( 17 )
439
pany promoter and absconder, whose extradition is now being sought from Argen- tine? I am not therefore inclined to vote for the provision of the opportunity. Perhaps some of the signatories to the petition have not looked quite so far ahead as I have. I have lived in this Colony for many years-the best part of a lifetime --I have seen repeated changes in the personnel of the community, and I have witnessed several important changes in the local conditions. There will be further changes, and they may not always make for the better.
Paragraph 2 of the Petition ascribes the prosperity and progress of the Colony to the enterprise, energy, and commercial acumen of the commercial community, and undoubtedly much will, I trust,-being a merchant myself— be credited to them by the Imperial Government and the House of Commons. At the same time I think no small share in the growth of Hongkong's trade and importance is due to its stable government during the half century of its existence as a British Crown Colony.
As I intimated at the outset, I think that the unofficial element in the Legis- tive Council might be increased, but I do not consider that it would be well for the Colony to allow it to attain a position whereby it could over-ride the Government. I at least do not forget that in the event of the Governor of the day proving arbi- trary or unreasonable the Colonists have always the resource of an appeal to the Secretary of State: this has rarely failed them in the past, and is not likely to prove less efficacious in the future. Moreover, and this is a consideration to which I think my fellow-colonists should attach some weight, the Officials in the Colonial Office have had a vast and varied experience of legislation in scores of colonies, where all kinds of conditions prevail, and they can and do afford the Colony great assistance in legislation, sending out drafts of Bills that have worked smoothly elsewhere to be adapted to local circumstances. The Colonial Office is also in some cases a useful restraint on local extravagance, and when it occasionally, from want of appreciation of local conditions, urges a needless outlay like that for the proposed New Gaol, it has been found possible by prudent Governors to postpone and ultimately avoid it.
I have no mind to try an experiment which might, in homely language, prove a leap from the frying pan into the fire. In England the majority of the people are now thanking God that they possess, in the House of Lords, a check upon rash and excited legislation, and I think that in this Colony we should not be impatient of what are not so much leading strings as safeguards for sound administration in a place where the vast bulk of the population consists of natives of the adjoining great semi-civilized and not too-friendly Empire.
To His Excellency
Sir WILLIAM ROBINSON, K.C.M.G.,
&C.,
&c.,
&c.
Believe me,
Dear Sir,
Yours very faithfully,
E. R. BELILIOS.