PRESENT:―
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19TH NOVEMBER, 1903.
The COLONIAL SECRETARY laid on the table a report
HIS EXCELLENCY THE GOVERNOR, Sir HENRY A. BLAKE, G.C.M.G.
Colonel L. F. BROWN, Commanding the Troops. Hon. F. H. MAY, C.M.G. (Colonial Secretary). Hon. Sir H. S. BERKELEY (Attorney-General). Hon. L. A. M. JOHNSTON (Acting Colonial Treasurer).
Hon. W. CHATHAM (Director of Public Works). Hon. A. W. BREWIN (Registrar-General).
Hon. BASIL R. H. TAYLOR (Acting Harbour Master). Hon. Sir C. P. CHATER, C.M.G.
Hon. Dr. HO KAI, C.M.G.
Hon. WEI A YUK.
Hon. C. W. DICKSON.
Hon. GERSHOM STEWART.
Mr. R. F. JOHNSTON (Acting Clerk of Councils). Absent Hon. H. E. Pollock, K.C,
SWEARING IN A MEMBER.
Hon. A. W. Brewin, Registrar-General, was sworn in as a member of the Council on his return to the Colony. STANDING COMMITTEES.
The following standing Committees were appointed: ―
Finance Committee: All members except the President (Chairman, the Colonial Secretary). Public Works Committee: The Director of Public Works (Chairman), the Colonial Treasurer, Sir C. P Chater, Mr. C. W. Dickson, Mr. Gershom Stewart. Standing Law Committee: The Attorney-General (Chairman), the Harbour Master, Dr. Ho Kai, Mr. Wei Yuk, Mr. Pollock, K.C.
FINANCIAL.
The COLONIAL SECRETARY laid on the table Financial Minutes (Nos. 54 to 57) and moved that they be referred to the Finance Committee.
The ACTING COLONIAL TREASURER seconded and the motion was agreed to.
PAPERS.
on Queen's College and correspondence arising out of the report of the Education Committee (1902).
THE CONVICT PRISON ON STONECUTTERS' ISLAND.
The DIRECTOR of PUBLIC WORKS laid the following report of the Public Works Committee on the table:― The Chairman laid before the Committee an estimate which had been prepared by the Superintendent of the Gaol showing that the cost of the staff for supervising the proposed prison and the cost of transport would amount in all to $33,152 per annum, the sum included for transport being $2,600. The only saving to be effected in the present annual expenditure would be $5,836, which is now expended in connection with using the Belilios Reformatory as a gaol. The net extra expense of the proposed prison would therefore amount to $27,316 per annum. The only saving which would be effected by constructing a prison on the outskirts of the city instead of on Stonecutters' would be the sum of $2,600 per annum for transport. The annual working expenses of the existing gaol amounted to $110,176.80. The Chairman also read the Colonial Secretary's minute of the 24th September, 1903, in which he stated that, in the event of the Colonial Government abandoning the Stonecutters' site for a gaol, the War Department might contribute as much as half the cost of the new Gunpowder Depôt on Green Island, which is estimated to cost $107,000.
The Committee desire that definite information should be obtained as to the amount which the Military Authorities would be prepared to contribute in the event of the Gunpowder Depôt being removed from Stonecutters' Island as proposed, and
(a.) the proposal to erect a convict prison there being carried out;
(b.) the proposal to erect a convict prison there being abandoned.
PUMPING APPARATUS AT TYTAMTUK.
The DIRECTOR OF PUBLIC WORKS―Before resuming my seat, sir, I would like to mention for the information of hon. members that a temporary pumping plant has
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resolve itself into committee on the Bill entitled an Ordinance to further amend the Magistrates Ordinance, 1890.
The COLONIAL SECRETARY seconded, and the motion
been established at Tytamtuk, which is capable of raising about half a million gallons daily (hear, hear), to the tunnel which conveys the water to the city. The pump commenced work on the 1st of this month, and has been at work since with slight intermission. (Applause.)
