RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1986 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/jq08c7063 249 JEALOUSIES SURFACE IN THE JOCKEYING FOR A SEAT IN LEGCO The year 1883 presented opportunities for Ho A-mei to become the recognised leader of the Chinese community. First, there was his election as Chairman of the Tung Wah Hospital Committee to be followed by that of the Po Leung Kuk. These positions were honours awarded by the Chinese community to a member who merited recognition for his concern about their welfare. Second, there was the prospect of selection by the Governor to the vacant seat in the Legislative Council created by the resignation of the Honourable Ng Choy. One of the hurdles to get across was the competition provided by other possible candidates, particularly Dr. Ho Kai, for this position of leadership. Remarks made by Dr. Ho Kai, acting as spokesman for the Chinese, when an official deputation visited the Officer Administering the Colony in January 1883, provided an opportunity for Ho A-mei to suggest publicly that Dr. Ho Kai was not representative of the Chinese community and, by implication, not a suitable person to represent them on the Legislative Council. Ho A-mei had been elected Chairman of the Tung Wah Hospital in 1882. In the official list of directors his name appears as Ho Hin-ping, otherwise Kwan Shan, of the On Tai Insurance Co. The following year he became the Chairman of the Po Leung Kuk, an organisation for the prevention of kidnapping and the protection of women and children. These offices, the highest the Chinese community in Hongkong had to bestow, made Ho A-mei a possible candidate for the Legislative Council. Ng Choy, who had recently resigned, was the first Chinese member of the council. He had been appointed by Governor John Pope Hennessy in 1878. His nomination had been part of what the English language press liked to call "Hennessy's pro-Chinese policy." Governor Hennessy's object was to establish closer rela- ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1986 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/jq08c7063 261 nor, Sir Arthur Kennedy. Both incidents reflect inner tensions within the Chinese community and the difficulty Europeans had in recognising which leaders of the Chinese had the support of the majority. The Europeans favoured those Chinese who were most thoroughly Anglicised. These were such men as Ng Choy, Ho Kai and Wei Yuk, all of whom had been educated in Britain. The Chinese, on the other hand, were inclined to feel that men who had been elevated to a position of leadership by the Chinese community itself were better representatives. The Honourable Ng Choy had been able to straddle this difference, keeping a foot on both sides. Ho Kai and Wei Yuk, however, at the time of the controversy, were young and inexperienced and the majority of the leaders of the Chinese community resented their being pushed to the front by the Europeans. When the news of Sir Arthur Kennedy's death reached Hong Kong, a public meeting was hurriedly convened to discuss a suitable memorial to him. The organisers issued an invitation to all sections of the community. They arranged for Dr. Ho Kai to be the spokesman of the Chinese. In his remarks at the meeting he promised the support of the Chinese community to the proposal for a statue of Sir Arthur Kennedy. He also asked to make additional comments expressing the desire of the Chinese to have a fitting memorial for Sir Richard Macdonnell, Sir Arthur's predecessor. The chairman rightly suggested that the two objects were different and as the present meeting was to consider only the honouring of Kennedy's memory, the matter of a Macdonnell memorial should be left for discussion at some later time by those interested in the project. Dr. Ho Kai had dutifully fulfilled his obligation to the Chinese community when he raised the point; however, he did not mention a further desire of the Chinese to honour Sir John Pope ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1987 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/rx919b522 117 A SENSE OF HISTORY (PART II) CARL SMITH JEALOUSIES SURFACE IN THE JOCKEYING FOR A SEAT IN LEGCO The year 1883 presented opportunities for Ho A-mei to become the recognised leader of the Chinese community. First, there was his election as Chairman of the Tung Wah Hospital Committee to be followed by that of the Po Leung Kuk. These positions were honours awarded by the Chinese community to a member who merited recognition for his concern about their welfare. Second, there was the prospect of selection by the Governor to the vacant seat in the Legislative Council created by the resignation of the Honourable Ng Choy. One of the hurdles to get across was the competition provided by other possible candidates, particularly Dr. Ho Kai, for this position of leadership. Remarks made by Dr. Ho Kai, acting as spokesman for the Chinese, when an official deputation visited the Officer Administering the Colony in January 1883, provided an opportunity for Ho A-mei to suggest publicly that Dr. Ho Kai was not representative of the Chinese community and, by implication, not a suitable person to represent them on the Legislative Council. Ho A-mei had been elected Chairman of the Tung Wah Hospital in 1882. In the official list of directors his name appears as Ho Hin-ping, otherwise Kwan Shan, of the On Tai Insurance Co. The following year he became the Chairman of the Po Leung Kuk, an organisation for the prevention of kidnapping and the protection of women and children. These offices, the highest the Chinese community in Hongkong This instalment completes the reprinting, with the author's kind permission, of “A sense of History" that appeared in the South China Morning Post between 1977 and 1979. ================================================================================