Republican China's rural economy and the role played by foreign trade in its transformation has been a subject of heated debate among scholars. On the one hand, there are the 'pessimists' who emphasize long-term rural decline and the negative effects of foreign trade in accelerating the process; on the other, there are the 'optimists' who stress the positive effects of foreign trade and, related to it, continuous rural prosperity until the time of the world depression in the early 1930s. A useful summary of this debate can be found in the present volume under review, (pp. 2-10).\n\nThe task that is set for this book is, in Faure's own words, ‘to explain how the increase in trade, particularly international trade, might have affected rural livelihood in China', (p. 21). His conclusion is clearly", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212016, "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": 431, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "406\n\nstated, namely that 'from the 1870s to the 1920s, the rural economy in Jiangsu and Guangdong, especially in areas that produced export crops, saw considerable prosperity' (p. 202) and that this prosperity must have translated into a higher standard of living for the majority of farmers and owner-cultivators, as well as tenants' (p. 202) until the early 1930s when the effects of the world depression came to be felt in China and 'created a situation in which both landlords and tenants felt that they had been unjustly treated', (p. 207). What this implies is again obvious. As Faure unreservedly states, ‘As it was, rural China was poor not because there was excessive trade, but because there was not enough of it', (p. 21). Indeed, Faure's central thesis is a familiar one among the 'optimists'. His work is original in the sense that it explores trade conditions in two provinces (Jiangsu and Guangdong) in a comprehensive manner, and presents new evidence through his documented case-study to strengthen the 'optimistic' viewpoint. It will certainly be welcomed by protagonists of the 'optimistic' school.\n\nBeing a polarized partner in the debate, it is not surprising to find that Faure adopts an uncompromising stance towards the 'pessimistic' argument which, according to him, rests basically on field studies in the 1920s and 1930s that are far from being unbiased records of observation and highly influenced by contemporary emotions', (p. 3). On the issue of documentation, Faure actually stands on the horns of a dilemma; for he has little choice but to rely on the same pool of available source materials which he is so sceptical about. That Faure can manage to build up his 'optimistic' case is partly due to the fact that historical data can be interpreted differently, based on the historian's own frame of mind. As a matter of fact, two historians using the same source may come up with vastly different conclusions, just as two contemporary observers of reality may have very different assessments of the same situation. Besides, the pool of data is enormous and diversified in content. China is too vast a country to provide for homogeneity in economic texture and behaviour. Conditions may vary not only between provinces but within a province, between two neighbouring counties and even within a single county. There thus exists a vast and sometimes conflicting body of qualitative and quantitative information on various aspects of rural China which, when selected with a fixed purpose in mind, can add weight to either the 'optimistic' or 'pessimistic' viewpoint. This controversy, when examined from a methodological perspective, does indeed shed light on the nature of historical debate in general. It is rooted in the historian's selection and interpretation of historical facts. As the eminent", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212018, "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": 433, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "408\n\nin Guangdong eventually shifted back to paddy cultivation or went over to the growing of vegetables. But what is important to note is that their decisions were made only after prolonged hesitation and after having incurred repeated losses in the sugar market. It is clear in retrospect that the decline of the sugar trade since the 1890s had been an irretrievable one. Back in those times, however, it was well-nigh impossible for the average peasants, who had little information about overseas market conditions, to predict whether demands and prices would rise or fall in the coming year. When the trade recession began to set in, it was just natural for them to entertain hopes that the situation would soon improve. And more often than not, they suffered losses before giving up hope and changing their production plan. Compared with the cane-cultivators, the mulberry-growers and silkworm-rearers admittedly fared better because the boom in the silk trade was more sustained, at least so right up to the turn of the present century. Though Guangdong raw silk began to lose ground relative to the more standardized Japanese silk and the new, competitive artificial fibres (rayon) in the world market, its export did not fall off sharply. There was again a boom in the period 1919-1923 after which the price of Guangdong raw silk progressively declined although export was maintained at a fair level until the world depression set in, producing unprecedented hardship for the sericulturists who found it impossible to switch over to another product because their capital was locked up in mulberry plantations.