14 Nov 1945, Chronology of Events Related to Stanley Civilian Internment Camp

The vigorous newspaper debate about the nature of post-war Hong Kong's 'Europeans' continues.

'Pownee' points out that, whoever's snubbing ordinary servicemen, it isn't the British community, most of whom are on repatriation leave. Those left behind are generally billeted in Government-requisitioned hotels or R.A.P.W.I. Centres – they don't invite servicemen into their homes because these homes have been looted so much as to be uninhabitable. These people, who have been kept behind to work for short-staffed Government services, are often dependent on charity even for clothing, and in fact they themselves feel that 'certain members' of the Military Administration resent their presence.

These seem like good points, but so do those made by 'Anti-Exploitation' on the separate but related issue of the treatment of the Chinese majority. Citing the 1941 Civil Service List , he shows that a 'Chinese' (i.e. non- European) Medical Officer gets $375 a month, while a European with the same qualifications gets $933 plus help with rent. Sadly this was not to change much in the years to come: Dr. Eddie Gosano, who had performed splendid work operating – as a volunteer- on wounded soldiers after the end of hostilities, later moved to Macao where he helped provide medical services for refugees and was a member (for a time the head) of the BAAG (British resistance organisation). He agreed to return to Hong Kong as part of the BAAG mission at the end of war, even though this meant giving up a flourishing private practice, and helped re-establish medical facilities in Kowloon. He was nevertheless re-employed as 'Chinese' on a lower salary – quite rightly, he doesn't make the point that he wasn't ethnically Chinese but that no-one should be paid a salary determined by their 'race' (real or imaginary).

But it's significant of the new mood amongst Hong Kong's 'Europeans' that The China Mail weighs into the debate with an unambiguous editorial headed 'Economic Equality'. The writer fully accepts the case made by 'Anti-Exploitation' and hopes that racial dsicrimination in salaries will soon become a thing of the past, and that this will be just one part of a broader move towards democracy - 'Hong Kong's New Deal'. It notes, reasonably enough, that the situation was not created by the Military Administration and can't be resolved in the next few months. But it makes it clear that when, hopefully, in the near future, civilian rule is restored, it expects the Government to deal with the matter of racially-based economic discrimination quickly. At the same time, it praises the Miitary Administration for having done a reasonably good job of spending money to relieve distress and reduce living costs for the masses. It looks like the values Selwyn and Hilda Selwyn-Clarke and like-minded men and women of the left were fighting for before the war are about to triumph. But will Hong Kong's British rulers really be able to leave behind both racism and laissez-faire thinking and start taxing the rich of all nations and spending the proceeds on the largely Chinese poor?

Sources:

Letters: China Mail, November 14, 1945, page 2

Gosano: Eduardo L. Gosano, Hong Kong Farewell, 1997, 36-38 42-43.