Bulletin Autumn 1988

perhaps assume from that that anything after The Canterbury Tales is too unexciting to be o f interest to this undergraduate. It was at Oxford that he met and fell in love w ith a beautiful young actress who was appearing w ith the Liverpool Playhouse. This was Miss Jane Spickernell, daughter o f Admiral Sir Frank Spickernell, now Lady Akers-Jones. Not long after, they married and the young David Akers-Jones joined the Foreign Office. He was enrolled in the School o f Oriental and African Studies in the University o f London to learn Mandarin as it was called in those days, but after a year o f hard work and having made some headway w ith the language, he was promptly despatched to Malaya where the ethnic Chinese spoke Hokkien. Barely four years later, just when he had mastered Hokkien, David Akers-Jones was, again, transferred to Hong Kong where the lingua franca o f the local population was Cantonese. In Hong Kong in 1957, his first posting was to the Department o f Trade and Industry where he was put in charge o f Hong Kong's emergency rations. In those days, this consisted o f 10,000 tons o f firewood, 20,000 tons o f soya beans, and 500 tons o f corned beef 一 supposed to be sufficient for a city o f nearly three m illi on people for six weeks i f the need ever arose. The use o f firewood as fuel for our stoves may be unthinkable to some o f our younger graduates to day. But those o f us who do remember do so w ith great relief. We have come a long way. From Trade and Industry, David Akers-Jones moved on to become, successively and successfully, the District Officer o f Tsuen Wan, the Islands and Yuen Long, then Deputy District Commissioner, District Commissioner, and Secretary for the New Territories. Except for a four-year spell in the Lands Department, his career in the New Territories spanned some eighteen years. Finally, in 1981, the Govern ment in its infinite wisdom decided to give him the freedom o f the city as well. He became the first Secretary o f the City and New Territories Adminis tration, and in 1985 Chief Secretary. For his dedicated and distinguished service to the Crown and to Hong Kong, he was appointed a Justice o f the Peace in 1958, made a Companion o f the Most Excellent Order o f St. Michael and St. George in 1978 and was knighted in 1985 shortly after becoming Chief Secretary. Just when Sir David Akers-Jones was ready to serve out his last days in the Hong Kong civil service as Chief Secretary, a dramatic turn o f events cata pulted him into the highest office in the territory. The sudden death o f Sir Edward Youde left Hong Kong bereaved and w ithout a Governor. And so, from December 1986 and your own arrival in Hong Kong in April o f last year, Mr. Chancellor, Sir David Akers- Jones was Hong Kong's Acting Governor for five months during which time he acted as a Governor should. He ensured that, in the words o f the Hon. Lydia Dunn, then Senior Member o f the Legislative Council, that there was ‘no slackening o f the vigorous and progressive pace at which the government worked' and he delivered to you 'a thriving, energetic and well-governed society'. Mr. Chancellor, the facility o f Sir David Akers- Jones as a linguist is well-known. Besides Anglo- Saxon, Old English, Old French, Hindi and Malay, he also knows Hokkien, Chiu Chow, Hakka, Cantonese and lately Putonghua. His knowledge o f the Chinese languages also extends to literature. For a man who is so well-versed in the Chinese languages, it is inter esting that he should have chosen the following epigrammatic advice o f Lao Tzu for the wall in his office. The passage from Chapter 60 o f the Tao Te Ching( 道德經） reads: ‘ 治大國若烹小鮮’ (Governing a large state is like boiling a small fish.) Mr. Chancellor, I do not know how British people boil their small fish or i f they boil them at all, but Professor D.C. Lau, in his translation o f this pass age o f the Tao Te Ching, found it necessary to explain that ‘ a small fish can be spoiled by being handled'. Sir David Akers-Jones does not need to read this foot note. He understands the ethos and sensibility o f the Chinese people and their modus operandi. Perhaps he knows that when it comes to politics, Americans run for public office, Britons stand for election, but Chinese people wait to be drafted, or they engineer themselves into positions o f influence. 4