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THE CHINA COASTERS

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China Navigation Company, the Indo-China Steam Navigation Company, and to a lesser extent to ships of some smaller British companies such as the Douglas Steam Navigation Company and the Hong Kong, Canton and Macao Steamboat Company. The 'outside' ships belonged to a disparate group of owners, British and Chinese, in both Hong Kong and Shanghai; and officers on the 'regular' ships considered themselves superior to those on the 'outside' ships. The latter were usually old ships which had passed their best days in the service of the regular companies. Some maintained a respectable standard of seaworthiness and seamanship, but many had a bad reputation in this respect. British masters and chief engineers were carried mainly to satisfy the requirements of the classification and insurance societies. Like the ships themselves, many officers on the outside ships had formerly served on the regular ships.

By the First World War, at least so far as the regular companies were concerned, China coast shipping had become divided into a number of liner services, for each of which a particular type of coaster had been designed. The China Navigation Company was then the largest company, and its principal trades were the Yangtse and Tientsin trades based on Shanghai, the interport trade between Hong Kong and Shanghai which also served the intermediate ports, and the Singapore and Bangkok emigrant trades and the Canton River trade based on Hong Kong. The Indo-China and the China Merchants Steam Navigation Companies were similarly organised, but neither was so vitally concerned with the emigrant trades in the south; and the Indo-China Steam Navigation Company's largest ships operated their long-established service between Calcutta, Singapore, Hong Kong, Shanghai, and Japan.

One important trade which was seasonal, did not fit into this framework. This was the beancake trade between Manchuria and South China, in which the China Navigation Company was predominant. Newchwang was the main export port, and most of the trade was concentrated in the few months of spring after the Newchwang River was opened to navigation, and the few months of autumn before it was closed by ice. When the China Navigation Company first entered the beancake trade in the 1870's, they employed specially designed coasters, but this practice was gradually discontinued. By the early 1900's, by which time the
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HONG KONG CADETS, 1862 - 1941

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where the need was pressing; for often the courts could not sit at all for want of interpreters and as frequently had to adjourn owing to incorrect interpretation. Sir Hercules' plan was that 'the cadets should be under 20 years of age; that they should be chosen from any of the Colleges, and not from King's College alone, as at present in the consular service.........on arriving in China, they would have teachers provided for them; when competent, as they might be in three years.........they should be considered preferable (after a further two years of experience in administration) to any office in the Civil Service that did not involve a professional training." The Council liked the scheme and the Secretary of State gave his approval. Regulations governing the cadetships were then published in the Government Gazette on 12 October 1861. The Regulations stipulated that 'at the end of two years' study or as soon afterwards as they shall be declared qualified by a Board of Competent Examiners, the first three Cadets shall be appointed Government Interpreters, and be employed in such of the departments as may require their services (and that) after three years' service they will be considered eligible by the Secretary of State for promotion to the higher offices in the Civil Service of Hong Kong. As it turned out, the first three cadets never held the position of interpreter. They were in such demand and were promoted so swiftly to substantive posts that their promotion was a de facto violation of the published regulations.

The first three cadets were appointed in 1862 and arrived in Hong Kong late that year. They were M. S. Tonnochy,12 W. M. Deane13 and Cecil Clementi Smith.14 There were further appointments in 1865 — Alfred Lister,15 James Russell,16 and R. G. Starkey, but the last resigned within a year and joined the North China Insurance Company. H. E. Wodehouse17 was appointed in 1867 and J. H. Stewart Lockhart18 in 1879, after an interregnum of 12 years during which the scheme was in abeyance. Only 14 cadets were appointed during the rest of the century, among them Francis Henry May19 (1881), Reginald Fleming Johnston20 (1898), and Cecil Clementi (1899), all of whom were to distinguish themselves at a later date.

