RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1996 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/3n209j641 CONTRIBUTORS Patrick Hase is a Council Member of the HKBRAS, a former Hon. Editor (Journals) and currently Editor of Books. He is a retired Administrative Officer of the Hong Kong Government. He is a noted authority on the New Territories. Chan Wing Hoi is a member of the HKBRAS with a deep interest in Chinese history. Fred Dagenais is a Research Associate with the Center for Chinese Studies, University of California at Berkeley. His primary interests are in the history of the transmission of modern science and technology to China during the century 1850-1950. His on-going project is to identify items associated with the life of John Fryer during the Kiangnan Arsenal years (1867-96) and his subsequent career as Agassiz Professor of Oriental Languages and Literature at the University of California (1896-1914). He is developing an annotated calendar of Fryer's letters and papers, the bulk of which are located in the Bancroft Library at the University of California, Berkeley and welcomes any and all information associated with John Fryer's life and work. His interest in Republican China centres around the formation and development of scientific societies, particularly the work of Jeng Hung-chun and the Science Society of China. Yip Hon Ming and Ho Wai Yee are with the Department of History at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. Peter Ng Tze Ming is with the Department of Religion at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. Stephanie Chung Po Yin is with the Department of History, Hong Kong Baptist University. Carole Morgan received her doctorate in Chinese studies from the University of Paris (ex Sorbonne). She was a member of the team that catalogued the Dunhuang manuscripts in the Bibliothèque National and is now editing the divinatory material therein. She has written a book on the Chinese almanac and published a number of articles in sinological journals. Keith Stevens is a retired member of the British Army and subsequently vi ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1996 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/3n209j641 CONTENTS PRESIDENT'S REPORT ..... ix HON AUDITOR'S REPORT ..... xx ARTICLES 1 Patrick Hase - Traditional Life in the New Territories: The Evidence of the 1911 and 1921 Censuses 93 Chan Wing Hoi - From Langming Ordination Names to Gongming Imperial Degrees: Study of a Hakka Religious Practice and its Decline 129 Fred Dagenais - John Fryer's Early Years in China: III. Account of Three Days Excursion on the Mainland of China 151 Yip Hon Ming and Ho Wai Yee - The Hou-wang Cult and Tung Chung's Communal Culture 185 Peter Ng Tze Ming - A Study of the Objectives of Church Involvement in Education as Perceived by the Various Protestant Denominations in Hong Kong.. 195 Stephanie Chung Po Yin - Business Investment in Politics: Overseas Returned Chinese, Hong Kong Compradores and the Canton Government, 1911-1924 NOTES AND QUERIES 223 Carole Morgan - Traces of Houtu's Cult in Hong Kong.. 231 Keith Stevens - The Han Lin Academy and a Chinese Deity 235 Keith Stevens - Impermanence of Images in Chinese Popular Religion Temples... 239 Keith Stevens - Supplicating the Deities in Mainland China's Temples....... viii ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1996 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/3n209j641 195 BUSINESS INVESTMENT IN POLITICS: OVERSEAS RETURNED CHINESE, HONG KONG, COMPRADORES AND THE CANTON GOVERNMENT, 1911-1924 CHUNG PO-YIN, STEPHANIE In the first three decades of this century, at least four attempts were made by competing groups of Chinese settlers in Hong Kong to finance the setting up of regional governments in Canton. An important backdrop to these events was the fact of a politically disintegrated China with a north-south divide between Canton and Beijing. As shall be seen, these endeavours involved not only regionalism as such, but a number of economic calculations on the part of the financiers who, by funding these regional governments, requested control over provincial banks, tax collection, purchases, and the management of public properties in Guangdong. These incidents highlight what will be a recurring theme in this article - business investments relate closely to politics and in some environments, even politics itself is a kind of business investment. One argument presented in this article is that such an environment can be found in the Republican period Guangdong. The major investors in this political market, however, were the settlers in British Hong Kong. Hong Kong Society and the National Politics of China In any discussion of Hong Kong society, I think three major background factors are crucial. They are the British presence, the national politics of China, and the aspirations of different Chinese groups in Hong Kong. Political investments by Hong Kong Chinese in Guangdong serve to illustrate the interaction of these three factors. Colonial rule created new national and communal identities among the colonized, which affected their political behavior. Many stateless societies, such as India and Africa, eventually became independent states in the process of decolonization as the concept of nationhood was transplanted from Europe. At the communal level, colonial rule brought about a new distribution of power among native groups. ================================================================================