ENG-1974 — Page 288

HISTORY

203

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 reclamation dating from 1851, notably one completed in 1904 in Central District, which produced Chater Road, Connaught Road and Des Voeux Road, and another in Wan Chai 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.

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 1938, resulting in a mass flight of refugees to Hong Kong. It was estimated that some 100,000 entered in 1937, 500,000 in 1938 and 150,000 in 1939, bringing the population at the outbreak of World War II to an estimated 1,600,000. It was thought that at the height of the influx about half a million were sleeping in the streets.

The outbreak of war in Europe in September 1939 gave Japan the advantage of being able to extend her ambitions over the whole of East and Southeast Asia, and the position of Hong Kong became precarious. On December 8, 1941, the day after the attack on Pearl Harbour, the Japanese attacked from the mainland, and sub- sequently the British were forced to retire from the New Territories and Kowloon to Hong Kong Island.