The Chinese had imported their own school systems, while taking full advantage of the educational facilities provided by the Government and the Christian bodies. Being an intellectual race, they are well able to assimilate the best that Christendom has to offer them. But the colonial system contents itself with a sound practical commercial education, which has equipped vast numbers of Chinese for the work of clerks, interpreters, and so forth, and has thus been the means of spreading the knowledge of the English language over the coast of China, and of providing a medium of communication between the native and European mind.
The material progress of Hongkong speaks volumes for the energy of its community. The precipitous character of the island left scarcely a foothold for business or residential settlement. The strip which formed the strand front of the city of Victoria afforded room for but one street, forcing extensions up the rugged face of the hill which soon was laid out in zig-zag terraces: foundations for the houses are scarped out of the rock, giving them the appearance of citadels. The locality being subject to torrential rains, streets and roads had to be made with a finished solidity which is perhaps unmatched. Bridges, culverts, and gutters all being constructed of hewn granite and fitted with impervious cement, the storm-waters are carried off as clean as from a ship's deck. These municipal works were not achieved without great expense and skilfully directed labour, of which an unlimited supply can always be depended on. And the credit of their achievement must be equally divided between the Government and the civil community.
The island is badly situated as regards its water-supply, which has necessitated the excavation of immense reservoirs on the side farthest from the town, the aqueduct being tunnelled for over a mile through a solid granite mass. These and other engineering works have rendered Hongkong the envy of the older colonies in the Far East. No less so the palatial architecture in which the one natural product of the island has been turned to the most effective account. The quarrying of granite blocks, in which the Chinese are as great adepts as they are in dressing the stones for building, has been so extensive as visibly to alter the profile of the island.
A great deficiency of the island as a commercial site being the absence of level ground, the enterprise of the colonists has been incessantly directed towards supplying the want. Successive reclamations on the sea-front, costing of course large sums of money, have so enlarged the building area that the great thoroughfare called Queen's Road now runs along the back instead of the front of a new city, the finest buildings of all being the most recent, standing upon the newly reclaimed land. It is characteristic of such improvements, that, while in course of execution, they should be deemed senseless extravagance, due to the ambition of some speculator or the caprice of some idealist, thus perpetually illustrating the truth of the Scottish saying, "Fules and bairns should never see a thing half done." Hongkong has been no exception to so universal a rule.
The industrial enterprise of the colony has fully kept pace with its progress in other respects. The Chinese quarter resembles nothing so much as a colony of busy ants, where every kind of handicraft is plied with such diligence, day in and day out, as the Chinese alone seem capable of. The more imposing works conducted by foreigners occupy a prominent place in the whole economy of the Far East. Engineering and shipbuilding have always been carried on in the colony. Graving-docks capable of accommodating modern battleships, and of executing any repairs or renewals required by them as efficiently as could be done in any part of the world, constitute Hongkong a rendezvous for the navies of all nations. Manufactures of various kinds flourish on the island. Besides cotton-mills, some of the largest sugar-refineries in the world, fitted with the most modern improvements, work up the raw material from Southern China, Formosa, the Philippines, and other sugar-growing countries in the Eastern Archipelago, thus furnishing a substantial item of export to the Australian colonies and other parts of the world. The colony has thereby created for itself a commerce of its own, while its strategical situation has enabled it to retain the character of a pivot on which all Far Eastern commerce turns.
This pivotal position alone, and not the local resources of the place, enabled the colony to found one of the most successful financial organisations of the modern world. The Hongkong and Shanghai Bank has had a history not dissimilar from that of the colony as a whole, one of success followed by periods of alternate depression and elation. Now in the trough of the wave and now on its crest, the bank has worked its way by inherent vitality through all vicissitudes of good or bad fortune, until it has gone near to monopolising the exchange business of the Far East, and has become the recognised medium between the money-market of London and the financial needs of the Imperial Chinese administration.
It should not be overlooked as a condition of its success that the great Hongkong Bank, like all other successful joint-stock enterprises, whether in Hongkong or in China, has from its origin borne a broad international character. Though legally domiciled in a British possession, representative men of all nationalities sit on its board and take their turn in the chairmanship as it comes round. The international character, indeed, may be cited as one of the elements of the success of the colony itself. No disability of any kind attaches to alien settlers, not even exclusion from the jury panel. They are free to acquire property, to carry on business, to indulge their whims, and to avail themselves of all the resources of the colony, and enjoy the full protection of person and property which natural-born British subjects possess. They come and go at their pleasure, no questions asked, no luggage examined, no permits required for any purpose whatever coming within the scope of ordinary life. Nor are they even asked whether they appreciate these advantages or not; in fact they are as free to criticise the institutions under which they live as if they had borne their part in creating them, which, in fact, they have done, and this it is which marks the vitality of the British system, whether in the mother country or in its distant dependencies.
The exceedingly cramped conditions of life on the island having proved such an obstacle to its development, the acquisition of a portion of the mainland forming one side of the harbour was at an early period spoken of as a desideratum for the colony. The idea took no practical shape, however, until the occupation of Canton by the Allied forces under the administration of Consul Parkes; and it is one of the most noteworthy achievements of that indefatigable man that, during the time when Great Britain was in fact at war with the Government of China, he should have succeeded, on his own initiative, in obtaining from the governor of the city a lease of a portion of land at Kowloon, which was subsequently confirmed by the convention of Peking in 1860. The improvement of artillery and other means of attack on sea-forts left the island very vulnerable, and the measures taken by the various European Powers to establish naval stations on the Chinese coast, together with the efforts which the country itself was making to become a modern military Power, rendered it a matter of absolute necessity, for the preservation of the island, that a sufficient area of the adjacent territory should be included within its defences. Following the example set by Germany and Russia, the British Government concluded an arrangement with the Government of China by which the needed extension was secured to Great Britain under a ninety-nine years lease. A convention embodying this agreement was signed at Peking in June 1898.
CHAPTER XV.
MACAO.
Contrast with Hongkong—An interesting survival—Trading facilities—Relations with Chinese Government—Creditable to both parties—Successful resistance to the Dutch—Portuguese expulsion from Japan—English trading competitors enjoy hospitality of Macao—Trade with Canton—Hongkong becomes a rival—Macao eclipsed—Gambling, Coolie trade, Piracy—Population—Cradle of many improvements—Distinguished names.