People give away money voluntarily for all sorts of reasons. Sometimes they do it publicly, and sometimes they follow the advice that Jesus Christ is reputed to have given to always give secretly and discretely. I have always liked that (seemingly much-neglected in modern churches) particular bit of the gospel of Matthew, but at the same time people would not give so much were it not for the nebulous reward of status and fame. Charities around the world are dependent on what should ideally be a symbiotic relationship with celebrities and the rich. This has been the case for a long time, but can cause problems because inequalities in this relationship are difficult to measure or protest: a friend recently told me about a charity that was excited to be offered the services of two famous sportspeople for a fundraising event, only to find that the extra money generated was required to pay the men’s fees. Only the celebrities and their handlers profited, both in terms of status and money. Which is, frankly, disgusting.
A more systematic way of paying for the voluntary contributions of time-, fame- or money-rich citizens is to find some way of honoring their service to the state publicly. The British honours system has for a long time fulfilled this function: rich men and women give money to the state or to charities, and they receive knighthoods (regardless of their character or reputation). This can work pretty well, but it has also produced problems, especially on the geographical and racial margins of the honours system. During the 1930s, one of the leading philanthropists in Hong Kong was the Anglo-Chinese businessman Robert Ho Tung. It is impossible to know his full motivations for giving as much as he did. But the promise of honours certainly formed part of them.
Ho Tung was already a knight Bachelor (the most junior knighthood in the British system) when, in 1927, he petitioned political acquaintances and the British Colonial Office to award him a KBE or KCMG (Knight of the British Empire, and Knight of the Order of St Michael and St George) to complement his existing awards. His campaign for another knighthood was particularly interesting because he was so direct and explicit in his approach. Knowing that honours stemmed from charitable donations, he was quite explicit about his motives in giving money. Charity equaled knighthood, and, therefore, a knighthood was quantifiable. In one letter to a British Colonial Office official he suggested that donations amounting to tens of thousands of pounds to the YMCA and the Anglican Diocesan Girl’s school in Hong Kong warranted the award of one of the honours he desired. The Colonial Office was somewhat baffled by his confidence and honesty. The official, having been subject to a great deal of similar pressure from Ho Tung in the past, wrote to a colleague that ‘the Eastern tranquility of his effrontery is the only excuse, I think, for its Western application which as you know is really very difficult to resist without rudeness.’ Ho Tung’s ‘undiminished pertinacity’ continued, and this was not the last occasion on which he sent in his or his wife’s philanthropic record in the hope of attaining a specific honour. A later memo from the 1940s labeled him as a ‘collector of foreign decorations’. British civil servants (themselves, in their own way, often great collectors of decorations) were greatly annoyed at Ho Tung’s assertiveness in declaring that he deserved them, too.
On the one hand, this incident shows us some of the racial stereotypes entertained by members of the British foreign and home civil service at the time. But this was not just about race: they would have been similarly unhappy with an English tycoon who had made similar demands, although they would have used different language to describe him. While Ho Tung understood that it was through conspicuous and extensive donations that businessmen could receive honours, he was too explicit about this, breaking the unspoken code that donors had to be discreet and find ways of modestly letting officials know about their desire for knighthoods. Recipients of honours were supposed to be grateful for their rewards, and not dictate openly that they needed, or even wanted them. In Britain, businessmen or politicians who wanted a knighthood could carefully let an ally with the ear of the Prime Minister know about their desire, and it could be processed through unofficial conversations and secret meetings. It was harder for those on the other side of the world.
But in the end, the force of Ho Tung’s extensive and ongoing charitable donations eventually won out over his imprudent assertiveness and the Colonial Office’s racial double-standards: in 1955, a year before his death, his ‘pertinacity’ was finally rewarded with a KBE.
Source: Colonial Office Records, National Archives (UK)