RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1981 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ff36bt18m 72 AJ DIAMOND official publications and of United Kingdom and other publications bearing on Hong Kong. The P.R.O. receives copies of all local official publications and has acquired an extensive microfilm coverage of Colonial Office and other records relating to Hong Kong. The scope of the library's holdings has been adjusted mainly to the needs of those engaged in research among primary sources and policy in the matter of acquisition has been influenced by the nearness and adequacy of other local libraries. The library includes large collections of photographs, maps and press cuttings as well as files of thirteen local English language newspapers the earliest of which dates from 1842. The P.R.O. is equipped at present with an office copying machine, two planetary and two hand-fed rotary microfilm cameras. Two microfilm readers are available for public use. The cameras are employed mainly in the production of security back-up film for government departments, the filming of selected classes of records held by the P.R.O. to enable destruction of the originals and the copying of out-of-print back issues of official publications and other items for the library. However the facility is also available at a fee for the copying of documents on behalf of individual research workers and non-government institutions. Records Official records transferred to the P.R.O. at present occupy 17,080 linear feet of shelving and comprise 363 series received from over 100 government offices. The earliest documents held by the P.R.O. date from 1831, but due to the extensive loss of government records resulting from the Japanese invasion and occupation of Hong Kong during the Second World War the bulk of the P.R.O.'s holdings date from the post-war resumption of British administration. The loss occasioned by the war has been in some measure redeemed by the acquisition of the wide coverage of pre-war Colonial Office records relating to Hong Kong, already mentioned above. The most important of these record series, CO 129 Original Correspondence, consists of despatches exchanged between the Governors of Hong Kong and the Secretaries of State for the Colonies during the period 1841 -- 1943, together with their enclosures, Colonial Office minutes and memoranda and correspondence between the C.O. and other ministries and private individuals and institutions. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1981 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ff36bt18m 102 CARL T SMITH little girls of tender age living amongst strangers and in where to them is a strange country, no denial of succour is possible without outraging our feelings of humanity." Instructions from Colonial Office to Hong Kong Government In March 1922 it was announced in the House of Commons by Mr. Winston Churchill, Secretary of State for the Colonies, that the Government of Hong Kong had been instructed by the Colonial Office to consult with both the Prevention Society and the Anti Mui Tsai Society in order to draw up a scheme for abolition. Already the Secretary for Chinese Affairs in Hong Kong had been in consultation with the Secretaries of the two societies and both groups were in the process of selecting seven of their members to consult with him. Canton had forged ahead of Hong Kong, for the same issue of the paper which carried Mr. Churchill's remarks reported an item from the Canton Times that the President of the Southern Government had issued a proclamation abolishing the mui tsai system. The Women's Union of Kwangtung were ready to establish an industrial institution to train them. News of progress toward abolition both in Hong Kong and Canton produced an air of elation at the first annual general meeting of the Anti Mui tsai Society held on March 26, 1922, at the Chinese YMCA. Mr. J. M. (Joseph Mau-lam) Wong, an Anglican and compradore of Messrs A. S. Watson and Co., presided. On the platform were members of the Executive Committee. These included Mrs. Ma Ying-piu (1872-1957), wife of the founder of the Sincere Co., member of St. Stephen's Anglican Church and a founder of the YWCA. The Society had invited Mr. Hui Chien, the President of the Supreme Court of Canton and a member of the Society, to address the meeting. At the last minute he was unable to attend but sent to represent him two associates from Canton. One of them read the remarks he had intended to give to the meeting. In these he observed that the Southern Government at Canton had taken steps to abolish the system, but it would find it much easier to do so if Hong Kong also moved in this direction. Since its formation the Society had vigorously promoted its cause both in Hong Kong, China and in Great Britain. It had the active assistance of Commander and Mrs. Hazelwood, who after retirement ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1997 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/wp98g7579 ARTICLES THE DICKINSON REPORT: AN ACCOUNT OF THE BACKGROUND TO, AND PREPARATION OF, THE 1966 WORKING GROUP REPORT ON LOCAL ADMINISTRATION TREVOR CLARK Much commentary on Hong Kong's internal affairs before its return to China focused on the alleged anomaly of having delayed the introduction of a wider franchise until the very last years of a century-and-a-half's span of power. There was also dispute over whether the evident split of faith among the indigenous Hong Kong leadership was in reality between those openly "pro-China" and those supposedly "anti-China"; or whether it was not more truly between those who are "pro-Hong Kong's people" and those simply (and more pragmatically) "pro-business." It is in this context that the death of William Vivian Dickinson MBE(Mil) reminded his past colleagues of 'The Dickinson Report', otherwise known as Report of the Working Party on Local Administration'. The recent discussion and controversy over institutional changes make a backward glance at this document and its provenance a matter for poignant reflection. It will be remembered that Britain's immediately post-war Labour Secretaries of State for the Colonies had required all Governors to accelerate the long-accepted progress towards dominion status, as independence with full membership of the Commonwealth had been known: pressures from the United States of America and the new institutions of the United Nations had demanded no less. Attlee's government was happy to require action, by way primarily of building upwards from local government reform, coupled with improved labour and trades union legislation, and attention to education - all this backed by development and welfare plans funded by acts of parliament, which had started with the ground-breaking Colonial Development & Welfare Act passed in the dark wartime year of 1940. Hong Kong had been treated no differently, and Sir Mark Young had returned as Governor after the Pacific War with plans for appropriate initiatives. These included a Municipal Council, with Mayor, 30 ================================================================================