ENG-1973 — Page 282

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HISTORY

A Sanitary Board was set up in 1883, became partly elected in 1887, and developed into an Urban Council in 1936. The intention at first was to govern the Chinese through Chinese magistrates seconded from the mainland, but this system of two parallel administrations was only half-heartedly applied and broke down mainly because of the weight of crime. It was completely abandoned in 1865 in favour of the principle of equality of all races before the law. In that year the Governor's instruc- tions were significantly amended to forbid him to assent to any ordinance 'whereby persons of African or Asiatic birth may be subjected to any disabilities or restrictions to which persons of European birth or descent are not also subjected'. Government policy was laissez-faire, treating Hong Kong as a market place where all were free to come and go and where government held the scales impartially.

Public and utility services developed; the Hong Kong and China Gas Company in 1861, the Peak Tram in 1885, the Hong Kong Electric Company 1889, China Light and Power 1903, the electric Tramways in 1904 and the government-owned Kowloon- Canton Railway, completed in 1910. There were successive reclamations dating from 1851, notably one completed in 1904 in Central District, which produced Chater Road, Connaught Road and Des Voeux Road, and another in Wanchai between 1921–9.

A system of public education began in 1847 with grants to the Chinese vernacular schools, and the voluntary schools, mainly run by missionaries, were brought in by a grant scheme in 1873. The College of Medicine for the Chinese, founded in 1887, developed into the University of Hong Kong in 1911 with arts, engineering and medical faculties.

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The Chinese Revolution of 1911 overthrew the Manchu Dynasty. There followed a long period of unrest in China and again large numbers of refugees found shelter in the colony. One of its leaders, Sun Yat-sen, who headed the Kuomintang republican group centred in Canton, had been deeply influenced by the British institutions he had seen while a student in Hong Kong. Chinese participation in World War I was followed by strong nationalist and anti-foreign sentiment, inspired both by disappoint- ment over their failure at the Versailles peace conference to regain the German con- cessions in Shantung and by the post-war radicalism of the Kuomintang.

The Chinese wanted to abolish all foreign treaty privileges in China. Foreign goods were boycotted and unrest spread to Hong Kong where a seamen's strike in 1922 was followed by a serious general strike in 1925-6 under pressure from Canton. This petered out, but not before causing considerable disruption to life in Hong Kong. Britain, as the holder of the largest foreign stake in China, was the main target of this anti-foreign sentiment, but Japan soon replaced her in this position.

Japanese Attack and Occupation 1941–5

Japanese plans for political aggrandisement in the Far East became apparent when she seized the opportunity of World War I to present her 'twenty-one demands' to China early in 1915. In 1931 Japan occupied Manchuria and her attempt to detach China's northern provinces led to open war in 1937. Canton fell to the Japanese in