[LIV]
Appendix 29.
Speech made by His Excellency the Governor, Sir William Robinson, K.C.M.G., at a meeting of the Legislative Council held on the 25th April, 1892.
Before proceeding to the orders of the day I should like to make a few remarks in reference to the Ordinance which is down for second reading, entitled an Ordinance for the establishment and incorporation of the Chinese Society for the Protection of Women and Children commonly known as "The Pó Léung Kuk." I was certainly under the impression that this Bill would have been well received and thoroughly approved of by the community as well as by the unofficial members of the Council, but I regret to say that it appears the Bill does not recommend itself to the community or to all of the unofficial members. Although the objections which have been raised by the hon. member for the Chamber of Commerce might have been anticipated, still they have been backed up to a certain degree by the senior member of the unofficial body, for whose opinion, I may say, I entertain great respect. I think it is admitted on all hands that this Pó Léung Kuk Society has done an immense amount of good work within recent years, work which had it not been performed by that Society must have been undertaken by the Government itself at very considerable expense. I think it also is very gratifying to find that so many leading residents of the Colony, members of the Chinese community, have been able and are willing to assist the Government in this good work. It is my most anxious desire, I may say, to encourage all respectable Chinese in this Colony to work hand in hand with the Government in all matters that may be for the general benefit of the community. This Bill I propose for the present to postpone for reasons which I shall explain a little further on. The Bill, I think, has been thoroughly misunderstood. It is not only a Bill to give the Society legal status. The real intention of the Bill is to place the Society more under the control of the Government than it has ever hitherto been. This view appears not to have been taken by the gentlemen who have opposed the Bill or by the community, who are stated to have strong objections to it. I may say that had the Bill come on for the second reading to-day I was perfectly prepared to modify it in certain particulars. I should have struck out the last clause, I should have amended the Bill so that the meetings of the Society and the buildings and establishment of the Society should be open at all times to any Justice of the Peace, and so have removed it from the odium of the charge brought against it by the member for the Chamber of Commerce, namely that it was a Secret Society. I should also have requested the official members not to regard it as a Government measure. I had also in view the addition of a suspend- ing clause in order that the Secretary of State might have considered the Ordinance most fully in all its details so that it would not have come into operation until his decision had been forwarded to us. But since last meeting of Council, when the hon. member for the Chamber of Commerce stigmatised the Pó Léung Kuk as a Secret Society, very serious charges against the operations of the Society have been made to me. One of them is that the subordinate members of the Society are not disinclined to exercise what is known as the practice of squeezing if an opportunity occurs. Another is that of the $30,000, which is mentioned by the Registrar General as the amount of the subscription gathered in aid of the Society--a certain portion of that amount has been obtained by means which could hardly be called justifiable. I think as such very grave charges are hanging over this Society, a Society which has done very good work, it would be the wish of the members themselves that the matter should be thoroughly inquired into. If these statements are proved, it will be a very serious business, and if they are disproved the hands of the Government and the hands of the Pó Leung Kuk Society will be immensely strengthened. I think the leading members of the Society are most respectable-gentle- men who have been resident in this island twenty, twenty-five, or thirty years, and that they would wish that we should defer the consideration of this Bill until these matters