The early cadets had meteoric careers. They all received acting posts before their period of study was up. Smith became
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CARL T. SMITH

imposture and contemptible impudence". He later was part of Chan Lai Tau's ambassadorial staff at Washington, and upon his return to China in 1882, he promoted the organization of the Canton and Hong Kong Telegraph Company.38

Associated with Ho Shan Chee in the Telegraph Company was a kinsman, Ho Kwan Shan (何崑珊) alias Ho Amei (何阿美),†Œ4 the Secretary of the On Tai Insurance Company in Hong Kong. Ho Kwan Shan had been educated at Dr. Legge's Anglo-Chinese College in Hong Kong, being a schoolmate of the sons of Ho Asun. Upon completing his education, Ho Kwan Shan joined his elder brother, Ho Low Yuk (何陸玉) in Australia in 1858. From Australia in 1865 he went to New Zealand to arrange for the importation of the first Chinese laborers to New Zealand. Returning to Australia, he served for a time as interpreter at Ballarat, Victoria. In 1868 he came back to Hong Kong. Here he became a clerk in the Registrar General's Office. Later he became interested in developing mines on Lan Tau Island as well as at other places in Kwang Tung Province.39

The most prominent of the Ho clan, however, was the family of Ho Tsun Shin (何遵善) or as he was better known in Christian circles, Ho Fuk Tong (何福堂).† His father had been a block cutter for the press of the Anglo-Chinese College at Malacca. Ho Fuk Tong joined him there and became a student at the College. He showed scholastic aptitude and for a time accompanied the son of the senior missionary at the Malacca Station to India for advanced study. Upon the arrival of the Rev. James Legge at the Mission, a close bond was established between the two young men. Ho Fuk Tong was his junior by three years. When Legge removed to Hong Kong in 1843, Ho Fuk Tong accompanied him and was ordained as the Chinese pastor of the London Missionary Society congregation in 1846. He continued as a faithful minister of the congregation (now Hop Yat Church) until his death in 1871. He was conscientious and faithful in his service to the church, but he was also very successful as a financier. After his death there were numerous Court suits over the interpretation of his will and the administration of his estate. Some of the difficulties arose because Ho Fuk Tong held his property under various aliases. In one of the cases a barrister gives his opinion why Ho Fuk Tong followed this procedure:
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58

officials and gentry-merchants (shen-shang) are [agents]. There is no need for [professional] agents.

We 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.

In 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.

Throughout 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

Interested 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
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CARL T. SMITH

THE HONG KONG AMATEUR DRAMATIC CLUB AND ITS PREDECESSORS

THE PROLOGUE

To set the mood for an article on Amateur Dramatics in Hong Kong, I quote a prologue to the performance of "the screaming farce", 'I've Written to Brown' presented on 21 April 1871 by the Hong Kong Amateurs.

Ladies and Gentlemen, the pleasing task

Is mine tonight your kindly smiles to ask,

For those who now behind the curtain wait,

With biding, anxious hearts to learn their fate.

So let your verdict generous be, the while

We strive a pleasant hour to beguile.

But who can now a pleasant hour boast,

With thirteen steamers daily up the coast

Sharebrokers pressing one to sell or buy

With telegrams cach minute from Shanghai

With stern Welsh witnesses, who'd rather brook

A Judge's ire than kiss a dirty book,

And, by their word prepared to stand or fall

Say they'll be if they will swear at all!

With piece goods market all to pieces gone,

Through sales of damaged shirtings ex the Don,

And, piling agony, beyond endurance

With Oily Phantom's new Chinese Insurance;†

Where, of our interests most august protectors,

They've such a crushing army of Directors!

Since last we met, though some enlivening rays

Of social light have cheered our nights and days,

A quiet Picnic to Victoria Peak

Photos in High Life, taken once a week

†The American firm of Olyphant and Company organized in 1871 at Hong Kong the Chinese Insurance Company. It was the first insurance company on the China coast to cater especially to Chinese shippers and merchants. Its Board was composed of both Chinese and foreigners.
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after three years of legal experience, I resumed my education at the local university. In the meantime I had lost close contact with my former classmates, but fortunately met Benjamin Bung Fong Wong, born 13 April, 1902. He was a graduate of the University of Nebraska in electrical engineering and was working for a brokerage firm to help support his parents and younger siblings because of the illness of his father. He was very handsome, modest, thoughtful and kind, and I felt that I was the envy of my friends when we became engaged.

Helen and I entered the university the same year, but we were never in the same class. Besides studying under Mrs. Conway, I took Trigonometry and Calculus under Mr. Webster and would probably have flunked had I not had some help from Sugao Ouchi, who later studied dentistry at the University of Nebraska while I was there. Dr. Wrenshall, my Chemistry teacher, was from a wealthy oil family in Pennsylvania and had the reputation of being attractive to some of the Oriental girls. Although credit for the discovery of Chaulmoogra Oil for the treatment of leprosy was given to his superior, many felt Dr. Wrenshall did the research. Mrs. Hormann was my German instructor. Among her students was the future Tarzan of movie fame, Buster Crabbe. He was also a very good swimmer. A newcomer to the university was Dr. Radir, who advised us in his Zoology class to be sincere and true to our goals. He made such a good impression on me that I could not understand why he committed suicide. These were some of the highlights of my first year of college.

