Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this file which includes the original illustrations. See 62191-h.htm or 62191-h.zip: (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/62191/62191-h/62191-h.htm) or (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/62191/62191-h.zip) Images of the original pages are available through HathiTrust Digital Library. See https://hdl.handle.net/2027/mdp.39015002199274 HONG KONG GENE GLEASON The John Day Company, New York © 1963 by Gene Gleason All rights reserved. This book, or parts thereof, must not be reproduced in any form without permission. Published by The John Day Company, 62 West 45th Street, New York 36, N.Y., and simultaneously in Canada by Longmans Canada Limited, Toronto. Library of Congress Catalogue Card Number: 63-7957 Manufactured in the United States of America _To all who helped—particularly, Pat_ Contents INTRODUCTION 11 1. UP FROM BRITISH BARBARISM 15 2. AN AVALANCHE FROM THE NORTH 47 3. CONFLICT AND COEXISTENCE WITH TWO CHINAS 85 4. INDUSTRIAL GROWTH AND GROWING PAINS 113 5. HIGH LAND, LOW WATER 155 6. A NEW DAY FOR FARMS AND FISHERIES 175 7. CRIME, POWER AND CORRUPTION 201 8. TWO WORLDS IN ONE HOUSE 227 9. RAMBLING AROUND THE COLONY 259 10. SHOPPING BEFORE DINNER 289 INDEX 309 _Sixteen pages of illustrations will be found following page 160._ Hong Kong [Illustration: BRITISH CROWN COLONY OF HONG KONG and Adjacent Areas] Introduction Hong Kong is a high point on the skyline of the Free World. As a free port operating on a free-world basis, it is too valuable to lose.—SIR ROBERT BROWN BLACK, Governor of the British Crown Colony of Hong Kong, 1962 Except for Portugal’s tiny overseas province of Macao, Hong Kong is the last Western outpost on the mainland of China. It is the Berlin of East Asia, poised in perilous balance between two ideologies and two civilizations. The government and people of Hong Kong have performed a matter-of-fact miracle by saving the lives of more than a million refugees from Red China. Without appealing for foreign aid or emergency subsidies from the home country, the colony’s rulers have provided jobs, homes and freedom for the destitute. Private charitable organizations overseas and outright gifts from the governments of Great Britain and the United States have achieved miracles on their own in feeding, clothing and educating the poor of Hong Kong, but the main burden is too great to be borne by any agency except the full public power of the royal crown colony.