bound together by a steadily developing communion of interests and responsibilities: the destiny of the one race is to rule and the fate of the other to be ruled. The different periods of Hongkong's history, though demarcated each by the administration of a different Governor, are In reality the successive stages of the growth of one ideal person (the Colony) naturally expanding Itself in a continuous line of so many generations, as it were, of one and the same ideal family (the community). Looking deeper still, there is seen underlying this mixed and fluctuating population of Hongkong a self-perpetuating unity: the secret inchoative union of Europe and Asia (as represented by China). This union is in process of practical elaboration through the combined forces of commerce, civilisation and Christian education, and particularly through the steady development of Great Britain's political influence in the East, an influence which dates back to the earliest days of the East India Company in India and China. Indeed, the Anglo-Chinese community of Hongkong specifically represents that coming union of Europe and Asia which China stubbornly resists while Great Britain and Russia, France and Japan unconsciously co-operate towards it. As representing that union, the Hongkong community has its root in the earlier and smaller community of British and other European merchants
