1933

HONGKONG
^ ^ Hew g-hong
The Island of Hongkong (which gives its name to the British 'Colony in
South China) is situated off the coast of the Kwangtung province, near the
mouth of the Canton river. It is distant about 40 miles from Macao and 90
from Canton, and lies between 22 deg. 9 min. and 22 deg. 17 min. N. lat. and
114 deg. 5 min. and 114 deg. 18 min. E. long. The Chinese characters repre¬
senting the name of the island (Heung Kong) may be read as signifying either
Good Harbour or Fragrant Streams. By Convent'ons dated, respectively,
1860 and 1898, further territory was ceded by China, consisting of upwards
of 280 square miles on the opposite mainland together with the islands of
ILantao, Lamma, Cheungchow and others. The last concession is by way of a
lease for ninety-nine years.
History and Government
Before the British ensign was hoisted on Possession Point in the City of
Victoria in the year 1840 the island can hardly be said to have had any history,
and what little attaches to it is very obscure. (Scantily peopled by fishermen
and agriculturists, it was never the scene of stirring events, and was little
affected by dynastic or political changes. It is alleged, however, that after the
fall of the Ming dynasty in 1628, some of the Emperor’s followers found shel¬
ter in the forests of Hongkong from the fury of the Manchus. The peninsula
of British Kowloon has more claim to association with Chinese history. In
the year a.d. 1:287 it is recorded that the last Emperor of the Sung dynasty,
when flying from Kublai Khan, the Mongol conqueror, took refuge in a cave
in Kowloon, and an inscription on the rock above is said to record the fact.
The inscription consists of the characters Sung Wong Toi, meaning the Sung
Emperor’s Pavilion. On the cession of the territory to Great Britain the
natives petitioned the Hongkong Government that the rock might not be blasted
or otherwise injured, on. account of the tradition connecting it with the Im¬
perial personage above mentioned. In 1898, during the administration of
Major-General Wilsone Black, a resolution was passed by the Legislative
Council preserving the land on which the rock stands for the benefit of the
public in perpetuity.
Hongkong is a ‘Crown Colony and was ceded to Great Britain by the
Chinese Government in 1841. In the troubles which preceded the first war
with China the necessity of having some place on the coast whence British
trade might be protected and controlled, and where officials and merchants
might be free from the insulting and humiliating requirements of the Chinese
Authorities, became painfully evident. As early as 1834 Lord Napier, smart¬
ing under his insolent treatment by the Viceroy at Canton, urged the Home
Government to send a force Horn India to support the dignity of his com¬
mission. “A little armament,” he Wrote, (‘should enter the China seas with
the first of the south-west monsoon, arid on arriving should take possession of
the island of Hongkong, in the eastern entrance of the Canton river, which
is admirably adapted for every purpose.” Two years later Sir George Robin¬
son, endorsing the opinion of Lord- Napier that nothing but force could better
the British position in China, advised “the occupation of one of the islands
in this neighbourhood, so singularly adapted by nature in every respect for
commercial purposes.” In the early part of 1839 affairs approached a crisis,
and on the 22nd March, Captain Elliot, the Chief Superintendent of Trade, re¬
quired that all the ships of Her Majesty’s subjects at the outer anchorages of
Canton should proceed forthwith to Hongkong, and, hoisting their national
colours, be prepared to resist every act of aggression on the part of the Chinese