At the suggestion of Bung Fong, I transferred to the University of Nebraska in 1929 and worked as a student assistant to Ralph E. Johnson, for whom he had previously worked. This arrangement afforded me free room and board, plus two dollars a week during the school year and eight dollars during summer vacation. As the tuition was only twenty-five dollars a semester, I was able to go through college on my small earnings, my savings and whatever I had inherited from Father. Mr. Johnson was an officer of an insurance company, The Woodsmen, and was socially prominent in Lincoln. Mrs. Johnson, of German extraction, was born and raised in Philadelphia and was an accomplished pianist and singer. She had such a strong and interesting personality that people were attracted to her, some admiring and some disliking her. To me, she was a friend rather than an employer. She instilled in me a sense
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it to recover. Gilmans was taken over by Duncar, Paterson of Perth, Western Australia, in 1917, and converted into a private limited company incorporated in Hong Kong. It suffered, however, during the depression in the 1930s, although the backing of the Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank helped it to expand and prosper especially up to the Japanese invasion in 1941.

Gibb Livingston

Gibb Livingston, which like Gilmans may be seen as a smaller yet similar version of Dodwells, is the second oldest (after Jardines) trading firm in Hong Kong. It was founded by two Scotsmen, Thomas Augustus Gibb and William Potter Livingston, in Canton, in 1836. There it occupied one building which served as an office, a warehouse, and a residence. The firm imported English cottons and woollens and exported tea and silk. Silver bullion was used as payment. The two founders soon started to diversify into such fields as shirtings, velveteen, leather, and tin plate, and acted as agents for a large number of sailing ships. At an early date, four Gibbs worked in the firm. Branches were opened in Hong Kong (1841), Amoy, and Shanghai. In addition to the import-export trade, Gibb Livingston acted as agents for Ben Line steamships, although, unlike Dodwells, it also acquired its own tea clippers. Then, in 1899, it purchased a fleet of steamers which sailed as the Gibb Line.

Gibb Livingston is said to have diversified earlier and more successfully than Gilmans. By 1908, it was one of the most important business houses in Hong Kong. Here, as in Shanghai, it specialised in shipping, and, later, in insurance. At the turn of the century, it had interests in Hong Kong Electric Company, Shanghai Land Investment Company, and a number of other firms. It also branched out into engineering and manufacturing. In 1921, Gibb Livingston was acquired by Gray, David and Company.

Jardine's and Swire's are by no means the only old British firms in the Far East. Dodwell's, Gilmans, and Gibb Livingston have also been trading here for many years, although now all three are within the Inchcape Group which was formed as recently as 1958.

Caldbeck, Macgregor and Company

A fourth firm in the Inchcape fold, Caldbeck, Macgregor and Company
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Bank Limited', partly to remove the impression, prevalent at the time, that it was an Indian, and not a British, bank. In the same year, a share exchange took place with the Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation for the entire share capital of Mercantile.

In 1967 in Hong Kong, the 'Disturbances' (spill overs of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution in the People's Republic) resulted in a flight of capital which reduced deposits in banks fortunately only temporarily. The following year, as a number of members served on both the London Committee of the Hong Kong Bank and Mercantile's counterpart, it was decided to disband the London Committee of 'Mercantile'. Finally, the full amalgamation of the Hong Kong Bank and Mercantile took place in 1982-3.

Insurance

In the early days of trading in Canton insurance posed something of a problem for the small European community. Members formed a local underwriting syndicate (on the Calcutta pattern) to provide facilities for marine insurance. The Canton Insurance Office was established in 1804 (other records say 1805), and for the first 30 years of its existence it was managed alternately by Jardine's and Dent and Company, changing every three years. A great deal of trust appears to have existed between the Chinese hong merchants and the European traders, and a document shows that Chinqua, a Chinese businessman, promised to make good any loss suffered by a merchant in France, to whom he was shipping tea, without having to prove loss by the return of goods.

