RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1975
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166

DONALD C. BOWIE

letter to our commanding officer, Colonel Shackleton, which he at once passed to the Japanese. In the letter we said that the progress to recovery of our wounded and sick patients was being impeded by a diet low in protein, vitamin and total calorie value and also by the difficulty of overcoming chronic sepsis on a deficient diet. We quoted League of Nations standards, well aware of the fact that Japan had left the League after her Manchurian adventure in 1933. We suggested a diet more suited to our habits and needs. Looking at this letter today I believe that we put our requests on a very moderate level.

Some time in 1942, well before August, the Japanese began to pay commissioned officers both staff and patients. Our nurses were not paid nor were any of our working staff. We were paid in “military” yen, which at first I think had the same value as the yen, and Shackleton set up a patients' Comforts Fund and an Extra Diets Fund to which officers made contributions on a scale which at first lacked regularity. On 3 August 1942 Harrison and I wrote again expressing our disquiet about the whole patients and staff situation and advised that all efforts to improve conditions should be financed through a Central Hospital Fund supported by all officers. We identified the needs under four heads; those of patients for special diets during and after dysentery, surgery etc., those of staff upon whom the work fell, the need of every person for improved food value in the rations and variation in the monotony of diet, and lastly the need of our whole community for electric bulbs, sewing cotton, soap etc. We quoted our basic average diet for the months of April, May and June and July 1942 (see Appendix “A”, Table 1). Perhaps a clearer idea of the position is conveyed by the fact that in the week 23 July to 1 August 1942 we had fish twice, meat once and a sweet rice pudding once, the last being the only dish for mid-day dinner, while all other dinners consisted of boiled rice and boiled vegetables only. Breakfast and suppers were rice or bread and sugar, syrup or vegetables, the whole diet being ill calculated to appeal to a sick man. Many so-called well men ate only as a duty to themselves and certainly not as a pleasurable activity.

The hospital had narrowly escaped a further disaster during hostilities for a large shell, a four-inch I think, had pitched at the junction of the road above the hospital leading to the sisters' mess and the lower wall of the reservoir. Had it exploded the reservoir
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RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1981
https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ff36bt18m
THE CHINESE CHURCH, LABOUR AND ELITES AND THE MUI TSAI QUESTION IN THE 1920's 103

to England had continued the campaign to bring the Hong Kong situation to the attention of the British public. The Haselwoods and other interested people had enlisted the support of the Anti-Slavery and the Aborigine Protection Society, the Industrial Committee of the National Council of Women of Great Britain and Ireland, the Women's Committee of the Fabian Society, the International Woman Suffrage Alliance, the League of Nations Union, as well as Members of Parliament.

In Hong Kong a team of volunteer lecturers had spoken in churches, schools, the YMCA, the YWCA, and labour unions. One of the members had paid for the services of a professional lecturer to address passengers on boats travelling between Hong Kong and Canton.

Literature was produced both in English and Chinese. All the Parliamentary questions and answers were translated and sent to the Chinese press, along with original articles and correspondence with Members of Parliament, philanthropists and societies abroad. Locally, a literary competition had been held. The winning entry, a ballad, had been published and distributed both in Hong Kong and throughout China. The cost was underwritten by two wealthy contractors, Mr. Li Ping (probably a Roman Catholic) and Mr. Lam Woo (1869–1932) a founding member of St. Paul's Anglican Church and an Executive Committee member of the Society. A magazine of some 400 pages published by the Society contained articles treating the question in various literary forms.

At the time of the meeting 1,370 members had enrolled in the Society.

On instructions from the Colonial Office the Governor of Hong Kong issued a proclamation on April 14, 1922 stating:

Slavery is not allowed to exist in the British Empire, and therefore it must be understood that mui tsai are not the property of their employers. Those of them who wish to leave their employers and who have reached the age of discretion must be allowed to apply to the Secretary for Chinese Affairs who will consider their cases.

Girls are warned that they must not leave their present employment until they have some employment to go to for fear they should fall into the hands of procuresses.

Masters and mistresses are specially warned against any attempt
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RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1984
https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/5h73wh572
151

Hong Kong authorities saw no need to take active steps to improve the situation.

