The Chinese authorities, as was natural, waged relentless war on the colony from its birth. Though compelled formally to admit that the island and its dependencies were a British possession, they still maintained a secret authority over the Chinese who settled there, and even attempted to levy taxes. As they could not lay hands on its trade, except the valuable portion of it which was carried on by native craft, they left no stone unturned to destroy that. By skilful diplomacy, for which they are entitled to the highest credit, they obtained control over the merchant junks trading to Hongkong, and imposed restrictions on them calculated to render their traffic impossible. By the same treaty they obtained the appointment of a British officer as Chinese revenue agent in Hongkong—a concession, however, disallowed by the good sense of the British Government. But the Chinese were very tenacious of the idea of making Hongkong a customs station, never relaxing their efforts for forty years, until the convention of 1886 at last rewarded their perseverance by a partial fulfilment of their hopes.
For reasons which, if not very lofty, are yet very human, the diplomatic and consular agents of Great Britain have never looked sympathetically on the colony—indeed have often sided with the Chinese in their attempts to curtail its rights.
Nor has the Home Government itself always treated the small colony with parental consideration. Before it was out of swaddling-clothes the Treasury ogre began to open his mouth and, like the East India Company, demand remittances. A military establishment was maintained on the island, not for the benefit of the residents, but for the security of a strategical position in the imperial system. The colonists were mulcted in a substantial share of the cost, which the governor was instructed to wring out of them. The defences themselves, however, were neglected, and allowed to grow obsolete and useless, and, if we mistake not, it was the civil community, and not the Government, that insisted on their being modernised. The compromise eventually arrived at was, that the colonists provided the guns and the imperial Government the forts. An interesting parallel to this was the case of Gibraltar, which possessed no dock until the civil community by sheer persistence, extending over many years, at length overcame the reluctance of the British Government to provide so essential an adjunct to its naval establishment. The colony had suffered much from the war with China, but the Home Government refused it any participation in the indemnity extorted from the Chinese.
But these and other drawbacks were counterbalanced, and eventually remedied, by the advantages offered by a free port and a safe harbour. Standing in the fair way of all Eastern commerce, which pays willing tribute to the colony, Hongkong attracted trade from all quarters in a steadily increasing volume, and became the pivot for the whole ocean traffic of the Far East.[35] The tide of prosperity could not be stayed—it invaded every section of the community. The character of the Chinese population was continuously raised. The best of them accumulated wealth: the poorest found remunerative employment for their labour. Crime, with which the colony had been tainted, diminished as much through the expulsive power of material prosperity as from the judicious measures of the executive Government, for the credit must not be denied to successive administrators for the improvement in the condition of the colony. Among those none was more deserving of praise than Sir Richard MacDonnell (1865-72), who on catching sight, as he entered the harbour, of an enormous building, which he was told was the jail, remarked, "I will not fill that, but stop the crime;" and he was nearly as good as his word,—a terror to evil-doers.
A Crown colony is the form of government which challenges the most pungent criticism. The elected members of its legislature, being a minority, can only in the last resort acquiesce in the decisions of the official majority who constitute the executive Government. Such a minority, however, is by no means wanting in influence, for it is, after all, publicity which is the safeguard of popular liberty. The freedom of speech enjoyed by an Opposition which has no fear of the responsibility of office before its eyes widens the scope of its criticisms, and imparts a refreshing vigour to the invective of those of its members who possess the courage of their convictions. It reaches the popular ear, and the apprehension of an adverse public opinion so stimulated can never fail to have its effect on the acts of the Administration. Under such a régime it seems natural that, other things being equal, each governor in turn should be esteemed the worst who has borne rule in the colony, and in any case his merits are never likely to be fairly gauged by any local contemporary estimate. King Stork, though fair and far-seeing, may be more obnoxious to criticism than King Log, who makes things pleasant during his official term.
