LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL, No. 11.
TUESDAY, 22ND NOVEMBER, 1898.
PRESENT:
HIS EXCELLENCY THE OFFICER ADMINISTERING THE GOVERNMENT (Major-General WILSONE BLACK, C.B.).
The Honourable the Acting Colonial Secretary, (THOMAS SERCOMBE SMITH).
the Harbour Master, (ROBERT MURRAY RUMSEY, R.N.).
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the Captain Superintendent of Police, (FRANCIS HENRY MAY, C.M.G.). the Acting Colonial Treasurer, (ALEXANDER MACDONALD THOMSON).
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the Director of Public Works, (Robert Daly OrMSBY).
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CATCHICK PAUL CHATER, C.M.G.
HO KAI, M.B., C.M.
EMANUEL RAPHAEL BELILIOS, C.M.G.
JAMES JARDINE BELL-IRVING.
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WEI YUK.
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ABSENT:
The Honourable the Acting Attorney General, (HENRY EDWARD POLLOCK).
"J
THOMAS HENDERSON WHITEHEAD.
The Council met pursuant to summons.
The Minutes of the last Meeting, held on the 10th October, 1898, were read and confirmed. His Excellency the Officer Administering the Government addressed the Council as follows:-
All business firms whether large or small take stock once a year, and call a momen- tary halt to see how they stand before girding up their loins for the work of the coming year. Governments, which are but large business firms working for the public weal, in the same way review each year their position, and not only put forward their balance sheet but indicate with modest satisfaction schemes which have run smoothly and well, and gloss over those which, however well laid though they may have been, have gone agley. I take, then, no unusual course in asking you to listen while I briefly touch upon some of the events which have made the ten months I have had the honour to hold the reins more eventful than many like periods of your past history. Although less severe than in 1894, the Plague has this year claimed 1,163 victims out of 1,820 stricken. Wisely abandoning the too stringent application of Western methods the Government erected suitable hospital buildings at Kennedytown, placed them in charge of the Tung Wa Hospital, and induced the Chinese to carry their sick to that benevolent institution. While deeply deploring the loss by this dread visitation, I am glad to congratulate the medical profession, and the other Government officials whose duty connected them with the suppression of the plague, for the strenuous and unselfish efforts with which they carried out their humane duties. Three of the Sisters caught the infection at the post of duty, of whom two died, giving up their lives as nobly as men who die on the field amid the din and excitement of battle. The outbreak of war between Spain and America-two countries in friendly relations with England- threw on this Government the onerous task of maintaining the laws of neutrality. A little island stored with food, coal, and all the munitions of war in great abundance lying off a coast indented with harbours, is naturally a convenient spot where belligerents might replenish their stores of coal and food, and it is a source of satisfaction to this Government that, thanks to the energy and tact with which the officials carried out their duties, the laws of neutrality were strictly enforced, and yet the end of the war found us on as friendly terms with either belligerent as at the beginning. The changes that this war may bring may deeply affect this Colony, but they still lie in the future and are not yet within our ken. A social incident not without its bearing on a great national movement was the arrival in Hongkong of a German Prince charged for the first time with high command in Eastern waters. The Prince of Prussia would have found a welcome for his own sake. Courteous, kind, and capable, yet every inch a Prince, he was welcomed by the whole community of Hongkong, and the English inbabitants did not forget in their welcome that he and his wife are grand-children of our beloved Queen. Hongkong has long. felt the anomaly of its position, with the northern side of its magnificent harbour actually belonging to another Power, its forts at the eastern entrance commanded at short rifle-range by the Devil's Peak, and the end of its mine fields almost touching the Chinese soil, the Bay of Kowloon within the precincts of its harbours but outside its jurisdiction. In June last a Convention was signed by which our boundary line is pushed some thirteen miles to the north, thus sweeping away