No. 282.
(Copy.)
HONGKONG.
10
No. 87.
DESPATCH RESPECTING THE PROPOSAL OF THE LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL FOR MAKING PUBLIC THE PROCEEDINGS OF THE
FINANCE COMMITTEE.
(In continuation of No. 4 of 1887.)
Presented to the Legislative Council, by Command of His Excellency the Officer Administering the Government,
on the 28th January, 1887.
GOVERNMENT HOUSE, HONGKONG, 30th August, 1886.
Enclosure 1. September 2nd,
the Daily Press."
SIR,
I have the honour to forward, for your consideration, and for such directions as you may think fit to give thereon, an extract from a local newspaper, giving a 1886. Mail Supplement to fairly accurate report of the proceedings in the Legislative Council on the 27th instant. A motion was made on that occasion, after due notice, by the Honourable A. P. MACEWEN, one of the new members who took his seat for the first time, the practical effect of which motion would have been the abolition of the Finance Committee. His motion was lost after a lengthy debate, all the Official Members and one of the Un-official Members voting for an amendment.
Enclosures 2 & 3. Finance
2. It will be seen from the papers which I laid before the Council that, at a Committee Reports, Nos. 16 & 17 of 15th & 20th meeting of the Finance Committee held on 15th July last, during the recess, Mr. July, 1886.
MACEWEN moved and carried a resolution that the Finance Committee should suspend all action, until the question was decided by the Legislative Council whether its meetings should not be held with open doors, the object being to admit reporters of the newspapers. As the meeting of the Finance Committee at which this resolution was passed, was not a full one, and as the effect of the resolution was to stop all votes of money during the recess, I requested that the action might be re-considered at a full meeting of the Committee, and I laid before them a Minute (of 17th July) pointing out the great utility of the Finance Committee, which had now been working satisfactorily since the year 1872, when the practice was bor- rowed from Mauritius. I also informed the Committee that in 1878 Governor HENNESSY had made a suggestion that the meetings of the Finance Committee should in future be open to reporters of the Press, but that this suggestion had Desp. No. 42 of 8th April, been disapproved by Sir MICHAEL HICKS-BEACH, and I added that under the circumstances I should not feel warranted, even if the resolution were carried, in giving it effect, until after I had reported the matter for the decision of the Secre- tary of State.
1879.
3. At the second meeting of the Finance Committee held on 20th July, they reversed the previous decision, and resolved that the meetings of the Finance Com- mittce should be carried on as heretofore, until the question of admitting the public to such meetings be considered at the first meeting of the Legislative Council.
4. A special meeting of Council was held on 27th instant, in order to renew the French Mail Steamers Ordinance, which expired on the 1st September, and to pass a similar Ordinance for the German Mail Steamers. Mr. MACEWEN then brought forward a resolution in a different shape. Instead of moving as in Finance Committee that the meetings of that Committee should be held with open doors, he moved "that in future all matters of public interest and more particularly the.. voting of public funds be discussed openly in Council and not as heretofore at "private meetings of the Finance Committee." In his speech introducing the motion he refers to "the discontent and dissatisfaction which have prevailed "for many years past," on the subject of the private meetings of the Finance
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