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HISTORY

The British residents on a number of occasions strongly pressed for self-government, but the home government steadily refused to allow the Chinese majority to be subject to the control of a small European minority.

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 in 1889, China Light and Power in 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 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 large numbers of refugees found shelter in the colony. Chinese participation in World War I was followed by strong nationalist and anti-foreign sentiment, inspired both by disappointment over their failure at the Versailles peace conference to regain the German concessions 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 con- siderable disruption in Hong Kong. Britain, with the largest foreign stake in China, was the main target of this anti-foreign sentiment, but Japan soon replaced her.

The 1930s and World War II

During World War I, Japan had presented its '21 demands' to China. In 1931, Japan occupied Manchuria and the 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 1.6 million. It was thought that at the height of the influx about half a million were sleeping in the streets.