Hongkong being established as a free port, the functions of Government were practically limited to internal administration, and the question of greatest importance was the control of the Chinese population which poured in. This was a new problem. Chinese communities had, indeed, settled under foreign rule before, as in the Straits Settlements, in Java, and in Manila, but at such distances from their home as rendered the settlers amenable to any local regulations which might be imposed on them. Distance even acted as a strainer, keeping back the dregs. But Hongkong was nearer to China than the Isle of Wight is to Hampshire. Evil-doers could come and go at will. It could be overrun in the night and evacuated in the morning. Spies were as uncontrollable as house-flies, and whenever it suited the Chinese Government to be hostile, they proved their power to establish such a reign of terror in the colony that it was dangerous to stray beyond the beat of the armed policeman. Clearly it was of primary importance to come to terms with the native community, to reduce them to discipline, to encourage the good and discourage the bad among the Chinese settlers. As their numbers increased the public health demanded a yet stricter supervision of their habits. Sanitary science had scarcely dawned when the colony was founded, and its teachings had to be applied, as they came to light, to conditions of life which had been allowed to grow up in independence of its requirements. To tolerate native customs, domestic habits, and manner of living, while providing for the general wellbeing of a community in a climate which at its best is debilitating, taxed the resources of the British executive, and of course gave rise to perpetual recrimination. But the thing has been accomplished. Successive conflagrations have co-operated with the march of sanitary reform and the advance in their worldly circumstances in so improving the dwellings of the population, that their housing now compares not unfavourably with that of the native cities of India. The Southern Chinese are naturally cleanly, and appreciative of good order when it is judiciously introduced among them, even from a foreign source.
A more complex question was that of bringing an alien population such as the Chinese within the moral pale of English law, for law is vain unless it appeals to the public conscience. The imposition of foreign statutes on a race nursed on oral tradition and restrained from misdoing by bonds invisible to their masters was not an undertaking for which success could be safely foretold. The effect of a similar proceeding on the subtle natives of India has been described as "substituting for a recognised morality a mere game of skill, at which the natives can give us long odds and beat us." "The mercantile and money-lending classes in India," says Mr S. S. Thorburn, "delight in the intricacy and surprises of a good case in court." With the Chinese it has been otherwise. The population of Hongkong have so far assimilated the foreign law that, whether or not it satisfies their innate sense of right, it at least governs their external conduct, and crime has been reduced very low: as for litigation, it is comparatively rare; it is disreputable, and has no place in the Chinese commercial economy.
The best proofs of their acceptance of colonial rule is the constantly increasing numbers of the Chinese residents; the concentration of their trading capital there; their investments in real estate and in local industries; their identification with the general interests of the colony, and their adopting it as a home instead of a place of temporary exile. The means employed to conciliate the Chinese must be deemed on the whole to have been successful. There was first police supervision, then official protection under a succession of qualified officers, then representation in the Colonial Legislature and on the commission of the peace. The colonial executive has wisely left to the Chinese a large measure of a kind of self-government which is far more effective than anything that could find its expression in votes of the Legislature. The administration of purely Chinese affairs by native committees, with a firm ruling hand over their proceedings, seems to fulfil every purpose of government. The aim has been throughout to ascertain and to gratify, when practicable, the reasonable wants of the Chinese, who have responded to these advances by an exhibition of public spirit which no society could excel. It is doubtful whether in the wide dominion of the Queen there are 250,000 souls more appreciative of orderly government than the denizens of the whilom nest of pirates and cut-throats—Hongkong.
As an educational centre Hongkong fulfils a function whose value is difficult to estimate. From the foundation of the colony the subject engaged the attention of the executive Government, as well as of different sections of the civil community. The missionary bodies were naturally very early in the field, and there was for a good many years frank co-operation between them and the mercantile community in promoting schools both for natives and Europeans. In time, however, either their aims were found to diverge or else their estimate of achievement differed, and many of the missionary teaching establishments were left without support.
After an interval of languor, however, new life was infused into the educational schemes of the colony. The emulation of religious sects and the common desire to bring the lambs of the flock into their respective folds inspired the efforts of the propagandists, their zeal reacting on the colonial Government itself with the most gratifying results, so far at least as the extension of the field of their common efforts was concerned.