\n\nThere is yet a further question regarding trade increase and peasant livelihood. It is beyond doubt that cash-cropping increased the peasants' income-earning opportunities when market conditions were favourable. But even assuming that such conditions prevailed, the question remains as to whether the benefits derived from such opportunities were necessarily reaped by the average peasants, be they owner-cultivators or tenants. In view of the dearth of investment capital and the lack of credit/marketing systems operating in their interest, the average peasants presumably stood at a disadvantage to those who had the necessary cash, marketing knowledge and useful connections. The merchants, in particular, fared better because they possessed what was required for operating effectively in the primary markets and for providing the connections with the secondary and terminal markets, although their fortunes would equally be affected by the vicissitudes of the market. Thus, we should direct our attention not only to the question of whether cash-cropping was profitable, but also to the question of how differential access to opportunities might have affected rural income distribution. I think", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213178, "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-1993", "page_number": 246, "title": "RAS-1993", "content_text": "228 \n\nAnd what a worthwhile effort it is! Shoza gave a detailed account and clear analysis of the nature of the Chinese and the significant roles they played in Southeast Asia, their reasons for migration, and, even more importantly, their progress from being indigent coolies to the wealthiest element of the community, controlling all aspects of agriculture, mining trade and finance, from production to distribution.\n\nIt may be superfluous to state here that at the time of Shoza's writing, the mid-1930s, the world was still in the throes of a wide-spread economic depression. With the exception of what we know as Thailand today, Southeast Asia had comprised European colonies, thus any study of local economies had to take into consideration the colonial powers. As a rule, colonial powers adopted oppressive measures against the Chinese in their colonies. Readers need to keep in mind also that place names were also different from what they are today as they peruse the work,\n\nStill, the significance of the Chinese to local economies cannot be over-emphasised. By the 1930s, a poor Chinese in Southeast Asia was rare, Shoza avers. The growth of the Chinese economic power was due to a constant process of individual adaptations to changing market opportunities concluded Shoza, putting aside traditional reasons given for Chinese successes as the cultural trait of hard-work and parsimonious living.\n\nIt would be irresponsible for a reviewer not to point out that the author was a Japanese research scholar and that his intended readership was Japanese, therefore the book was written from a standpoint of Chinese intent on economic aggression in Southeast Asia. Shoza's statistics may be dated, observations he made are valid still more three score years later. 'The economy of the Overseas Chinese in Southeast Asia, controlling the economic life of the natives, is a grand spectacle within the East Asian economy' (Chapter 9),\n\n++\n\nPolitically, the ethnic Chinese population in Southeast Asia today no longer need to worry about local citizenship as they did in the 1930s, but their relationship with the native population, like that between the Southeast Asian countries and the People's Republic of China is still of concern at the end of the 1990s.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1993.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833t302", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215280, "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": 57, "title": "RAS-2001", "content_text": "and batteries, canvas and rubber footwear, rattan furniture, trunks, suitcases, umbrellas and rope. Almost all these exports went to China and the nearby states of the Philippines, Netherlands East Indies, Malaya, Siam, French Indo-China, Burma and India. The only significant exports to Britain were 268 tons of lard valued at £7,000 and £50,000 of preserved ginger.