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NOTICE OF QUESTION.-Mr. BELILIOS gave notice that at the next meeting of Council he would ask the following question :-
Have the Government, in view of the statements and recommendations contained in the recently received letter from Mr. Osbert Chadwick on the water supply of this Colony, decided to consider the expedience of putting meters in all the houses to which it is laid on for the purpose of pre- venting waste?
BILL ENTITLED
AN ORDINANCE TO SECURE, IN CERTAIN CASES, THE RIGHTS OF PROPERTY IN TELEGRAPHIC MESSAGES." -Mr. MCCONACHIE gave notice that at the next meeting of Council he would introduce and move the first reading of the Bill.
His Excellency then addressed the Council as follows :--
HONOURABLE GENTLEMEN OF THE LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL,
your
I propose to lay the Estimates for 1895 and the Appropriation Bill before Council on the 3rd or 6th December which day may be most convenient to the Unofficial Members. As I am in a position to do so, I propose this afternoon to explain the financial position of the Colony to you and to open the session of 1894-5 in the usual manner. If you will refer to "Hansard" you will see that at the close of my speech to you on the 4th December last, I said "It is my earnest desire, in which you will all cordially join, that still brighter and happier times may, at no distant date, be in store for all classes of residents in this Colony." Well, the brighter and happier times which we all then hoped for have certainly not yet dawned upon the Colony or upon us. As a matter of fact the year 1894 is not likely to be soon forgotten by the community by reason of the disasters which occurred within it. It was ushered in by a rapid fall in the value of silver. From 2/4 the dollar fell to 1/113, a violent fluctuation which was most detrimental to business and which seriously affected the public revenue, which had been estimated on a 2/6 rate. No sooner had a certain amount of stability been established on a low basis of exchange than the Colony was visited with pestilence in the shape of the bubonic plague. The incidents connected with this calamity are so fresh in the minds of all that it is not necessary to do more than to refer to them cursorily. Besides carrying off over 2,500 victims in the island alone, this scourge caused an unparalleled exodus from our shores of some 50,000 or 60,000 Chinese. The effect was felt in every branch of business, and, as I have stated in another document on the subject, the loss to the public revenue, to bankers, merchants, traders, shipping companies, the owners of property, and the labouring classes can never accurately be determined. Hongkong was, as it were, "boycotted" in every direction. The quarantine restrictions imposed against us by some other ports were unnecessarily severe, due, no doubt, to exaggerated accounts of the plague, which, after all, was not proved to be highly infectious except in the case of those living in unhealthy sur- roundings. Vessels were by such means driven as it were from the harbour, and all concerned with shipping interests down to the humblest labourer must have suffered, at all events temporarily, considerable pecuniary loss.
Then, gentlemen, when the plague had ceased, war unhappily broke out between China and Japan.
In consequence of the outbreak of hostilities between these powers, it was antici- pated that there might be a revival and an increase of our trade, but I believe I am justified in saying that that expectation has not been realized to any great extent as yet.
The Colony has also been visited by several typhoons, one of which, viz., that of the 4th and 5th October, being of great severity, did a considerable amount of damage to property, though it was unattended with any serious loss of life. These misfortunes, followed by the premature death of the Lady holding the highest position in the Colony, will cause the year 1894 to be remembered on all sides as one of the saddest and most disastrous in the records of the history of Hongkong.
It is not surprising, therefore, that I am obliged to present you with a somewhat unfavourable statement of our financial position. It is not, however, nearly so unfavourable as might have been expected. There is, undoubtedly, a marvellous recuperative power in this small but valuable possession of the Crown, for had it not been for the actual expenditure on account of the plague-some $150,000-and the fall of silver below 2/6, the rate at which the Estimates for 1894 were prepared, which is accountable for another $150,000, I should have had to announce to you a probable surplus of revenue over expenditure in 1894 of some $200,000. I am not, however, able to do so, and some additional taxation is consequently
unavoidable.
The Estimated Revenue for 1894 at 2/6 was $2,007,210 and the Expenditure $1,998,745, showing a probable surplus of $8,465.