Hong Kong's Watershed: The 1967 Riots

01: Prelude to the 1967 riots

1 Prelude to the 1967 riots For passers-by near Star Ferry pier in Central and commuters rushing there to catch ferries, April 4, 1966 appeared to be just another uneventful day. Yet the appearance of a 25-year-old man in the Star Ferry Concourse at 11 a.m. upset the hush and changed the course of Hong Kong history. The young man wore a black jacket with the English words “Staging hunger strike, Opposing fare increase” painted on its back, and the Chinese and English words “Support Elsie” were painted on its left and right sleeves respectively. The man, So Sau-chung, vowed to go on a hunger strike until the Star Ferry withdrew its proposal to increase the fare of ferry service between Central and Tsim Sha Tsui. The one-man hunger strike was unprecedented in Hong Kong where demonstrations rarely happened before the early 1970s. People crowded around him and his actions drew sympathy from some members of the public and 11 young people, including a young man called Lo Kei, joined the hunger strike. But even So himself did not expect that his action would spark a riot two days later. The Star Ferry lodged an application to the government on October 1, 1965 for increasing the fare for first-class seats by 10 cents and the charge for a monthly ticket would be increased from HK$8 to HK$10. The ferry service was then a vital link between Hong Kong and Tsim Sha Tsui. The unpopular decision drew protests from the Urban Council, the Chinese Chamber of Commerce, and the Hong Kong and Kowloon Trade Union Council. Most of the local newspapers’ editorials also opposed the fare increase. The fare rise was proposed against the backdrop of an economic crisis since the mid-1960s. The then urban councillor Elsie Elliott (now Elsie Tu) noted that there were bankruptcies and bank runs in 1964 and 1965. “Many poor people lost all their savings in banks that had overspeculated, and they found that the government had made no laws to protect them. Just at this most inopportune time, the monopoly companies controlling utilities began to talk of fare rises. It started with the Star Ferry Company, but the Kowloon Motor Bus Company was waiting on the sidelines to do likewise. In fact, they were all lined up for the kill,” Tu wrote.1 Cheung_01_ch01.indd 9 19/04/2011 2:33 PM 10 Hong Kong’s Watershed The proposed 10-cent fare increase, though negligible nowadays, was substantial in 1966 when a newspaper cost 10 cents and many low-income workers only earned a few dollars a day. The Star Ferry’s application for fare increase, which was the first among public utilities at the time, was widely seen as a harbinger of further surges in fees and charges that would affect people’s livelihood. Elsie Elliott, who sympathized with the plight of low-income community, started a petition requesting a delay in any talk of fare rises while workers were still suffering from the aftermath of the economic crisis. However, the overwhelming opposition to the fare increase failed to impress the Transport Advisory Committee, which recommended on March 17, 1966 to the government that the first-class fare of Star Ferry be increased by 5 cents and the charge for monthly tickets be increased to $12. The government subsequently announced a series of increases in government charges, such as postage increase for mail to mainland China and 10 per cent increase of rents for public flats. Members of the public were generally discontented with the government’s approval of the fare increases. A newspaper ran an eye-catching headline, “Public opinion is not even worth a 5-cent coin”, with the connotation that the administration ignored public opinion. Henry Hu Hung-lick, the then urban councillor and founder of Hong Kong Shue Yan University, criticized the committee for being manipulated by the government. He said that the “opinions” of the committee were tantamount to those of the government. Hu urged the government to shut the “door of fare increase” right away. Realizing that nothing would prevent fares from being increased, Elsie Elliott urged leaders of various organizations to speak up urgently “before it was too late”. So, who was a translator at the time, was asked by two policemen at 4 p.m. on April 5, the second day of his hunger strike, to leave the Star Ferry concourse. He was arrested after he...