The Union Insurance Society of Canton was established in Canton in 1835, by a number of far-sighted British Merchants under the guidance of Dent and Company. After Dent's went into liquidation, in 1864, Union Insurance became a separate entity. It had already moved its headquarters to Hong Kong in 1842, which is still its home even though it has offices and representatives in many cities in the Far East and agencies throughout the world.

In 1861, Hong Kong had 73 merchant houses and 18 of these acted as agents for insurance companies. Jardine's has retained its early interest in insurance, and, in 1868, when the Hong Kong Insurance Company was formed, it became the agent. This, a century
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later, made up part of the Lombard Insurance Company.

Hong Kong Hotel Company

The Company started in 1866, and the Hong Kong Hotel opened in 1867 on the site of the defunct Dent and Company's offices on the then waterfront at Queen's Road Central. In 1893, in addition to the 'Hong Kong', other leading hotels included 'Windsor' and 'Victoria', in Central, and 'Mount Austin' and 'Peak' hotels, both on the Peak.

The Professions

As well as traders, a few British professionals set up practices in Hong Kong in the last century. Victor Hobart Deacon, for example, arrived in the Colony in 1880 to join a firm of lawyers that was already 30 years old. In the 1840s, the nearest lawyer was said to be in Calcutta.

At about the same time there were a number of people who described themselves as architects, but they were probably only draughtsmen. One such man was named Langer, who arrived in 1842 to supervise the erection of buildings for Jardine's. He was stricken with fever after only working for two months. The civilian architects produced nothing of the calibre of the military architects who designed such structures as Murray House and Headquarters House.

Wilson and Salway, architects and engineers, were established in 1872; and Leigh and Orange, although not the first, was among the early practices to be set up. This latter firm dates back to 1874, under the name of Sharp and Danby who were engineers, and in 1894 it became Leigh and Orange. The founding fathers were ex-Public Works Department employees. The Ohel Leah synagogue in Robinson Road, completed in 1902, is one of their buildings, as were the old Queen's Building and the old Prince's Building, both completed in Central in 1904.

Other structures, since demolished, were the entire premises of the Hong Kong and Whampoa Dock Company, at Hung Hom, and the wharves and premises of the Hong Kong and Kowloon Wharf
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sons, John, Lancelot and Wilkinson, were running the firm from Canton and Macau, in the 1820s, it was very successful, and, later, it was Jardine's main rival.

The company continued to do well for a number of years but it failed in 1867 at the time of an economic recession. Some believe that Swire's, with their ruthless trading tactics, helped to destroy Dent's although it is not known how much truth there is in this. Another firm that failed about the same time was the Agra and Masterman Bank.

There are many other once successful organisations that fell by the wayside. Names like Burd; Holliday and Wise; Humphreys; Lyall and Still; Murrow; and Turner; are no longer with us. Bard, in his 1988 report, lists 37 enterprises with English sounding names (some could have been American) of which, although listed in directories between 1845 and 1900, little is known.

BOOKS AND JOURNALS

SOURCES

Unless stated otherwise the following books, journals, brochures, leaflets, magazines, reports, newspapers, supplements, periodicals and letters were published or drafted in Hong Kong,

Adventures and Perils, The First Hundred and Fifty Years of Union Insurance Society of Canton Ltd

Bard, Solomon, In Search of the Past: A Guide to the Antiquities of Hong Kong (1988)

Boulnois, L., The Silk Road (London, 1966)

Braga, J.M., Hong Kong Business Symposium (1957)

Briggs, Tom and Colin Crisswell, Hong Kong: the Vanishing City (1977)

Briggs, Tom and Colin Crisswell, Hong Kong: the Vanishing City, Vol. II (1978)

Burgoyne, J., Far Eastern Commercial and Industrial Activities (1924)

Cameron, Nigel, Power (1982)

Cameron, Nigel, The Milky Way: The History of Dairy Farm (1986)

Chambers, Gillian, Super Traders, The Story of Trade Development in Hong Kong (1989)

Coates, Austin, A Mountain of Light (1977)

Coates, Austin, Quick Tidings of Hong Kong (1990)

Coates, Austin, Whampoa: Ships on the Shore (1980)

Collis, Maurice, Wayfoong (London, 1965)

Crisswell, Colin N., The Taipans, Hong Kong's Merchant Princes (1981).