Parliamentary pressure over social hygiene in Hong Kong largely lapsed after 1894 once the legal framework for the licensing of prostitutes and the registration of brothels had been repealed by the Legislative Council and thereafter Hong Kong was left free to set up its new extra-legal system of control without further interference from London. But after the end of the First World War agitation on the subject revived. The League of Nations appointed an Advisory Committee on the Traffic in Women and Children which published reports highlighting the connections between state regulation of prostitution and the procurement of women. The first warning to Hong Kong of the revival of concern in Britain was the arrival in the colony in 1921 of a Commission from the National Council for Combating Venereal Disease which had been sent out to report on conditions in the Far Eastern Colonies. The Governor, Sir Edward Stubbs, had objected to any such visit and forbade government officials to give the commissioners any assistance; he also informed them when they arrived that they were not to hold any public meetings or advertise their presence in the press. In spite of this studied discourtesy the commissioners, Mrs. Neville-Rolfe and Dr. Hallam, set out upon a thorough exploration of the seedier areas of the city and various medical institutions, and were able to make contact with some business and religious groups and with some of the leading Chinese. On their return to London they submitted a scathing report to the Colonial Office on medical and social conditions. According to the commissioners, no serious attempt had been made by the government to improve the standard of health of the native population in 85 years of British rule; the infant mortality figures were disgraceful; the Tung Wah hospital was very dirty and badly equipped; the Po Leung Kuk, a place of refuge for Chinese girls, was largely used as a recruiting ground for cheap supplementary wives by members of the committee. The Colonial Office was given its first description of the working of the system of tolerated brothels, which Mrs. Neville-Rolfe dismissed as ineffective in preventing the kidnapping of girls into brothel slavery; on the contrary it was alleged that the artificial value put on the Chinese girl by the system of recognised brothels is the main inducement to the kidnappers.
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RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1984
https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/5h73wh572
155

of the policy of suppression which had been adopted in Singapore. He strongly opposed the sending of an investigatory commission from London, which the Colonial Office had been pressing upon him. Peel's views were supported by the Permanent Under-Secretary and officials in London, who advised against any immediate action. A League of Nations commission to enquire into the international traffic in women and children was about to visit the Far East and this gave a good reason for delay, since any sudden change of policy would appear to be either designed to impress the commission or else to be an admission of guilt. Lord Passfield accepted this advice.

For the next six months the question was allowed to rest. Then in June 1931 Peel again wrote to the Colonial Office, enclosing a long memorandum on the legal position of brothels in Hong Kong written by the Chief Justice, Sir Joseph Kemp. This legal exposition concluded by warning that, though the suppression of all registered brothels might possibly lead to less illicit intercourse, it would probably arouse great resentment if the Chinese brothels patronized by the Chinese were to be suppressed. He continued: ‘I fear the danger of shaking the loyalty of the Chinese community as a whole and their confidence that the government will respect Chinese customs generally. The risk may have to be run, but I think it is a real one. It must be remembered that the Chinese do not view prostitution as we do. They look upon it with a more lenient eye, though excess is reprobated just as excess in other forms of self-indulgence is reprobated. Prostitutes are not social outcasts to the same extent as in 'Western' countries. A prostitute often becomes a highly respectable concubine . . . I realise that this is a very difficult defence to make, especially as the English public do not always realise the delicacy required in ruling an alien civilisation.' Peel offered up a small sacrifice to appease the Secretary of State: he suggested that the seven brothels containing European prostitutes should be closed down. This was not a sign that Peel had been converted to the moralists' point of view; European prostitutes were customarily deported from Hong Kong from time to time, since their presence was considered demeaning to European prestige in the East. This decision to close the brothels employing European, Australian and American women was endorsed by the Executive Council in July 1931.
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RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1984
https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/5h73wh572
156

R.J. MINERS

Meanwhile, at the Colonial Office, Dr. Drummond Shiels, the Parliamentary Under-Secretary to Lord Passfield, had decided that action must be taken by the Hong Kong authorities before the League of Nations commission reported. Having consulted the Colonial Office Medical Adviser, and being assured that the balance of evidence was that the existence of tolerated houses did not keep down the incidence of venereal disease, and that this had been confirmed in the case of Malaya, he proposed that Hong Kong should follow the example of the Straits Settlements and close down all its brothels, beginning with those served by European prostitutes, and the brothels with Chinese prostitutes used by British servicemen. Passfield approved this suggestion and a dispatch on these lines was in course of preparation when the Labour government fell from power in August 1931. The arrival of the Chief Justice's memorandum scarcely modified the draft: the possibility of strong local opposition to the closure of Chinese brothels catering for Chinese clients was noted by officials, but it was pointed out that similar warnings of Chinese resentment had not materialized when the mui tsai system had been abolished. The Governor was advised to proceed cautiously and to attempt ‘to elicit the support of more enlightened Chinese opinion', but it was emphasized that it was the aim of the British government to bring about the suppression of all brothels in Hong Kong. This draft was presented by officials to the newly appointed minister of the National government, Sir Robert Hamilton, who authorized its dispatch.