SLAUGHTER OF ANIMALS.
The COLONIAL SECRETARY laid on the table the following additional bye-law made under Sub-section 25 of Section 16 of the Public Health and Buildings Ordinance, 1903, for regulating the slaughter of animals, and moved its approval.
All animals killed for food in a Government slaughter-house shall be killed in the following manner: ―(1.) All cattle (except buffaloes) shall be killed with a pole-axe of a pattern to be approved of by the Colonial Veterinary Surgeon. (2.) All buffaloes shall be killed with a rifle of a size and pattern to be approved by the Colonial Veterinary Surgeon. All rifles used for this purpose shall be kept by the inspector in charge of each slaughter-house and used by him alone. (3.) All sheep, goats and swine shall be killed with a knife in the usual manner, except in the case of pigs which, in the opinion of the inspector in charge of the slaughter-house, are too large to be killed in this way. Such pigs shall be killed in the same manner as cattle, provided always that nothing in this bye-law shall affect Jews, Mahommedans, or other peoples holding religious beliefs which compel them to kill animals for food in a particular manner.
The ATTORNEY -GENERAL seconded, and the motion was agreed to.
NEW TERRITORIES TITLES ORDINANCE.
The ATTORNEY -GENERAL moved the first reading of a Bill entitled an Ordinance to repeal the New Territories Titles Ordinance 1902.
The COLONIAL SECRETARY seconded, and the motion was agreed to.
NEW TERRITORIES LAND COURT ORDINANCE. The ATTORNEY -GENERAL moved the first reading of a Bill entitled an Ordinance to further amend the New Territories Land Court Ordinance, No. 18 of 1900. The COLONIAL SECRETARY seconded, and the motion was agreed to.
PUBLIC HEALTH AND BUILDINGS ORDINANCE. The ATTORNEY -GENERAL moved the first reading of a Bill entitled an Ordinance to amend the Public Health and Buildings Ordinance, No. 1 of 1903.
The COLONIAL SECRETARY seconded, and the motion was agreed to.
MAGISTRATES ORDINANCE.
The ATTORNEY -GENERAL moved that the Council
was agreed to.
The Bill having been considered in committee, The Council resumed.―
On the motion of the ATTORNEY -GENERAL, seconded by the COLONIAL SECRETARY, the Bill was read a third time and passed.
UNDESIRABLE PERSONS.
The ATTORNEY -GENERAL moved that the Council resolve itself into committee on the Bill entitled an Ordinance to provide for the recovery of charges incurred by the Colony on account of certain undesirable persons introduced into the Colony. He said ―Since the Bill was last before the Council it has been before the Standing Law Committee and by a majority the Committee have agreed to recommend the Bill to the Council in the shape in which it is now in the hands of hon. members. The hon. member for the Chamber of Commerce (Mr. Pollock) was not present at the last meeting of the Law Committee, but it may be assumed that he would have opposed the Bill, as he is opposed to the Bill on principle. The amendments which have been effected, or rather that are suggested and recommended by the Standing Law Committee, go almost the whole way in meeting the objection raised by the hon. member?
HIS EXCELLENCY―What was it?
The ATTORNEY -GENERAL―The Bill is now limited to any person who is either lunatic, idiotic, or imbecile, or suffering from leprosy, and it is made less wide in its scope than originally intended. Also the Bill makes it quite clear that masters of ships bringing undesirable persons shall have power to detain them on board unless the Principal Civil Medical Officer or the Medical Officer of Health gives permission to land them, and in case any passenger is so detained no action shall lie against any person whatsoever. I do not know whether the house is prepared to go into it, but I move that the house go into committee.
The COLONIAL SECRETARY seconded.
Hon. GERSHOM STEWART―Your Excellency, in the absence of the member for the Chamber of Commerce, might I ask your Excellency to postpone consideration of this Bill? It arrived in its present form only last night, and is practically to all inters and purposes a new Bill. It is a matter which the Committee of the Chamber of Commerce would like to talk over. It contains a clause that bears hardly upon the shipowner. It makes him liable for an undesirable person who becomes within six months from the date of landing a charge upon the public or upon any public institution. It does not seem a
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question of urgency, and if your Excellency would grant that indulgence, the unofficial members and the Chamber of Commerce would appreciate it very much.
