Man-kam Lo

Sir Man-kam Lo, CBE (; 21 July 1893 – 7 March 1959) was an Eurasian lawyer in Hong Kong and unofficial member of the Executive Council and the Legislative Council of Hong Kong.

Early life and education Man-kam Lo was born into a prominent Eurasian family in July 1893. His father was Lo Cheung-shiu, a compradore of Jardine, Matheson & Co. At the age of 13, he left Hong Kong to study law in England in 1906. He graduated with First Class Honours in the Law Society Examinations in London and returned to Hong Kong in 1915. He began practicing law and later became the senior partner of the law firm Lo & Lo.

In 1918, he married Victoria Hotung, the eldest daughter of Robert Ho Tung, a prominent Hong Kong businessman and close friend of his father's.

Family Man-kam Lo was the eldest child of Lo Cheung-shiu and Shi Sheung-hing. He had three brothers (Man-wai, Man-ho and Man-hin) and five sisters. He was appointed Justice of the Peace in 1921.

Lo was ambivalent on the mui-tsai system, a form of child slavery then prevalent in colonial Hong Kong. Initially an ardent defender like Sir Robert Hotung, his father-in-law, he later supported its abolition.

From 1929 to 1930, he was the chairman of the Tung Wah Hospital and the honorary legal adviser for the Tung Wah Group of Hospitals. In 1931, he served as honorary legal adviser for the Po Leung Kuk society and the Chinese Gold and Silver Exchange.

Man-kam Lo was an outspoken opponent of the colonial government's policy of racial segregation, which remained in place until 1946. Together with José Pedro Braga, who later became the first Portuguese appointed to the Legislative Council, he founded the League of Fellowship in 1921, aimed at eliminating "racial disabilities" and "promoting good fellowship within the Colony, irrespective of race, class and creed." On 26 July 1946, following a second reading of a bill in the Legislative Council aimed at repealing the Peak District Reservation Ordinance, a controversial law that prohibited Chinese from living in The Peak district, Lo argued that "the Chinese had no particular desire to live on the Peak. Their opposition was based solely on grounds of racial discrimination."

In 1940, on the eve of the Pacific War, Man-kam Lo and Leo d'Almada e Castro, the Portuguese representative in the Legislative Council, criticized authorities after a government ship evacuating British nationals to Australia, a majority of whom were of pure European descent, forced a number of Eurasians to disembark in Manila, the Philippines, on the grounds that Eurasians would feel more at ease among brown or yellow-skinned people. At a Financial Committee meeting, Lo raised the issue of racial discrimination, stating that "the tax-payers of this colony are being made to pay for the evacuation of a very small and selected section of the community and, whenever necessary, for their maintenance and support during an indefinite period, leaving some 99.9 percent of the population uncared for and unprotected when an emergency does come."

Japanese occupation During the Japanese occupation of Hong Kong, many local Chinese leaders including Man-kam Lo were pressured by the Japanese authorities to serve on various representative committees. After the petition of the Chinese Chamber of Commerce on the difficulties of the disruption of public utilities and of supplies, the currency problem, and prostitution, the Japanese authorities formed the Rehabilitation Advisory Committee. Robert Kotewall and Sir Shouson Chow were appointed chairman and vice-chairman respectively and Man-kam Lo was appointed member of the committee. The committee held 59 meetings and was later replaced by the Chinese Representative Council and Chinese Cooperative Council, in which he was a member of the latter.

Lo was able to escape the opprobrium of outright collaboration with the occupying troops due to a series of possibly "diplomatic" illnesses. In contrast to his years on the Legislative Council before the war, Lo generally remained silent on the wartime councils. One of the only times he spoke was when the Japanese authorities asked how they might improve relations between the Chinese and Japanese. He replied that Japanese troops could take the initiative by not urinating in public.

After the British returned in 1945, many local leaders who had collaborated with the Japanese were denied appointments to public positions. Robert Kotewall was asked to withdraw from public life and had to resign from the Executive Council. Sir Shouson Chow never completely returned and Li Tse-fong was not reappointed to the Legislative Council. However, Man-kam Lo was able to return to public life because the British believed he had worked with the Japanese only with great reluctance.

Post-war career In 1946, Man-kam Lo was appointed to the Executive Council and re-appointed to the Legislative Council, where he played an important role during his tenure. He was subsequently knighted in 1948 for his efforts in helping to rebuild Hong Kong.

After the Second World War, the UK's Labour Government decided to give people in the colonies a greater say over their affairs. On his return to Hong Kong in 1946, Governor Sir Mark Young announced a constitutional reform plan of "giving to the inhabitants of the Colony a fuller and more responsible share in the management of their own affairs." The Young Plan proposed an increase in the number of seats for unofficial members on the Legislative Council and the creation of a municipal council elected by the people of Hong Kong. It also proposed the imposition of direct taxes to fund more social services, an idea Man-kam Lo supported.

Young's successor Sir Alexander Grantham, however, did not share the same view as Young. With the Chinese Communists gaining in power during the civil war, Grantham advised Downing Street against implementing the reforms, believing that it would provide a potential opening for a Communist backlash. At a meeting of the Legislative Council on 22 June 1949, Man-kam Lo suggested that the Young Plan was no longer the best option for giving Hong Kong residents a greater voice in the government. He tabled a revised proposal, supported by all unofficial members, which called for a smaller Legislative Council with an unofficial majority and the scrapping of the municipal council. Fearing a negative reaction from the Communists, the British Cabinet rejected both Young's reforms and Lo's proposals, deciding instead to allow for the creation of two elected seats in the Urban Council.

Man-kam Lo was a supporter of educational reform in Hong Kong. He helped Li Luk-wah establish a school for the deaf and supported Bishop Hall in his efforts to organize schools for the children of workers. In 1950, he sought to have children who were unable to attend primary school registered and recommended to the Legislative Council that the government open an inquiry into government spending on education, arguing that the Grant Code that enabled secondary schools to receive grants was overly generous. Subsequently, the government invited N.G. Fisher, the Chief Education Officer of Manchester, to conduct an inquiry; the resulting report became a significant blueprint for education reform in Hong Kong.

In 1950, the government appointed Man-kam Lo to the Committee on Chinese Laws and Customs in Hong Kong, whose aim was to recommend changes to local Chinese customs. In the committee's report, Lo recommended that the custom of Chinese men taking concubines be left untouched on the grounds that the old law "if it is not so acted upon...will gradually die out."

In March 1951, Man-kam Lo received an honorary degree from the University of Hong Kong.

Lo was highly regarded by Sir Alexander Grantham in his autobiography Via Ports. Grantham said Lo was outstanding as an Executive Council member and had "a first class brain, great moral courage and a capacity for digging down into details without becoming lost in them."