38

This directive reached Hong Kong in November 1931. The Governor had been hoping that his pleas for an indefinite delay would be successful and he had just told the Legislative Council that any action would be deferred until after the League of Nations commission had reported." But this was not to be, and the Executive Council reluctantly agreed that further registration of new prostitutes should not be allowed and that six months' notice should be given to Chinese and Japanese brothels catering for Europeans. The completion of this stage was notified to London in July 1932. The closure of Chinese brothels catering for Chinese was undertaken much more slowly, and the last of the remaining houses was not closed down until June 1935. Their inmates were individually interviewed and offered assistance in starting a new

40
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RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1984
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161

16

For example in 1908 CO129/352 pp. 416-419 and Minutes of the Executive Council, 26 March 1909 and 1 March 1910.

37 Minutes of the Executive Council, 2 July 1931.

38 J.H. Thomas to Peel, 29 Sept 1931 in CO129/533/10.

39

H.K. Hansard, 22 Oct. 1931 p. 193.

40

Minutes of the Executive Council, 6 Dec. 1934. Southern to Cunliffe-Lister, 18 July 1932 in CO129/532/3 p. 133.

41

42 Minutes of the Executive Council, 25 April 1935.

43

Report of the Committee constituted in accordance with the directions of H.E. the Governor contained in his letter dated 9 April 1938. C.S.O.5661/32. (The Abbott Committee, 1939) p. 19. (Copy available in Secretariat Library).

44 Administration Reports 1932 and 1939. Reports of the Medical Department. The Abbott Report, p. 5.

45

46

League of Nations Commission of Enquiry into the Traffic in Women and Children in the Far East. Replies to Questionnaire by Hong Kong Government p. 6 in CO129/533/10. Interview with Mr. R.R. Todd who first arrived in Hong Kong a cadet (administrative officer) in 1925.

47 For the results of the system before 1894 see minute in CO129/259 p. 129 dated 23 Nov. 1893, quoting the views of the Registrar General.
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RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1988
https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q
Introducing a motion for the adoption of the recommendations of the sub-committee, Mr. Bowley stated that in the Peace Treaty then under discussion provisions were made for an International Labour Convention and for a League of Nations. In the proposals for both organizations the welfare of women and children were dealt with. Appended to the section of the Peace Treaty dealing with the Labour Convention was the affirmation of the principle of an eight hour working day and a forty-eight hour week.

Mr. Bowley reminded the Board that the matters being proposed were on the agenda of the Labour Convention which was to be held in Washington, D. C. in the United States in October 1919. These developments had a particular meaning for Hong Kong as a British outpost in the East, for if Hong Kong took action as a part of the British Empire it might influence “our neighbouring allies' China and Japan, both of whom were parties to the Treaty and who had accepted both the League of Nations and the Labour Convention.” He continued. “If Hong Kong, China and Japan are to be included in the comity of nations on equal terms, it behoves us and our neighbours to consider these questions very carefully”.

He contrasted the absence of factory legislation in Hong Kong with Britain where such legislation had been gradually developed and enforced over the past eighty years. One reason for the difference between the two places was that Hong Kong until only recently had not been much of a manufacturing centre, but now there were many new factories. "The time has come", he said, "when some, at least, of most of the elementary principles of the Factory Acts should be introduced into the Colony”. The experience of England had been that factory legislation had to be related to provisions for education and it would be difficult to apply the same laws to Hong Kong if there was no movement at the same time toward compulsory education, but since the Sanitary Board had no jurisdiction over education, the committee had concluded that it was impossible to prohibit employment of children even of the tenderest age, for it was better for children to be occupied with light tasks with their parents than playing in the gutter. Moreover, the criminal law contained provisions for the punishment of parents or masters and mistresses who ill-treated or neglected their children or child servants. So until something was done about universal education, the present measures were as much
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RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1989
https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h
89