Endacott, G.B., A History of Hong Kong (1958)

Gillingham, Paul. At the Peak, Hong Kong between the Wars (1983)

Graham, John, The Lowe Bingham Story (1920-1977)

Historical and Statistical Abstracts of Hong Kong 1841-1940

Hong Kong Going and Gone, Western Victoria (Royal Asiatic Society, Hong Kong Branch) (1980)

Hong Kong (Government year books, various)
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The Swire Group

Swire News (various)

Union Corner, (booklet of Union Insurance Society of Canton Ltd.) Watson's Calendar 1897

REPORTS, PAPERS AND FACT SHEETS

Bard, S.M., Foreign Trade and Traders in Early British Hong Kong (1988) Hong Kong: The Facts (various Government fact sheets)

Leeds, P.F., The Development of Public Transport in Hong Kong

Review (November 1974)

NEWSPAPERS, SUPPLEMENTS AND PERIODICALS

An Historical

Art catalogue, excerpts mentioning the Watson family (undated, details unknown) The Asia Magazine

Asian Finance

Building Journal

Hong Kong, Ire (no. 2 Feb. 1990)

Hong Kong Standard (various)

*A New Era for Swire Travel, Hong Kong Standard Special Publication (31 October 1974)

'New Lane Crawford House', Souvenir Magazine to Commemorate the Opening of New Lane Crawford House, Hong Kong Standard/Sing Tao Jih Pao (June 1977) Newspaper clippings, Hong Kong Public Records (various)

South China Morning Post (various)

South China Morning Post 75 Years (1978)

'139 Years of Temptation', South China Morning Post Supplement (15 March 1989)

LETTERS TO THE AUTHOR

From: Mr Rupert S.C. Li (Swindon Book Company)

The Royal Society, London

Standard Chartered Bank
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ports. He received a lot of honours from many countries including a baronetcy and other decorations from Britain and China. He was said to have been a “leading expert in insurance, shipping and the import and export business,” and also "director of eighteen of the leading companies in Hong Kong and Shanghai, chairman and largest shareholder of a number of them." We know little of the details of his investments in the modern business in Hong Kong, Canton, or Shanghai, but we understand that he had an investment in some guandu-shangban enterprises and had close relations with Chinese officials. He was probably a multimillionaire by the turn of the century. It was known that when he worked in Jardines, he had been the manager of Jardine's affiliates, the Hong Kong Fire Insurance Co., Ltd. and the Canton Insurance Co., Ltd. He had invested in refined and raw sugar in Shanghai and most of the Yangzi and northern ports of China. He owned a lot of landed properties in Hong Kong, Macau, Shanghai, Tsingtao (Qingdao), and London. He was a director of Humphreys Estate and Finance Co. Ltd., Hong Kong Reclamation Co., Ltd., and Hong Kong Hotel Co., Ltd. at the end of the nineteenth century.

Law Pak Sheung was the first comprador to the Hongkong and Shanghai Bank when it opened in 1865, and remained the chief comprador until his death in 1877. Law came from the port of Whampoa in Canton. His life in Hong Kong proved very successful. He was an organising director of the Tung Wah Hospital from 1869 to 1871. It became the leading Chinese charitable institution in Hong Kong.

Page 10

Law died in 1877. He had interests in at least five businesses as mentioned in his will. He might also have had other business interests which were in the name of his sons or other relatives. The five firms mentioned in the will were a ship chartering office, a store, a gold dealer's shop, a native bank, and a general trading company. These he left to his third son Lo Hok Pang (Luo Hepeng), who succeeded him as comprador. In 1879, two years after the death of Law Pak Sheung, his son was said to have had connections with Chinese banks and had invested in a number of firms. He was regarded as one of the leading businessmen in the Chinese community; this was in addition to his position as a comprador. Law might also have had business interests in Canton or elsewhere which were not mentioned in his Hong Kong will. The testator's shares in insurance companies and a Chinese newspaper are signs of one who has moved away from strictly Chinese business enterprises, though the insurance shares were not large, but these were
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As Table 4 shows, the largest amount of Xu's investment was real property. Xu was said to have started the business in real property when his boss E. Webb advised him to do so before Xu retired from Dent & Co. in 1868. He told Xu that a boom in landed properties in Shanghai would come within a few years as Shanghai was developing and its population was expanding. Xu did more than Webb said; he bought a lot of land and built a number of houses from which he could derive a rental income of about 122,980 taels per year. Xu was quite confident he could derive a large amount of profit even though he had to borrow money at a high rate of interest. Though Xu did plan to share his business with other persons by setting up a new firm named the Baoyuanxiang Real Property Co. with a subscribed capital of four million taels, his plan was unfortunately interrupted when he recognized it was not easy to raise sufficient capital in Shanghai. Even worse, his only partner, Boyd & Co. in England, failed to solicit the capital and suddenly withdrew from partnership. Therefore, he became the sole proprietor liable to all the debts of this company. In 1883, he had accumulated a loan of 2,522,237 taels from twenty-two native banks. Unfortunately, in 1883, Shanghai experienced a financial crisis and foreign banks and the Shenxi bankers withdrew financial credits from the native banks in Shanghai. At a time when real properties were declining in price, Xu was forced to repay debts. He finally became bankrupt. As Xu estimated, due to the recovery from depression in Shanghai after the crisis, the total value of his property in 1883 was now valued at about eighteen million taels. He complained he had lost a million taels.