\n\nIn the 1930s exports to China were badly affected by a steep rise in import duties. Under the treaties imposed on China in the nineteenth century tariffs were limited to five per cent, but over the period 1926 to 1933 China achieved full tariff autonomy and soon raised its duties to gain additional revenue, and also to protect its own industries and substitute local manufactures for foreign imports. For example, the duty on rubber-soled shoes remained at five per cent until 1931 when it was raised to 17 per cent and then to 30 per cent in 1933. Similar protectionist moves were made by neighbouring countries in an attempt to combat the world depression of the 1930s. The Philippines raised its tariff on rubber shoes from 25 per cent to 100 per cent in 1933. This escalation in tariff barriers affected Hong Kong's trade and economic prosperity in two ways: the entrepôt trade through Hong Kong was reduced since China was deliberately seeking to curtail foreign imports; and Hong Kong's domestic exports of manufactured goods to China were also affected. A number of factories were forced to close having lost their markets in China. The value of imports and exports passing through the harbour dropped by 40 per cent between 1931 and 1934. Hong Kong's economy was saved from ruin by the amazing growth in its exports of manufactured goods to empire markets. This was an unintended consequence of the decisions taken at Ottawa to erect trade barriers to exclude Japanese exports.\n\nPage 17\n\nII\n\nWhen the colonies of European settlement had advanced to internal self-government it was no longer politically possible for Britain to exercise control over their trade and tariff policies. The dominions wished to protect their infant industries against imported manufactures, including imports from Britain. At imperial conferences the dominion premiers offered to grant a preferential rate of duty to British goods and asked that Britain should reciprocate by granting a tariff preference to empire produce over foreign goods. Britain refused this offer and remained committed to free trade. The dominions then acted unilaterally to make Britain a beneficiary of their tariff policies. Canada was the first to grant tariff preferences to Britain in 1897, followed by South Africa, New Zealand and Australia. In 1907 the preferences granted to Britain by Canada were extended to the West Indian colonies, South Africa, New Zealand, India, Ceylon and the", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215281, "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": 58, "title": "RAS-2001", "content_text": "6\n\nStraits Settlements, but not to Hong Kong. The governor protested to the Colonial Office at Hong Kong's exclusion in 1907, 1910 and 1912 but the Canadian government refused to include Hong Kong within its preferential tariff on the grounds that goods from China might be shipped through Hong Kong's open port and fraudulently obtain the benefit of Canada's preferential tariff.\" So Hong Kong's exports of cement and refined sugar were taxed at the highest rate and soon lost their market in Canada. In 1912 a trade agreement was negotiated between Canada and the West Indian colonies whereby Canadian exports were granted preferential tariffs in return for Canadian preferences on Caribbean cane sugar, cocoa beans and lime juice. The West Indian colonies negotiated this trade agreement directly with Canada and the secretary of state for the colonies raised no objection. These preferences were increased by a new trade agreement in 1920 and were generalised to benefit goods from all empire sources.20 The Colonial Office invited all colonies and protectorates to consider the practicability of introducing preferential rates of duty for goods of imperial origin. But most of the colonial empire was prevented by international treaties from imposing discriminatory tariffs. Northern Rhodesia, Kenya and Uganda, being part of the Congo Basin, were forbidden to discriminate by the Convention of St. Germain (1919); Nigeria and the Gold Coast by the Anglo-French treaty of 1898; and Tanganyika, Togoland, Cameroons and Palestine were mandated territories of the League of Nations which prohibited discrimination. By 1932 the only colonies which were free to adopt imperial preference but had not done so were Somaliland, Ceylon, the Straits Settlements, Hong Kong and certain islands in the Pacific.\" Canada and New Zealand were the only dominions which granted any preferences to the colonial empire before 1932. Australia, South Africa, Newfoundland, Southern Rhodesia and India granted none.\n\nThe world trade depression which began in 1929 convinced British politicians that the liberal principles of free trade which had been followed for the past 70 years must be abandoned. The National government elected in 1931 quickly passed the Import Duties Act which imposed a general duty of 10 per cent ad valorem on all imports. Section 5 of the act granted an entire exemption from the general duty to imports from all colonies, protectorates and mandated territories, provided that at least 25 per cent of the value was derived from materials grown or produced or from work done within a part of the empire.\" Imports from the dominions and India were exempted from duty only until November pending the outcome of an Imperial Economic Conference.\" A circular despatch was sent by the Colonial Office to all colonies and protectorates drawing attention to the great advantages extended to the colonies by the Import Duties Act and inviting them to give similar preferences to United Kingdom manufactures", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215294, "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": 71, "title": "RAS-2001", "content_text": "19\n\nvery useful in the depression, and the factory would provide employment for 100 Africans.