The Bill was postponed till next meeting of Council. BOUNDARIES OF THE CITY.
The ATTORNEY -GENERAL moved the third reading
The ATTORNEY -GENERAL―We do not want to press it.
The COLONIAL SECRETARY―There is no desire on the part of the Government to unduly press this Bill, but at the same time I would like to point out that the Bill is urgent. It is only recently that the military authorities asked for the reception in the lunatic asylum of two European members of the garrison. That request had very reluctantly to be refused, because the lunatic asylum is already full. Amongst the number of the occupants are to be found several foreigners who have no connection whatever with this Colony, and have no claim whatever upon the ratepayers of this Colony for their maintenance. There is a great difficulty in getting rid of a foreigner who is brought here and is cast upon the Colony and is a lunatic. Ships are very unwilling to take away a lunatic, and the negotiations of such lunatics into their own countries with a foreign government for the reception are very difficult and protracted. Therefore, Sir, I think, in the interests of the Colony and in justice to the ratepayers of the Colony, the Government is called upon to take some measures to prevent the dumping of lunatics who have no connection with the Colony at all into our asylum, the effect of which is that our own people in this Colony are excluded from the lunatic asylum. The matter has become so urgent that the Principal Civil Medical Officer made an application the other day that we should build a new lunatic asylum at a cost of some $55,000, and the usual increase, I suppose, of doctors, nurses, wardmasters, etc. To a certain extent I think we ought to try and see whether we cannot keep those undesirable people from being dumped among us. There is no objection to a reasonable postponement of the thing.
HIS EXCELLENCY―I will not have the opportunity later on of dealing with this Bill, but still I think it may be well that I should give you my views as far as this question about the six months is concerned. We ought to go upon a principle that is fair to the shippers as well as to the owners; that is, there ought to be some reasonable probability that there will be something to show the owners and the captain of a ship that the person was not all right when he was on board, and therefore my own opinion is that six months is too long. The probability is that when the Bill is gone on with, no doubt the Government will be prepared to meet the views of the shippers in shortening that period. If I were dealing with this Bill myself I should be prepared to meet any objection on this six months' score in that way, so that there would be a reasonable probability that the person would have shown symptoms on board ship.
of the Bill entitled an Ordinance to define the Boundaries of the City of Victoria.
The COLONIAL SECRETARY seconded, and the motion was agreed to.
THE GOVERNOR'S FAREWELL ADDRESS.
H.E. the GOVERNOR said.―Honourable Members of the Legislative Council. As this is the last occasion on which I shall have the honour of presiding over your deliberations, I propose with your permission to review as shortly as I can the condition of the Colony during the five years of my administration of this Government, I arrived at a time when a most important and far reaching change was about to be made in the condition of the Colony. Hongkong, which was ceded to Great Britain in 1841, had developed into a great port, with a population of 248,000. Its area, including the point of Kowloon Peninsula, was 32 square miles. The northern shores of the harbour were Chinese territory; at Sam shui-po, Cap-sui-moon, and Fu-ti-moon Chinese Custom houses were established, and Chinese Customs cruisers operated within the ill-defined harbour limits to the great irritation of the community. The Kowloon extension agreement, signed on the 8th June, 1898, remedied this anomalous state of affairs in a harbour that, under the fostering care of Great Britain, had grown into the position of the third port in the world, the tonnage of whose shipping had in twenty years increased from 5,000,000 to 17,000,000. Under its provisions it became my duty as the representative of Her late Majesty the Queen to assume the government of over 400 additional square miles of territory, with a population of over 100,000, and also over the waters of Mirs Bay and Deep Bay. This agreement gave for the first time complete control over the waters of the harbour and its approaches, and removed the causes of the long-felt irritation. It will be in your recollection, gentlemen, that the taking over of the New Territory was not accomplished without some trouble. The delimitation of the northern boundary had to be arranged, and when it had been finally settled, on the 18th March, I, at the request of the Chinese Government, made through the British Minister at Peking, deferred the hoisting of our flag to the 17th April. In the meantime certain agitators inflamed the minds of the people by false statements as to the result of our occupation to such an extent that armed resistance to the transfer of the New Territory was agreed upon. On the 14th April the matsheds erected at Tai-pó Hu were destroyed, and the
police and troops who proceeded to the place preparatory to the ceremony of the 17th were attacked
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fight an overwhelming power in defence of their customs and their homes. I therefore chose the latter
