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Chapter 6: The Daily Grind (1910–1912)
- Hong Kong University Press, HKU
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Even when he was writing at a tremendous pace, Johnston could not afford to neglect his official duties. He was extremely conscientious in this respect. No matter how tedious the work, how boring the memoranda which passed before him, he studied everything with great care. His attention to detail was in marked contrast to the somewhat slapdash approach of Walter, his opposite number in the territory. Johnston cared little for him, and at times his exasperation flared up. One such occasion was in 1909, when the government of Hong Kong sent the officers in Weihai a copy of Clementi’s Transliteration of Chinese Characters. Clementi’s publication proposed some amendments to the existing system for transliterating Chinese characters, to bring it into line with methods used for other oriental languages. It was a clever piece of work that Johnston admired. He was therefore outraged when Walter forwarded the pamphlet to him with a minute, filled with what Johnston viewed as niggling criticisms and dismissing the new approach to universal transliteration. In a lengthy reply, Johnston was merciless in his rebuke. Stating tersely that ‘I do not think there is much to find fault with the system proposed by Mr Clementi’, Johnston then supported his argument by drawing from numerous scholarly sources. In doing so he of course underlined Walter’s Achilles’ heel: his glaring lack of academic knowledge. Walter’s subsequent silence was a most eloquent testimony to the ferocity of Johnston’s attack.1 Relations between the two men were to deteriorate further when, in 1910, Walter asked for Johnston’s papers on a case to be sent to him. Johnston protested as he thought Walter might be tempted to rehear the case, so he sent the papers to Stewart Lockhart instead with a long note noting tersely that, as magistrates, he and Walter were both on an entirely equal footing. He continued the memo by giving vent to feelings which had obviously been smouldering for some time: I think you know already that as much as I like Weihai I have found my official position here, vis-à-vis Walter, in many ways a very trying Chapter 6 The Daily Grind (1910–1912) 92 Scottish Mandarin one—not through any intentional action of his. He has often told me about his various worries and annoyances here: perhaps he does not realise that I, too, occasionally have had my little ‘worry’. I think that as far as possible he ought to recognise the peculiarity of my position here, and realise that if seniority went by actual length of service he could not be regarded as my senior far less my official superior. I had been in full active employment in Hong Kong for several months when he was still a cadet in Guangzhou; and besides having had longer actual service than he, I have also (I think you must agree) had immensely harder work and far wider official experience . Surely it is only human nature that such being the case I should occasionally feel a little restless, both at my present position and my future more or less hopeless prospects in the service: and that I should perhaps rather jealously resent any suggestion … that I ought to regard myself in any way subordinate to him.2 It was obviously difficult for Johnston to work with a man for whom he had little respect; the fact that Walter was secretary to the government as well as a district officer seems to have rankled. When stuck in a tiny administration, it is easy for small matters of precedence and superiority to take on enormous significance. Even so, Johnston did not have an easy time with Walter, who could be overbearing and sly as well as lazy, and there was little Stewart Lockhart could do to ameliorate the situation . The friction between the two men was not to improve; Johnston was provoked to write, ‘I am quite serious when I say that if I do not get fat promotion by the time Walter returns from leave I shall leave the service rather than face another term of years as a colleague of his.’3 Fortunately, Walter was moved from Weihai before Johnston could carry out his threat, but even away from the territory he caused trouble. When he was on leave in England in 1911, Walter took time to visit the Colonial Office and spread some pretty damning invective about Stewart Lockhart and Johnston. He declared that neither man worked particularly hard, nor...