\" Hong Kong was also seen as a special case where the decline of the entrepôt trade with China justified the policy of fostering industrial development. After much discussion the only specific recommendation made by the committee was that when a protective tariff was granted an excise duty equivalent to the import duty should always be imposed. The final report of the committee was never published and apparently was never considered by the cabinet.\n\nSo the Colonial Office continued to vet proposals for new industries according to the guidelines laid down in the 1934 Report, that manufacturing should not be 'artificially encouraged'. Officials were concerned to safeguard colonial revenues at a time when most colonies were in financial difficulties as a result of the world depression. The Colonial Office insisted that budgets must be balanced, to avoid the need for a grant from the British government and the consequent Treasury control of the colony's finances. The Colonial Office had no money available in its own account to subsidise ingenious schemes, such as a project put forward by an entrepreneur from Trinidad to produce newsprint paper from bagasse and to power the factory with anhydrous alcohol distilled from sugar cane juice.70 Governors could apply for funds from the Colonial Development Advisory Committee which provided £36,500,000 for development assistance from 1929 to 1939. But this fund was originally set up to alleviate unemployment in Britain and no application for industrial development would be entertained which would be likely to compete with British industry.? Officials believed that by discouraging uneconomic industrial development they were acting in the best interests of the native inhabitants. An assistant secretary minuted, 'Manufacturing industry, which can be established in a colony only at the price of a monopoly protected by a high tariff, ends in producing a locally manufactured article which is too expensive for the primary agricultural producers to buy.' Governors were more suspicious of the motives of Colonial Office officials. The governor of Sierra Leone complained that any industrial project was approached from the standpoint that British trade interests must rank first, dominions' interests second and those of the colonies last. Perhaps the fairest summary of Colonial Office policy was made by a junior official: 'Generally speaking we do not want to encourage industrial development in the colonial empire, but we are reluctant to go so far as actually to prohibit it.'\"\n\nWhy then was it that Hong Kong was able to develop a flourishing export-oriented industry without any subsidy or assistance from the colonial government whatsoever when in all the other dependent territories the development of manufacturing industry was derisory, and the few factories that were established were heavily dependent on protective tariffs, special", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215295, "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": 72, "title": "RAS-2001", "content_text": "20\n\ntax incentives and other government assistance? Apart from its superb harbour Hong Kong had no natural advantages. Almost all the raw materials for industry had to be imported. The population (840,000 at the 1931 census) was wretchedly poor and could not provide the purchasing power to support large-scale industry. But Hong Kong was well-placed to export cheap manufactured goods to the vast market of China and the neighbouring countries of Asia where until the 1930s tariffs on imports were low. The world depression led China and other Asian countries to erect high tariff barriers which threatened to cripple Hong Kong's burgeoning industry. The colony was saved by the decisions taken at the Ottawa conference to adopt the policy of imperial preference. This handicapped its main competitor, Japan, by imposing high tariffs and later quotas designed to exclude Japanese manufactures from markets in the British empire. This created a vast imperial free trade area embracing Britain, its colonial territories and New Zealand. Traders and businessmen in the African or Caribbean colonies could have seized the opportunity to exploit it, but it was only the energetic and adaptable Chinese entrepreneurs of Hong Kong who did so. The decisions taken at Ottawa which were designed to help industry in the dominions gave an unintended boost to Chinese factory owners in the back streets of Kowloon.\n\nUniversity of Hong Kong\n\nNOTES\n\n1. M. Havinden and D. Meredith, Colonialism and Development: Britain and its tropical colonies, 1850-1960 (London, 1993), 1. D.K. Fieldhouse, Colonialism 1870-1945: An Introduction (London, 1981), 51–108. David Meredith, \"The British Government and Colonial Economic Policy 1919-1939', Economic History Review, 28 (1975), 484-99. Louis Nthenda, 'From Trade to Manufacture: Britain's Dilemma in the Face of Colonial Industrialization 1931-1938', Journal of Social Sciences, 1 (1972, University of Malawi), 95-112.\n\n2. Leo Amery in 1926, quoted by Meredith, 495.\n\n3. Meredith, 494. The only supporting evidence for this theory in the Colonial Office files is a letter from the governor of Uganda, 22 Dec. 1934, who warned that any large-scale industrial development which caused rural depopulation would result in a serious increase in sleeping sickness. CO323/1298/10, Public Record Office, London (PRO).