Government
In January 1841, when Elliot declared Hong Kong's cession to Britain, he proclaimed that the government shall devolve upon the office of Chief Superintendent of British Trade in China. He issued a proclamation with Commodore Bremer to the inhabitants on 1 February, declaring that they "are hereby promised protection, in her majesty's gracious name, against all enemies whatever; and they are further secured in the free exercise of their religious rites, ceremonies, and social customs; and in the enjoyment of their lawful private property and interests." Elliot declared that Chinese natives would be governed under Chinese laws (excluding torture), and that British subjects and foreigners would fall under British law. However, London decided that English law should prevail.
The Letters Patent of 5 April 1843 defined the constitutional structure of Hong Kong as a Crown colony and the Royal Instructions detailed how the region should be governed and organised. The Letters Patent prescribed a Governor as head of government, and both the Executive Council and Legislative Council being advisors to the Governor. The administrative civil service of the colony was led by a Colonial Secretary (later Chief Secretary), who was deputy to the Governor.
In 1861, Governor Sir Hercules Robinson introduced the Hong Kong Cadetship, which recruited young graduates from Britain to learn Cantonese and written Chinese for two years, before deploying them on a fast track to the Civil Service. Cadet officers gradually formed the backbone of the civil administration. After the Second World War, ethnic Chinese were allowed into the service, followed by women. Cadets were renamed Administrative Officers in the 1950s, and they remained the elite of the Civil Service during British rule.
Read more about this topic: British Hong Kong
Famous quotes containing the word government:
“Our system of government, in spite of Vietnam, Cambodia, CIA, Watergate, is still the best system of government on earth. And the greatest resource of all are the 215 million Americans who still have within us the strength, the character, the intelligence, the experience, the patriotism, the idealism, the compassion, the sense of brotherhood on which we can rely in the future to restore the greatness to our country.”
—Jimmy Carter (James Earl Carter, Jr.)
“I will never accept that I got a free ride. It wasn’t free at all. My ancestors were brought here against their will. They were made to work and help build the country. I worked in the cotton fields from the age of seven. I worked in the laundry for twenty- three years. I worked for the national organization for nine years. I just retired from city government after twelve-and-a- half years.”
—Johnnie Tillmon (b. 1926)
“I have no doubt that soldiers well drilled are, as a class, peculiarly destitute of originality and independence.... It is impossible to give the soldier a good education without making him a deserter. His natural foe is the government that drills him.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)