I left the camp at the end of July. Of rice, 7 oz. bread, 7 oz. a meagre portion of beef or pork, some greenstuff, a small quantity of peanut oil, and sometimes a slice of sweet potatoes daily, and about 1 1⁄2 oz. of sugar and a sufficient quantity of salt weekly. Sometimes excessive pork fat was boiled down in the kitchens and distributed as dripping. This diet, it should be noted, includes none of the following: milk, butter, margarine, cocoa, tea, coffee, cheese, fruit, eggs, or jam, and it is entirely inadequate for persons accustomed to a European dietary, as well as far short of the scale believed adopted for internees in the United Kingdom. The Japanese maintained that internees were receiving the equivalent of 2000 calories per head per diem and that this was sufficient for persons not doing hard manual labour. Our own doctors maintained that the minimum allowed by the League of Nations scale was 2400 calories, that we were, during the earlier days, getting only 1400, and that internees were, even at the end of July, getting only 1940. Anyhow, apart from the calories question, the basic rations do not afford suitable nourishment for Europeans, and those persons who were entirely dependent on them were definitely suffering severe hardship. I would add too that the suggestion that internees were not doing hard manual labour was only partly true. All the work of the camp, including road and building repairs and constructions, moving stores, cooking, baking, sawing firewood, grass cutting, etc., was done by the internees themselves, and many of the latter worked hard and for long hours. There is one further class which needs special mention: those people who cannot digest a rice diet. There were many such in the camp, and they were having a hard time. Though a special diet kitchen had been opened to cook for these and other special cases, its resources were very limited, and the diet, though somewhat better cooked, did not vary much from the regular camp food.

The rice supplied by the Japanese was very variable in quality. Only occasionally did we have first grade. The normal ration consisted of "cargo rice", a reddish rice full of grit, beetles, maggots, and other extraneous matter. It cooks badly and has an unpleasant musty flavour. Many representations on the subject were made to the Japanese Authorities, but without effect.

During May, the Japanese were so impressed by the physical deterioration of internees that a sum of H.K.$300,000 was allocated for their relief. This came to approximately $105 a head, and it was arranged that a certain sum be allotted for the purchase of extras for the communal
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RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1990
https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299
133

1935, and probably exceeds 30,000 today

the Japanese secured a

second seat in 1927 and since that date, with one or two exceptions, the proportion of Foreign Councillors has been five Britons, two Americans, and two Japanese,''

It was from amongst the managers of the large firms that the foreign Municipal Councillors were selected, by a process of back-stage negotiation. There was, it is true, a form of straw vote through which nominations could be contested, but as the large firms could swing the votes that process was not democratic in operation. In point of fact the suggestion that the Council was a democratic body had long been discarded. The Council represented the interests of the large firms and, while it had to explain its actions to the foreign land-renters of the Settlement, it preferred, as such committees will, to avoid having to make explanations, by doing its work away from the limelight. That was, indeed, a necessary precaution, in so far as the delicate political negotiations in which it was frequently involved with the Chinese, and Japanese, authorities were concerned.

The Council was an international body, a diminutive League of Nations, incomparably more effective, though on a small scale, than that larger body at Geneva. The comparison lends it international significance and underlines the importance that men, who are appointed to such positions of responsibility, should be carefully selected.

On the expiration of my home leave I was appointed to Shanghai, where I arrived in July 1939. The betrayal of Czechoslovakia that Spring had increased international tension, and a series of incidents was bringing it home to the optimists, who had so cheerfully accepted the Japanese influx, that their early anticipations were so much smoke. Apart from a number of local outrages, including the bayonetting of a Briton, named Tinkler, inside the grounds of his own mill, there was the case of the British Military Attaché, who had been arrested in May in Kalgan, and was still held incommunicado, the mob attacks on the British consulate at Tsingtao, the heavy bombing of British property and shipping at Ichang, and the degrading treatment to which British nationals were being exposed at the barriers, erected by the Japanese to the exits of the British Concession in Tientsin.

I was sitting on the verandah of the Country Club one day in September, after a game of tennis, when the boy called me to the
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RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1993
https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833t302
78

reporting has still not been up to desired standards Doubts over the performance of some non-party-member journalists are hinted as the cause of the unachieved standards (Zhongguo Xunwen Nianjian, 1985–99)

16 Training Journalists into self-conscious mouthpieces of party and people is a principle laid down by the education authorities (Zhongguo Xinwen Nianjian 1986 8) The New China News Agency has carried out a campaign on political-ideological background of press cadres to promote a sense of responsibility in them towards the evolutionary targets of the Party, so that they would concur with central party policies, and act as mouthpieces of the Party (Zhongguo Xinwen Nianjian 1987 5)

Although recently, advertisements do appear in the various provincial as well as nationwide papers and also on television etc, the small amount of them in comparison to the gigantic media labour machinery and the low price charged to users suggest that a large proportion of the revenue must come from the producers themselves