Concerning Xu's investment in modern enterprises, it is to be noted that he had been active only after his failure in the speculation of landed property in 1883. Table 5 shows Xu's business interests were not only confined to Shanghai but also other parts of China, including Hong Kong. The amount shown in this table is mainly based on Xu's autobiography. It is interesting that in stating his total investment, he had omitted the amount of investment in foreign enterprises and also partnership in the native banks. Perhaps he thought they were not in the category of modern Chinese enterprises. Of his investment in modern Chinese enterprises, the biggest amount was in steam navigation, mines, industrial manufactories, insurance, and land reclamation.43

Tang Tingshu (1832-1892)

As has been described before, Tang Tingshu was born in Zhongshan
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Item

Table 5

Xu Run's Investment in Modern Enterprises

  
    Company
    Amount (T)
    %
    Place
  
  
    China Merchants' Steam Navigation Co
    480,000
    33.44
    Shanghai
  
  
    Yun Wo Insurance Co.
    100,000
    
    Shanghai
  
  
    Chi Wo Insurance Co.
    50,000
    10 45
    Shanghai
  
  
    Kaiping Coal Mines
    150,000
    
    Tianjin
  
  
    Guichi Coal Mines
    100,000
    
    Anhui
  
  
    Sanshan Silver Mines
    60,000
    
    Rehe
  
  
    Pingchuan Copper Mines
    60,000
    
    
  
  
    Jinzhou Mines
    50,000
    
    
  
  
    Other Mines
    10,000
    29 96
    
  
  
    Shanghai Cotton Mill
    50,000
    
    Shanghai
  
  
    Shang Jinglun Cotton Mill
    170,000
    
    Shanghai
  
  
    Craseman & Hagen's Filanda (Yantai Saosi Ju)
    10,200
    
    Yantai
  
  
    Paper Manufactury
    20,000
    
    Shanghai
  
  
    Chinese Glass Works Co.
    30,000
    
    Shanghai
  
  
    Shanghai Dairy Farm Co.
    30,000
    
    Shanghai
  
  
    Hong Kong Liyuan Sugar Refinery
    30,000
    
    Hong Kong
  
  
    Tianyi Land Reclamation Co
    5,000
    
    Jinzhou
  
  
    Taggu Cultivation Co.
    30,000
    2.44
    Tianjin
  
  
    Zhongshan Tongyi Ranyuan Cultivation Co
    1,000($)
    
    Guangdong
  
  
    Total
    1,435,200
    99.99
    
  

(+$1,000)*

* Mexican dollars have not been added in the total or calculated in the percentage

Source: Xu Run, Qing Xu Yuzhi Xiansheng Run Zixu Nianpu.

but educated in Hong Kong. He first came to Shanghai as an interpreter in the Chinese Maritime Customs in 1859. It is believed that he was introduced by an officer named Horatio Nelson Lay whom Tang had met in Hong Kong. Tang was recruited as a comprador by the Jardine, Matheson & Co. in 1863 but he left in 1872. During the decade of his compradorial career, he invested, planned, organized and assisted in the sale of stocks of a number of enterprises. These enterprises were called modern because they had adopted a new form of ownership, organization and management. Moreover, some of them such as steam navigation and insurance companies were the first to take place in China. Unlike Xu