by large numbers of Chinese apparently under military direction. Reinforcements were at once sent out and formal possession of the New Territory was taken over on the 16th, so that our position should be made perfectly regular. After two engagements, in which the Chinese displayed considerable courage in acting against regulary troops, and suffered some losses, the opposition collapsed. That these attacks upon our forces were encouraged by the then Viceroy there can be little doubt. My inability to permit the Chinese Customs to continue to function within the limits of the Colony was deeply resented by His Excellency, and the refused to send a Chinese official to be present at the ceremony of hoisting the flag on the 17th April. In consequence of the evidence of the complicity of the Viceroy with the leaders of the attacks upon our troops, it was decided to occupy that portion of Samchun Valley lying to the north of the boundary line including the important market town of Samchun. This was effected by a joint naval and military expedition which met with no opposition, and the district was held for a month by a military force under command of Major Prendergast. R.E., who acquired the confidence of the people; insured the security of their persons and property; assisted them in making good roads; and ultimately, under instruction from Her late Majesty's Government, withdrew from the district amid demonstrations of good-will from the inhabitants, to whom the presence of our troops had brought freedom from taxation, security of their property, and a market for their produce. Order having been restored, the question had to be reconsidered as to the system on which this apparently turbulent population of the newly acquired territory should be governed. Two courses presented themselves ―repression, or co-operation. The leaders of the people had been almost to a man actively engaged in the operations against us, but if these leaders were put aside and degraded from the position of local consideration and authority hitherto enjoyed by them, we should have been face to face with a hostile population, without the means of communicating with them through trusted local intermediaries whose assistance is so essential to good government. I have had some experience in coercion. In certain situations it becomes necessary. But it engenders an ever-deepending distrust, atrophies local interest in preserving order, and with the lapse of time becomes day by day more difficult to abandon without danger to the public safety. I felt besides that these leaders would not have been guilty of such egregious folly had they not believed the scandalous statement of our intentions that were so freely circulated, and, believing them, I could not withhold a meed of sympathy for misguided men who dared to face in open
course, and, with the able assistance of Mr. Stewart Lockhart, whose excellent work in the pacification and arrangement of the New Territory is well known to the Honourable Members of this Council, I met the elders and gentry of the districts at Tai-pò Hu and Ping Shan, disabused their minds as to their fears, divided the Territory into eight districts and forty-seven sub-districts, and appointed the village elders as district elders with judicial power to deal with petty cases, giving at the same time to Mr. Lockhart a general controlling power with coordinate jurisdiction. As a matter of fact the elders, being satisfied of our just intentions, have never exercised their jurisdiction, but have left these cases to be dealt with first by Mr. Stewart Lockhart, and, after his return to the duties of Colonial Secretary, to Mr. Hallifax, Police Magistrate at Tai-po Hu, whose services are more frequently in demand as an arbitrator than as a magistrate, his decisions being readily accepted. The establishment of police stations was proceeded with at once, and a main road laid out, which has since been constructed to Tai-po Hu, a distance of 18 miles, at a cost of $225,133. This excellent road gives access to the centre of the New Territory, and obviates the necessity of communicating by sea, a passage not unattended by danger in rough or foggy weather. The construction of the road was carried out without difficulty or opposition, the claims of owners whose lands were acquired being settled at once by arrangement or arbitration. Having arranged for police stations and the patrol of the territorial waters surrounding the 390 miles of newly acquired coast line, to check the prevalent robberies ashore and afloat, a trigonometrical and cadastral survey was entered upon, the services of a staff of surveyors and demarcators having been obtained from the Surveyor-General's department of India. The trigonometrical survey has been completed, and 345,926 lots have been demarcated. A Land Court was established to deal readily and inexpensively with the holdings claims, of which 165,231 have been presented to the Land Court. The principal cultivation of the Territory is rice, but there is also a considerable cultivation of sugar, and, in the Tsin Wan district, pineapples are grown. I found on inspection that the sugar canes were of a poor quality, and the pineapples of inferior flavour, while the primitive stone-mills in use leave a large percentage of juice in the crushed megasse. A number of canes of the best varieties were obtained from Java and Penang and have been distributed to the sugar farmers, and two Chatanoaga steel mills were also
imported, and lent to large growers for experiment.
