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Middlemen, Colonial Officials, and Corruption: The rise and fall of government compradors in Hong Kong, 1840s–1850s

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 June 2018

KAORI ABE
KAORI ABE*
Affiliation:
Making Asia Project, Department of History, University of Bristol, UK Email: [email protected]
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Abstract

Exploring the rise and fall of government compradors, this article highlights Sino-British collusion in the corruption and extortion cases of the Hong Kong colonial government in the 1840s and the 1850s. A number of compradors worked for the Hong Kong colonial government throughout the nineteenth century, acting as a key communication channel between Chinese residents and colonial officials in the formative years of the colony. Various institutions of the colonial government, for instance the Colonial Treasury, Post Office, and British military, employed compradors. Colonial officials also personally employed compradors, who supported their principals’ work in the government. However, a symbiotic relationship between corrupt colonial officials and compradors had become a public problem by the mid-1850s. The colonial government responded to this by diversifying its Chinese staff rather than depending on monopolistic compradors, and also launched a scheme to nurture and employ British personnel who could act as intermediaries between the British and Chinese communities. At the same time, different kinds of Chinese intermediary elites emerged in Hong Kong from the 1860s onwards, and government compradors’ monopolistic authority in mediating between colonial officials and the Chinese public gradually declined. The volatile government comprador system highlights a key phase in the history of the evolution of the comprador system in Hong Kong.

Type
Research Article
Information
Modern Asian Studies , Volume 52 , Issue 5 , September 2018 , pp. 1774 - 1805
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2018 

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References

1 A comprador is an occupational title for a Chinese intermediary, employed by a foreign firm in nineteenth- and twentieth-century China. ‘Comprador’ does not refer to indigenous collaborators with foreign imperial powers. This article focuses on the Chinese middlemen who held the occupational title of ‘comprador’ at least once in their careers. It does not focus on other types of Chinese middlemen working with foreigners in modern China. I have avoided using ideological concepts of the ‘comprador class’ or ‘comprador bourgeoisie’, in order to understand the compradors from a more neutral perspective.

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8 Yen-p'ing Hao points out that British and other European officials also employed compradors in treaty ports, but he does not explore this in more detail. Hao, Comprador, pp. 44–45. Aside from Hao, most studies generally regard compradors as economic intermediaries between foreign and Chinese companies in modern China.

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26 TNA: CO129/5, Colonial Accounts, 14 June 1844, pp. 398–403 includes a number of receipts signed by several compradors working for the colonial government, including Aaon.

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32 TNA: CO129/5, Special service under the order of Major General Lord Saltoun Commanding Ordnance, 1 August 1843, pp. 468–469.

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42 TNA: CO129/244, Despatches, Pension to Mr. Cin Tsun, Compradore in Post Office, 10 January 1890, pp. 32–39.

43 TNA: CO129/389, Pension of Mr. Chun Mau Yung, 20 March 1912, p. 199. For the establishment of the British postal service in nineteenth-century China, see Bishop, G. T., Morton, C. S. and Sayers, W., Hong Kong and the Treaty Ports: Postal History and Postal Markings, 2nd edition (London: The Postal History Society, 1949).Google Scholar

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46 Caine employed compradors as early as June 1841. At this time, John Robert Morrison instructed the newly appointed magistrate to hire two compradors for the service to magistracy at a wage of $15 to $20 per month. TNA: FO17/46, From Morrison to Captain Caine Chief Magistrate Hong Kong Inclosure no. 19 despatch no. 10, Macao 21 June 1841.

47 Emrys Evans, Dafydd, ‘The Origins of Hong Kong's Central Market and the Tarrant Affair’, Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, Hong Kong Branch, Vol. 12 (1972), p. 150Google Scholar. Lower Bazaar was located around present-day Bonham Strand and Jervois Street. Upper Bazaar was in the area of today's Aberdeen Street and the east side of Hollywood Road, close to Kau U Fong and Gough Street. Ho Pui Yin (translator, C.S. Johnson), Challenges for an Evolving City: 160 years of Port and Land Development in Hong Kong (Hong Kong: Commercial Press, 2004), p. 44.

48 Evans, ‘The Origins of Hong Kong's Central Market’, pp. 150–151.

49 Chi-hung Luk, Gary, ‘Monopoly, Transaction and Extortion: Public Market Franchise and Colonial Relations in British Hong Kong, 1844–58’, Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, Hong Kong Branch, vol. 52 (2012), p. 158.Google Scholar

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51 TNA: CO129/20, Inquest by Campbell, 6 July 1847, pp. 247–248.

52 Ibid., pp. 237, 249.

53 Chow Aaon's connection with Tam Achoy and Colonel Caine's comprador, TNA: CO129/20, Lo Een-teen. Tarrant to Cleverly (Acting Colonial Treasurer), 3 July 1847, pp. 233–234.

54 TNA: CO129/20, Inquest by Campbell, 6 July 1847, pp. 244, 260–261.

55 Ibid., pp. 260–261. In the inquiry, Tam also stated that when he visited Major Aldrich's office to make a contract, Aldrich's comprador Lum Choong (alias A-how) attempted to obtain a five per cent commission from the total amount of money Tam should receive, since ‘all others paid the same’ (p. 261). Luk, ‘Monopoly, Transaction and Extortion’, pp. 156–157.