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29

The term 'comprador' in Chinese history is quite argumentative. In late Qing times it referred to a commercial broker, an agent and employee of a foreign firm. With the rise of Chinese nationalism in the Republican period, the meaning was gradually expanded beyond its original sense to include politics in a negative meaning or collaboration with foreigners of serving interest of imperialists. In Chinese Marxist scholarship, comprador has taken on a political meaning. See Jung-fang Tsai (1981), The Predicament of the Comprador Ideologists, pp. 191-7. However, economic historians such as Wang Jingyu, realizing the role of Chinese merchants in the economic development of the nineteenth century, said they included compradors who had large investment in modern enterprises, been active in huashang fugu huodong as well as buying capital in from foreign aggressive enterprises. See Wang (1965), Shijiu shiji waiguo qinhua qiye zhong de huashang fugu yundong (The Activities of Chinese Merchants to Buy Capital-Shares from the Foreign Aggressive Enterprises in China During the Late Nineteenth Century) and (1983b) Shiji xifang ziben zhuyi dui Zhongguo de jingji qinlue (The Economic Invasion of Western Capitalism on China in Nineteenth Century), pp. 483-526.

10 Xu Run, Qing Xu Yuzhi xiansheng Run zixu nianpu, pp. 4-5.

31

As Xu himself stated, the estimate value of this amount after discount should be 3,219,470 taels. See ibid, p. 68.

17 Other investments, though the amounts are uncertain, can also be ascertained from his autobiography. They are: a pier company at Guangdong, a grocery at Shanghai; also silk cloth shop, tea shop, partnership in Huya'an Insurance Co., Huaxing Insurance Co., Difeng Co., Shanghai Land Investment Co., Ltd., Shanghai Tramway Co., Xunhuan Newspaper in Hong Kong, a water works, and Tongyi cultivation company in Guangdong. See Qing Xu Yuzhi xiansheng Run zixu nianpu, preface.

33

See Liu Kwang-ching (1962), Anglo-American Steamship Rivalry in China, 1862-1874, p. 155.

14

See Hao (1970a), p. 100. As Xia Dongyuan found that in the Zheng's zhushu (will) written in 1914, Zheng regarded 4,088 taels the interest from share-stocks as one of his main sources of income. See Xia (1985b), p. 268.

35 See Zheng Guanying, Zhi Li Zhaomin Fangbo lun zhuang Lundun Hongyuan Gongsi (Letter addressed to Li Zhaomin in discussing the founding of Hongyuan Company in London), in Xia Dongyuan (1988a), pp. 507-3; Wu Chang-chuan (1974), pp. 86-8.

36 As Wang Shui has concluded from various sources, during 1840 to 1894 Chinese compradors had accumulated a total income of about half a billion taels, see Wang (1983), Qingdai maiban shouru de guji jiqi shiyong fangshi (An Assessment of Compradors' Income and Its Spending Ways in Qing Dynasty), pp. 298-307.

37 See Thomas G. Rawski (1970), Chinese Dominance of Treaty Port Commerce and its Implications, 1860-1875, pp. 451-73.
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Jan, 1869). Ferdinand Nissen retired in 1876 because of ill-health (DP 2 Jan. 1877). Hans Christian Heinrich Hoppius — usually known as Heinrich 

died in Hong Kong on 12 December 1894 aged fifty-four. He had arrived in Hong Kong in 1862 at the age of twenty-one. He had been the President of the German Club since its establishment (DP 13 Dec. 1894). He was apparently unmarried as he mentions neither wife nor children in 

his will. 

When Mr. Joost left the firm in 1873 two new partners were admitted, Albert Gultzow and Paul Gerhard Hubbe (DP 28 Jan. 1874). Mr. Gultzow is not on the Hong Kong jury list after 1885. Mr. Hubbe retired from the firm in 1886 (DP 2 Mar. 1887). Nicolaus August Siebs joined the firm in 1881 (DP 2 Jan. 1882, though the original text refers to 1877, it is likely to be a typo or OCR error as the context suggests a later date). The branch at Canton was closed for some years but reopened in 1877 (ibid). The business of the Foochow branch was transferred to Gustav Siemssen in 1888 for him to continue in his own name (DP 30 Jan. 1888). 

At the time of liquidation in 1914 the partners were A. Fuchs in Hamburg, O. Stuckmeyer in Shanghai, H.A. Siebs in Hong Kong, E. Sibert in Hankow and E. Hoeft in Tsingtau. 