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entire year to 342. Within the same period we have been
Good varieties of pineapples were imported from Ceylon for distribution. While the cultivated land is now practically confined to the valleys, it is evident from the terracing of the hills that they too yielded their share of wealth-giving crops in the past, and I have little doubt that suitable cultivation will be resumed in the future. In the meantime over 170,000 fir and camphor trees have been planted, and experiments are now being made with the Agave Rigida, or sisal hemp plant, that may yet, I hope, introduce an important industry into the Colony, while the establishment of succulent grasses on the suitable hill sides ought, if successful, to go a long way towards solving the question of the supply of fresh meat to Hongkong. Near the town of Un-long I found on my first visit a settlement of about 25 lepers, who were compelled to live in the middle of an extensive swamp, on a slight elevation approached by a rough causeway, and almost under water in rainy weather. Here these afflicted people had built, of pieces of board, miserable shanties that afforded no protection from rain or the chill winter winds. Here they huddled together at night, while by day they approached the villages where though not permitted to enter the houses they were charitably supplied with food. Hard by was an unoccupied hill with a well at its base. Here a sufficient area was walled off, enclosing the well, and small houses have been erected by the Public Works department that afford shelter from cold and rain. The lepers still obtain their food from the neighbours, or from their families, and the segregation is practically as effective as in more pretentious and expensive establishments, while the victims of this terrible disease have not perpetual imprisonment added to the miseries of their most miserable lives. At Tai-pó, the headquarters of the New Territory establishment, a Chinese qualified medical practitioner has been stationed, whose services have been freely availed of by the in habitants, and who is the public vaccinator of the district. The question of Education has been carefully considered. A school is about to be established at Un long where English will be taught, and the provisions of the Education Code are being extended to the Vernacular Schools of the various districts. I have recapitulated the general lines of policy in the New Territory, as on their soundness will depend the success or failure of this assimilation with the Colony of a large agricultural population with a reputation for turbulence, suspicious of foreigners, and with a rooted objection to any interference with their settled habits or customs. It is yet too soon to judge of the results, but so far they are promising. The number of crimes reported in the year 1900 was 539, and this year 257, which is equal for the
able to reduce the police force from 171 to 104. Thanks to the firmness, fairness and tact of the public officers immediately dealing with the people, confidence has been established, and the inhabitants have learnt to appreciate the benefits of the honest performance of official duties, and freedom from that official rapacity so prevalent under the Chinese system. Of this there was gratifying evidence in 1901 during the serious disturbance in the district adjoining the New Territory when the people who, two years before, had faced our troops with arms in their hands, sent a deputation of elders to request that I would send out to the frontier a small military force to prevent the entrance of disturbers of the peace, with whom they were no longer in sympathy, desiring to pursue their avocations with the quiet and security to which, as British subjects, they had become accustomed. But in laying the foundations for the development of the New Territory, the great possibilities of which have yet to be fully realized, we must not forget the rapid growth of Hongkong and its shipping trade. In 1898 the Colony of Hongkong contained 254,400 inhabitants, its assessed value was $4,511,947, and the total shipping entered and cleared was 17,265,780 tons. In 1903 the population, including the New Territory, as estimated by the Registrar General, is 433,660, the assessed value $8,749,643, and the shipping 23,027,455 tons. The Revenue, which in 1898 was $2,784,840, is estimated for the current year at $4,583,295, and, in the Estimates accepted by you for 1904, thanks to the largely increased tender for the Opium farm, it is stated at $6,208,308. In whatever direction we turn we find a Colony instinct with boundless activity. The reclamation of Western Praya is completed. The Eastern Praya reclamation is only delayed by demands by the Admiralty and War Office at home that this Government considers unreasonable and hopes to have modified. All around the Kowloon Peninsula great schemes of reclamation are in progress. At Quarry Bay a graving dock is being constructed by Messrs. Butterfield and Swire, that will be capable of docking the largest ships afloat; while another dock is being constructed by the Naval Authorities in the very heart of the City. I wish that I could congratulate you upon the latter, but, however we may deplore the injury to the city by the severance of its continuity by the Naval Dockyard, we must not forget that no protest was made by the Colony until after the work of construction had advanced considerably and a large amount of money had been spent. Even now the Admiralty are prepared to hand over the dockyard to the Colony, but on conditions so onerous that even by this wealthy
