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HISTORY

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were each

in 1850, and the first Chinese in 1880; the first unofficial members of the Executive Council appeared in 1896, and the first Chinese in 1926. Two electoral bodies the Hong Kong General Chamber of Commerce and the Unofficial Justices of the Peace allowed, from 1885 onwards, to nominate a member to the Legislative Council.

The British residents pressed strongly for self-government on a number of occasions, but the home government consistently 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 instructions 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. Later, the voluntary schools - mainly run by missionaries - were included in a grant scheme in 1873. The College of Medicine for the Chinese, founded in 1887, developed into the University of Hong Kong in 1911 and offered arts, engineering and medical faculties.

After the Chinese Revolution of 1911, which overthrew the Manchu Dynasty, there was a long period of unrest in China and large numbers of refugees found shelter in the colony. The agitation continued after Chinese participation in World War I brought in its strong nationalist and anti-foreign sentiment - inspired both by disappointment over failure at the Versailles peace conference to regain the German concessions in Shandong (Shantung), and by the post-war radicalism of the Kuomintang. The Chinese sought to abolish all foreign treaty privileges in China. Foreign goods were boycotted and the 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 Guangzhou. This petered out, though not before causing considerable disruption in Hong Kong. Britain, with the largest foreign stake in China, was at that time the main target of the anti-foreign sentiment. But in this odious role she was soon to be replaced by Japan.

The 1930s and World War II

During World War I, Japan presented her '21 demands' to China. Then, in 1931, Japan occupied Manchuria and the attempt to detach China's northern provinces led to open war in 1937. Guangzhou fell to the Japanese in 1938, resulting in a mass flight of refugees to Hong Kong. It was estimated that some 100 000 refugees 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 people were sleeping in the streets.