Britons are starting to examine, at long last, their ignoble colonial history

On a damp spring day, I walked to the Hong Kong Cemetery, near the city's famed Happy Valley Racecourse. Winding my way through hundreds of marble and stone graves, I eventually reached one belonging to Miles Monk Magrath. Dating from 1864, it was covered in green and orange lichen, its lettering barely readable. Mr. Magrath is an ancestor of mine, my first cousin four times removed (or, to put it another way, his uncle was my great-great-great-grandfather). I have lived in Hong Kong since 2014, and visited the cemetery several times, but it was not until last year, when reading…