community they could not be accepted. Still the expenditure of some thirty millions of dollars in the execution of the works on the Naval Extension and
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and pools in which the anopheles mosquito has bitherto bred along the face of the hills that dominate the city. Over $93,000 have been expended already in this work,
Quarry Bay docks cannot fail to increase the prosperity of the Colony. Nor has the Government been remiss in Public Works. During the term of my administration $2,741,579 have been expended on Public Works Extraordinary. The reservoir at Wong-neichong, of a capacity 33,000,000 gallons, has been completed, and the reservoir and gravitation scheme for Kowloon is being carried out at an estimated expense of $825,000. The initial works are in progress for the new Reservoir at Tytam Tuk, to hold 1,200,000,000 gallons Blake Pier has been built, and the foundations of the new Law Courts are now ready for the superstructure of which the foundation stone was laid by me on the 12th instant. The foundations of the large new western market have been completed and the superstructure of the latter building has been begun, while a contract for that of the former has been let and for the new harbour office. A site has been acquired for the new post office, and plans for it have been prepared and approved, and a contract for the foundations has been let. These important buildings will be pushed forward without delay. But the absorbing question that has exercised the minds of the community to a greater extent than all others is that of sanitation. This question has been debated year by year as in each recurring year plague claimed its victims by hundreds, and malaria scourged the community. In May, 1902, the visit to the Colony of Professor Simpson and Mr. Osbert Chadwick, C.M.G., resulted in valuable reports on the defective construction of Chinese houses, and in pursuance of their recommendations a consolidated Public Health Ordinance has been passed, under the provisions of which the houses of the future will be of a more sanitary type, and surface overcrowding that is found in the Chinese part of the City of Victoria, will be no longer possible. An able bacteriologist has been added to the permanent staff, for whom a suitable laboratory is being built, and from his original researches valuable results have already been obtained, and still more important discoveries may be expected in the future. So far it cannot be said that we have been more successful here than in other countries in discovering the causes or checking the ravages of plague, but investigation and experiments made during the epidemic of this year afford a hope that next year may see a step in advance in prevention, and treatment, should, unhappily, the plague again develop in epidemic form. In the treatment of Malaria we have profited by the light thrown upon its causation by the experiment of Celli, Ross, and other investigators, and systematic arrangements have been made to control the nullalls
with the result that while in 1902, 3,795 cases were admitted to the various civil and military hospitals, the number of cases reported this year to the present date is 2,408. It is to be hoped that with perseverance and thoroughness in the destruction of the anopheles mosquito this danger to the community will ultimately be removed. To more effectually carry out the recommendations of the two experts to whose reports I have alluded it has been decided to recommend the formation of a body of trustees at whose disposal funds will be placed for the necessary operation of remodelling this over-crowded city. That any system of sanitation with even scrupulous cleanliness could render healthy areas in which the registered population is 1,000 to the acre, or 640,000 to the square mile (and I have reason to believe that the registered population is considerably below the real density), is not to be expected. The difficulty must be solved by the creation of a new city by resumption, re-sale, and reconstruction; and with the steady operation of such a trust as is proposed there is no reason why this necessary improvement of Victoria should not be effected within twenty years, at a moderate cost to the inhabitants, who, it