56 Hongkong Register, 24 December 1844, p. 215, cited in Munn, Anglo-China, p. 187.

57 Ibid, pp. 187–188.

58 William Norton-Kyshe, James, The History of the Laws and Courts of Hong-kong: Tracing Consular Jurisdiction in China and Japan and Including Parliamentary Debates, and the Rise, Progress, and Successive Change in the various Public Institutions of the Colony from the Earliest Period to the Present Time (T. F. Unwin, 1898)Google Scholar, Vol. 1, p. 56.

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66 Ibid., pp. 15–16, 23, 25–26.

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71 Endacott, Biographical Sketch-Book, p. 127.

72 UKPP, Accounts and Papers of the House of Commons, Vol. 38 (1860), Hong Kong, p. 11.

73 Hong Kong Register, 30 March, 20 April, 4 May and 11 May 1858, pp. 55, 70, 78 and 84.

74 UKPP, Accounts and Papers of the House of Commons, Vol. 35 (1860), Hong Kong, pp. 16–17.

75 Ibid., p. 23.

76 UKPP, House of Commons Papers, Vol. 29, Accounts and Papers, Estimates, &c. Miscellaneous services: for the year ending 31 March 1846, ‘Hong Kong and Ports in China’, p. 20.

77 UKPP, House of Commons Papers, Vol. 28, Accounts and Papers, Estimates, &c. Miscellaneous services: for the year ending 31 March 1846, ‘Hong Kong and Ports in China’, pp. 19–20.

78 Munn, Christopher, ‘Hong Kong, 1841–1870: All the Servants in Prison and Nobody to Take Care of the House’ in Hay, Douglas and Craven, Paul (eds), Masters, Servants, and Magistrates in Britain and the Empire, 1562–1955 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2004), p. 391Google Scholar.

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81 Ibid., p. 26.

82 Smith, Chinese Christians, p. 41.

83 TNA: CO129/23, From John Davis to the Earl Grey, 25 January 1847, pp. 82–86.

84 TNA: CO129/23, John Davis to the Earl Grey, 25 January 1848, pp. 82–83; Sinn, Elizabeth, Pacific Crossing: California Gold, Chinese Migration, and the Making of Hong Kong (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2013), pp. 34CrossRefGoogle Scholar, 331.

85 For careers of Tong Mow-chee and Tong King-sing, see Abe, Kaori, ‘Intermediary Elites in the Treaty Port World: Tong Mow-chee and His Collaborators in Shanghai, 1873–1897’, Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society (Third Series), 25 (2015), pp. 461–480CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

86 TNA: FO17/46, From Morrison to Captain Caine Chief Magistrate Hong Kong Inclosure no. 19, Dispatch no. 10, Macao, 21 June 1841.

87 TNA: CO129/20, Tarrant to Cleverly (Acting Colonial Treasurer), 3 July 1847, pp. 233–234. The details of these enquires are elaborated by Christopher Munn, ‘“A Reign of Terror”: Corruption, Scandal, and the Caldwell Affair, 1857–1861’ in Munn, Anglo-China, pp. 290–328.

88 The ‘Blue Books’ issued between the 1840s and the 1880s suggest a general increase in the number of Chinese staff in the colonial government; however, no comprador was recorded as being employed from 1860 onwards, except for the comprador in the Post Office.

89 Munn, ‘Hong Kong, 1841–1870’, p. 390.

90 It should be noted that analysis of the decline of government compradors was methodologically challenging, as many colonial organizations did not formally record the employment of compradors, or they recorded them in a different category such as ‘Chinese clerk’.

91 TNA: CO129/21, 23 September 1847, Resignation of Mr. Fittock, pp. 47–50.

92 HKPRO: HKRS77-1-4, Provisions Bond, May 1848–May 1849.

93 TNA: CO129/278, William Robinson to Joseph Chamberlain, 18 December 1897, Comprador in Public Works Department, pp. 458–461.

94 TNA: CO133/1–CO133/31, ‘Blue Books’, 1844–1874.

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100 JMA: L14/9, The Golden Wedding of Sir Robert and Lady Ho Tung (1932–1933).

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102 Regarding the merchant elites, including the company compradors’ public activities in Hong Kong, see Sinn, Elizabeth, Power and Charity: A Chinese Merchant Elite in Colonial Hong Kong (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2003)Google Scholar.

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106 Tsang, Modern History of Hong Kong, p. 66; Norman Miners, Hong Kong Under Imperial Rule, 1912–1941 (Hong Kong: Oxford University Press, 1987) p. 61.

107 HKPRO: HKRS149-2-248 Bond from the comprador to P. office—cancelled, 18 August 1860.

108 HKPRO: HKRS149-2-589, Bond: Mang Fook Liu, 30 November 1870.

109 China Mail, 5 June 1879, p. 3; The China Directory, published in 1873 and 1874, recorded that Pang Fong Poo was a comprador to the commissariat in Hong Kong.

110 Jardine Matheson Archive (JMA), University of Cambridge Library, Manuscripts Department: B7/15, Business letters: Hong Kong, Pang A Yim to the General Agent, Saigon & Straits S.S. Co. Ltd, 8 February 1870.

111 The Straits Times, 25 March 1876, p. 4.

112 Government Gazette, 4 March 1882, p. 241. Po-Keung, Hui, ‘Comprador Politics and Middlemen Capitalism’ in Tak-Wing, Ngo, Hong Kong's History: State and Society Under Colonial Rule (London, New York: Routledge, 1999), pp. 37–38Google Scholar; Bangjian, Yuan 元邦建 (ed.), Xianggang Shilue 香港史略 (Hong Kong: Zhongliu chuban she, 1988), p. 130Google Scholar.