The firm was operating a coastal steamer service of three vessels in 1872. Within twenty years the firm's shipping interests had expanded to the China Coast Navigation Co, the German Steamship Co. of Hamburg and the Kingsin Line. In 1893 the firm represented some twenty insurance companies, most of them were German-based. 

Arnhold, Karberg and Co, 

Arnhold, Karberg and Co. was established in September 1866 by Jacob Arnhold, Peter Karberg, and Alexander Levysohn. The new company was a reorganisation of the former Oxford and Co. which in turn was the reorganised firm of L.E. Lebert and Oxford of Canton. The following notice was published in a Hong Kong newspaper: "Interest of L.E. Lebert of Hamburg ceased 4 December last [1857] in L.E. Lebert and Oxford of Canton, from this date business will be carried on as Oxford and Co. A. Bourjau and C.A. Hubener are authorized to sign. Macao, 12 February 1858," (FC 18 Mar. 1858). Messrs. Bourjau and Hubener later opened a business under their own names. In June 1865 Joseph Oxford, Henry Danziger, Jacob Arnhold, and Alexander Cosman Levysohn, trading under
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The reply he received from the Registrar-General stated that "no sound men of business in Hong Kong were connected with the scheme." Ending his despatch, the Governor commented that the "principal promoter [of the company] was Li Yutang, whose name was enough to damn... the Chinese Firms were likely to subscribe only because they dare not refuse.”

The Governor's comment might have some truth. Li Yutang in years to come would be named the "Insurance King" (保險大王) of South China. In an interview with Mr. Li's grandson, I was told how Li Yutang multiplied his wealth in these years. Mr. Li said "my grandfather converted to Christianity.” I doubt that the asset of Li Yutang in insurance business was his religion or his entrepreneurship. His greatest asset, I suspect was his political influence, or other's belief that he was politically influential.

To support this speculation I cite the following event. As the attempts to establish a joint-stock company failed, the Siyi men attempted to organize all the regional chambers of commerce in the colony into a “Overseas Chinese Society for the Promotion of Patriotic Subscriptions". The Governor observed that:

the circulation [of Canton currency, which had fallen to 30% of its face value] is maintained here (in Hong Kong), in spite of its general unpopularity ... not only by official pressure from Canton but also by means of intimidation practiced by so-called patriotic associations & by the influential persons who are financially interested.

These "influential persons who [were] financially interested" - a reference to the Siyi men, were in actuality the directors of the Bank of Canton, Li Yutang. The Governor recorded that:

In addition to the authorized issue of $16m...... Li Yuk-tang made an issue of $5m for his own benefit. He left Hong Kong a poor man but has, since his return, invested largely in the Colony and is now reported to be a rich man.

Against this background, the Governor of Hong Kong also observed a significant development among the non-Siyi Hong Kong Chinese.
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THE LIFE AND TIMES OF

CAPTAIN SAMUEL CORNEL PLANT, MASTER MARINER AND SENIOR INSPECTOR, UPPER YANGTZE RIVER,

CHINESE MARITIME CUSTOMS

A.C. BROMFIELD WITH ROSEMARY LEE

How it started!

Grave Number 8496 28479

Section 12

Hong Kong Cemetery

In memory of Captain Samuel Cornell Plant Upper Yangtze River Inspector of the Chinese Maritime Customs

The first to command a merchant steamer plying the river (1900). Born Framlingham Suffolk 8th August 1866 Died at sea 26th February 1921

Also in memory of Alice Sophia Plant, Captain Plant's wife and devoted companion throughout his 20 years of toil on the dangerous section

of the Yangtze River between Ichang and Chunking. Born 29th November 1870. Died at Hong Kong 28th February 1921.

(Restored by members of the Merchant Navy Guild, Hong Kong 1957. Researched by

Rosemary J. Pyatt, 23rd December 1997)

Archibald Little and the Three Gorges

In 1859, a young Scot named Archibald Little, (he was a very large man), started working as a tea-taster for a German company in Kiukiang. He came of a prominent, expatriate, Shanghai family, one of his brothers being a doctor in Shanghai and another the editor of the North China Daily News. He soon became bored with tea-tasting and set up in business for himself, becoming interested in many aspects of trade, brokering and insurance. He was one of the first expatriates to
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