must be remembered, have the happy distinction of bearing the lightest burden of taxation of any colony in the British Empire. (Applause.) In the elementary principles of sanitation by preventing surface over crowding we are far behind the Chinese, who even in their largest cities keep down the general height of their houses to one story. When Victoria has been reconstructed I hope that the four-storied tenement house will have ceased to exist. But no reconstruction of the city, or advance of material wealth should be allowed to interfere with the development by education of the minds and character of the people. This is the foundation upon which our hopes must rest for the stability of the colony in the future, and it is not being neglected. As the result of a commission on the subject, a new code has been arranged that will improve the present system. Petitions were received from the European residents praying for the establishment of a school for the separate instruction of European children, and from Chinese residents praying for the establishment of a school for the education of the better classes of Chinese. Both proposals were approved. The English school has been established in Kowloon by kindness of Mr. Ho Tung, by whose permission a school just completed by him, at considerable expense, and presented to the colony as a mixed school for both races, was devoted to the purpose of a
school for Europeans, the Government undertaking to replace it by building a school in Yaumati, which is now
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the sea, so surely will the estimate of our qualities as a nation flow from sea to mountain, following the lines of
in course of construction. The school for the children of the better classes of Chinese has been established by private enterprise. It was with great pleasure that I saw at last accomplished the opening of additional treaty ports and ports of call on the West River. The proposals now sanctioned by Treaty were formally accepted by the Tsung-li Yamen in two interviews that I had with that body at Peking in 1900. They had the approval of Sir Robert Hart, and also, of the late Li Hung Chang, but the committee appointed by the Viceroy to report upon them reported unfavourably and the matter was shelved in spite of frequent protests, until the whole position was considered by the Treaty Commissioners, and the proposals were definitely accepted. The value of Waichow on the East River may not be so apparent at present, but it was added at my suggestion, as in my opinion it may one day be a valuable link in the direct trade between the rich East River valley to the north and Hongkong, the land communication between Waichow and Mirs Bay presenting no engineering difficulties. (Applause.) During the eventful five years of my administration Hongkong has been brought face to face with typhoon, war, pestilence, and famine, and I look back with admiration to the behaviour of the colony in every contingency. Abounding charity and generosity accompany the buoyant energy of the community, and I find that within the five years over $425,000 have been subscribed in aid of the widows and orphans of our soldiers and sailors who fell in the South African war; in aid of the famine-stricken people of Kwang-si; in aid of the sufferers by the destructive typhoon of 1900; and in aid of the fund for the erection in London of a memorial to our late revered and beloved Queen, and this in addition to the local charities of the Chinese portion of the community, of which but few realise the extent, or the economy and ability with which they are administered. It has been my pleasant duty to open two hospitals within the past year, built by the Chinese community at an expense of $140,000, and affording accommodation to 136 patients. An equally pleasant task has been the opening this month of the Victoria Jubilee Hospital for Women and Children on Barker Road, built by joint subscription and grant from Colonial funds, in commemoration of the Jubilee of Her Majesty the late Queen. I will not weary you with further figures. I desire but to emphasise some of the salient features of the time during which I have been Governor of the Colony. I have especially dwelt upon the treatment of the problem to be solved on the New Territory because on the experience of the 400,000 Chinese in this Colony is formed the Chinese estimate of British justice and of the security that is to be found under the British flag, and as surely as the water of the great rivers flow from the snow-capped mountains to
