The metaphor need not be done to death, for it is no longer as apposite as it once was. But there is no question that graft and corruption continue to eat away at the structure of the colony government. In a hundred casual conversations with a hundred different colony residents—English, Chinese, American, Portuguese, governmental and nongovernmental—the visitor will almost never hear that the ruling powers have railroaded some poor devil off to jail without cause, swindled him out of his property to benefit the state, or hounded the populace into semistarvation with unbearable taxation. If these evils exist, they are neither frequent enough nor sufficiently conspicuous to engage people’s passions.
But on the subject of graft—the innumerable, small nicks taken from merchants, builders, and the ordinary citizen seeking any type of official favor or permit—the floodgates of complaint are wide open. Much of this is generalized, unproved, even irresponsible, operating at about the same intellectual level as a taxi-driver’s jeremiad. Nevertheless, there is a core of solid complaint that cannot be ignored.
Within the colony government, there is a large segment that bridles at the least intimation of official graft. The motto of this segment is: Don’t rock the boat. We know we’re not perfect, they seem to be saying, but don’t go around kicking over beehives, or the first thing we know, the Colonial Office will be down on our heads with all kinds of inquiries, full-dress investigations and a fearful flap. We’ll all be sacked, sent home in disgrace, and it won’t change one thing for the better. So let’s keep quiet, muddle along as best we can and try to eliminate the grafters quietly, one at a time. We’re really not a bad lot of chaps, you know.
Fortunately, some of the colony’s chief officers do not subscribe to the theory that corruption can be defeated by a public pretense that it does not exist.
Something like a civic shock-wave was recorded in Hong Kong on January 11, 1962, when Chief Justice Michael Hogan opened the Supreme Court Assizes by coming to grips with the issue of corruption.
“No one would claim we are entirely immune from this evil,” Sir Michael said. He noted that the heavy penalties prescribed for corruption offenses must be enforced without recourse to “the surreptitious whisper in the corridor; the accusation made behind his (the accused’s) back; or the anonymous letter. If such methods should come to be accepted, then we would have another evil just as bad, if not worse, than corruption.”
The Chief Justice proceeded to put his finger on one of the main obstacles to the exposure of corruption:
“There is a reluctance to come forward and give information; to come, if necessary, into court and face the possibility of a cross-examination, attacking character, credit and the power of recollection—in fact a reluctance to pay the price that the rule of law demands.”
He contrasted this attitude with the recent case of a Mr. Tong, who captured and held on to a sneak-thief despite six stab wounds, and asked:
“Does this mean that physical courage is more plentiful than moral courage in Hong Kong today?”