In fact, many scholars have argued and confirmed that sport closely portrays real life Sport is closely related with the social order, and if sports does not represent the real social order, it represents idealized versions of that order, and as such it takes on for them an aura of the sacred" (Hargreaves, 1982 33) Sport has the potential to expand our knowledge of a form of human behaviour that spans the gap between the playful, spontaneous, and expressive and the formal, institutionalized, bureaucratic, and work-like dimensions of life. [Also, it helps disclose] several layers of reality and thus has the potential to further our understanding of this segment of society (Snyder & Spreitzer, 1983. Epilogue)

19 The author exemplified these functions by citing evidence from international sporting events Taiwan gained a place in international affairs by getting the Little League Baseball world title. The Commonwealth Games, the Pan-American Games all strengthened regional ties and national identities Since those who have achieved something displayed dominance, nations are seen striving to become the best International propaganda could be launched by emphasizing the success a nation has achieved. The Chinese Ping Pong diplomacy and the African boycott in 1976 Olympics are two diverse branches of sport policies that shoulder political errands Sports as international events could pose as a stage for nations to show their ideologies. The massacre of Mexican students, the Israeli massacre are good examples Politicians could reinforce their humanity and reduce their distance with commoners by relating themselves to sports, an activity widely practised among people

20 Although sports events appear to be without the political circle, they are actually not Sports is closely related with politics Political battles are often transcended to the sport arena But sport is not inherently political, [rather] it becomes [so] because of its utility as a widely observed medium for ideological expression' (Figler, 1981. 229) As such, sports events as data for the present study could avoid losing argumentative power for face, a social-psychological matter, to political considerations while still maintaining a glimpse of the total life conditions

21 The second largest paper, Gongren Ribao has a total distribution of 808,821,000 (average 2,221,700 per issue) in 1986, less than half of those for People's Daily All figures quoted here are released in the 1987 Zhongguo Xinwen Nianjian
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RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1994
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194

Baddeley, John Frederick (1854-1940) ed, Russia, Mongolia, China, London Macmillan, 1919 (NY B Franklin 1967 mostly memoirs of Russian envoys from beginning of 17th century to end of reign of Alexander I).

Baikov, Feodor Isakovich, An Account of Two Voyages. First of Feodor Isakovitz Backhoff to China, Second Zachary Wagener, a Native of Dresden also in China, in Churchill, Awnsham, compilers, A Collection of Voyages and Travels. London, 1744, v 2, 474-478

Ball, Benjamin Lincoln, Rambles in Eastern Asia, Including China During Several Years' Residence (1848-1850), Boston J French, 1856.

Barnett, Eugene Epperson. As I Look Back, Recollections of Growing Up and Twenty-six Years in Pre-Communist China 1888-1936, typescript

Barr, Patricia Miriam, To China with Love, the Lives and Times of Protestant Missionaries in China 1860-1900, London Secker and Warburg, 1972

Barrow, Sir John, Travels in China, London T Cadell and W Davis, 1806 (Listed in Yale University Library catalog as Some Account of the Public Life, and Selection from the Unpublished Writings, of the Earl of Macartney and the date of publication is given as 1807)

Barzini, Luigi, Pekin to Paris, An Account of Prince Borghese's Journey Across Two Continents in a Motor-Car, translated from the Italian, London, 1907,

Bates, Lincoln Wallace Jr, The Russian Road to China, Boston and New York, Houghton Mifflin, 1910.

Beattie, Hilary J, Protestant Missions and Opium in China, 1858-1895, Papers on China, 22A 115-156 (1969)

Becker, C H, et al, The Reorganization of Education in China, Paris. League of Nations, 1932

Bell, John, A Journey From St Petersburg to Pekin 1719-22, edited with an Introduction by J L Stevenson, Edinburgh Edinburgh University Press. (NY Barnes and Noble reprint 1966)

Bennett, Adrian A, John Fryer the Introduction of Western Science and Technology into Nineteenth-Century China, Cambridge, Mass. Harvard University Press, 1967

Bergeron, Marie Ina, Letters a Yeou-wen, Souvenirs de Chine, Tours Mame, 1973

Berry-Hart, Alice, Ching-a-Ring-a-Ring-Ching or Three Victorian Sisters in Shanghai, London. Rex Collins, 1977)

Billingsley, Phil, Bandits in Republican China, Stanford Stanford University Press, 1988
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RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2001
https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g
6

Straits 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.

The 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
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