\n\n4. See for example J. Riedel, The Industrialization of Hong Kong (Tubingen, 1974), 5-6; F. Welsh, A History of Hong Kong (London, 1993), 451; D. Lethbridge, The Business Environment in Hong Kong (Hong Kong, 1980), 1–2. A contrary view is given by Frank Leeming, \"The Earlier Industrialization of Hong Kong', Modern Asian Studies, 9 (1956), 337-42, who cites evidence from Hong Kong and Macao Business Classified Directory (1940, in Chinese).\n\n5. Minute by G.L.M. Clauson, 7 Nov. 1933, CO323/1232/8. Memoranda and Draft Report of Interdepartmental Committee 1937, CO852/164/6 and T160/763/F14811/1 and 2, PRO.\n\n6. According to D.J. Morgan, The Origins of British Aid Policy 1924-1945 (New Jersey, 1979), 9, the proportion of general revenue in the colonies derived from customs duties in 1933 was:", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215296, "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": 73, "title": "RAS-2001", "content_text": "21\n\nKenya 33 per cent, Nigeria 58 per cent, Ceylon 52 per cent, Jamaica 60 per cent.\n\n7. For example Nyasaland in 1929 raised the duty on imported soap from 5 shillings to 7 shillings to protect a newly established factory. In 1931 the duty was increased to 8 shillings a cwt. The Colonial Office first heard of these increases in 1932 when Unilever complained. Memo IDC(37)No.7, T160/763/F14811/2.\n\n8. CO137/780. Georgina Waylen, 'Colonial Policy towards industrialisation between the wars: the case of Jamaica', Manchester Papers in Politics (University of Manchester, Nov. 1987, mimeo).\n\n9. In 1931 a local company proposed to establish a cement factory in Kenya which required a protective tariff and a guarantee that a very high anti-dumping duty would be imposed on Japanese cement which dominated the market. The Colonial Office refused the request for protection on the advice of the Board of Trade because the local factory if successful would take over government orders, depriving British cement manufacturers of the last remnant of the market. CO533/417/18. In 1933 the Colonial Office rejected a scheme to erect a cotton spinning and weaving factory in East Africa which required a capital subscription of £500,000 from the governments of Kenya, Uganda and Tanganyika. IDC(37)No.8, T160/763/F14811/2. A proposal for a soap factory in the Windward Islands was disallowed because it involved the colony being given a preference over the UK in other colonies from which the copra was to be exported. IDC(37)No.7, T160/763/F14811/2.\n\n10. Hong Kong Blue Book 1846 (PRO, CO133/3), 226, stated ‘A large number of Chinese are employed in their respective shops and houses in the exercise of industrial trades and manufactures and there are scarcely any ordinary wants of the inhabitants which do not meet with a ready supply within the town.'\n\n11. These dates are taken from the Return of Manufactures, Mines and Factories in the Blue Books compiled every year for submission to the Colonial Office. Not all the manufacturing enterprises were successful: the cotton spinning factory closed in 1914 and removed its machinery to Shanghai. But new manufacturing ventures soon took their place. Sir William Robinson (governor 1891-98) in his first address to the legislative council spoke of the advantages that would accrue from a further encouragement of local industries. 'The community may rely upon my aid and assistance in fostering in every legitimate way the development of such enterprises.' Hong Kong Legislative Council Debates, 25 Jan. 1892, 97. This was done by selling public land by private treaty at a discount for industrial development, H.K. LegCo. Deb., 4 Dec. 1893, 1–2.\n\n12. CO129/379, 377-384 and 392-755.\n\n13. Hong Kong Blue Book 1930. Blue Book 1932. The largest factory was that of the Green Island Cement Company which could employ 1,470 men when working at full capacity.\n\n14. Statistics on imports and exports were first collected in 1918. Publication was discontinued in 1925 and resumed in 1931, but no distinction was made between re-exports and domestic exports until 1959. Estimates of gross domestic product were not made by government statisticians until 1961. Domestic exports have been calculated from Hong Kong Trade Returns 1932, compiled by the Imports and Exports Department (Hong Kong, 1933), CO133/103, by identifying all categories where exports exceeded imports, on the assumption that the surplus must represent Hong Kong domestic production. This calculation certainly understates local production since it does not take account of manufactures consumed locally. Also the trade figures do not include the very large volume of goods smuggled into China to avoid payment of customs duty.\n\n15. Memorandum in Clementi to Cunliffe-Lister, 20 Sept. 1933, CO323/1232.\n\n16. Report of the Commission appointed by the Governor to Enquire into the Causes and Effects of the Present Trade Depression in Hong Kong, February 1935 (Hong Kong, 1935), 88-89, CO129/554/5.\n\n17. Trade Depression Report, 75.\n\n18. W.K. Hancock, Survey of British Commonwealth Affairs Vol II, Problems of Economic Policy 1918-1939, Part 1 (Oxford, 1940), 87.\n\n19. CO129/344. CO129/370. CO129/392.\n\n20. F. V. Meyer, British Colonies in World Trade (Oxford, 1948), 9–11, 18–19.\n\n21. Hancock, 125. Meyer, 10-11.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g", "rank": 0 } ]