trade to their extremest limits. To every one of us who lifts his eyes from the immediate exigencies of the business of the hour and looks into the future, this conviction carries with it a sense of great responsibility, and apart from our national sense of justice compels us so to deal with the Chinese people with whom we come in contact as to satisfy them that in Hongkong they will find a Government fair and just, helping to shape the destinies of a free community where commercial activity is sustained and developed by that security without which no commerce can expand. (Applause.) I shall leave the Colony with a lasting and grateful remembrance of the assistance and support that I have invariably received from the members of this Council which includes all the members of my Executive Council. Fair and independent criticism no honest Government need fear, nor prudent Governor ignore, and the changes between rough-hewn Bills and the finished Ordinances bear witness to the care with which the members of this Council, especially the unofficial members, have examined the measures introduced, and the readiness of the Government to yield to sound objections. In a Council whose discussions and debates have been actuated by a strong sense of public duty, and into which no element of personal rancour has ever entered, my duties have been light indeed, and in bidding this Council farewell I do so with a lively sense of gratitude for the happy relations that have always existed between us, and an earnest prayer that the interests of the many people who form the community of this great port and Colony will always in the future be safeguarded by members as able, impartial, and single-minded as you, gentlemen, to whom, as your President, I now say good-bye. (Loud applause.)
Hon. Sir PAUL CHATER―Your Excellency, ― Speaking on behalf of the unofficial members, I can confidently say that we have all listened to your farewell speech with equal interest and regret; with great interest because of the important; questions with which it deals, with personal regret because we recognise that it is the last occasion on which you will address this Council. I can assure you, Sir, that we most cordially reciprocate the expressions of good-will that have fallen from you. (Applause.) The relations between the head of the Executive and this Council, during your Excellency's tenure of office, have been marked with the best of feeling, and I am sure that all my colleagues will agree with me that every opportunity has been given by you for the ventilation and discussion of debatable questions. For my own part, I can truly say
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that I have always received the greatest consideration at your hands; that for any subject I desired publicity you have afforded me every facility; and any proposals that I have had the good fortune to be able to put forward for the benefit of the Colony have received your prompt attention and your earnest support. Your Excellency will leave this Colony in many respects much better than you found it. Public works have made some progress, but perhaps more has been done to initiate them than actually to bring them to completion. You have sown where your successor will reap. Works commenced in your time will be completed during his term of office. The bounds of the Colony have been extended, the population considerably increased, its importance enhanced, and its revenue very largely augmented, so largely, indeed, that the sanitary improvements, which are now so very necessary, may be gradually carried into effect without increasing the taxation. That progress will, I am sanguine, continue. Neither temporary commercial depression nor the recurrent outbreaks of plague will be able to permanently arrest it; and I trust that Your Excellency will be able to note from your new post in Ceylon the onward march of that improvement here that you have laboured to promote, (Applause.) I must not monopolise the time of the Council. I am sure my unofficial colleagues are anxious to address you, too, and no doubt they will fill in the gaps which I am only too conscious occur in my own. In conclusion, nothing now remains but to bid you, officially, farewell, and to assure you that the unvarying tact, patience, and good temper with which you have presided over the deliberations of this body, and the conscientious care you have taken in the administration of affairs during the last five years will abide with us in the future. (Applause.)
Hon. Dr. HO KAI―Your Excellency,―As senior representative of the Chinese at this Council I may be permitted to add a few words to the remarks of the senior unofficial member, with which, I may say, I fully concur. Your Excellency has presided over us for a period of five years. During that time the deliberations and discussions in this Council have been conducted without personal rancour, as your Excellency said, and with mutual good feeling, and this I venture to ascribe in a great measure to your consummate tact and courtesy and your fairness and sound judgment. You have just given us, Sir, a concise review of the salient features of your administration, and will you permit me to say, Sir, that your past administrative acts have given entire satisfaction to the community which I have the honour to represent, and have, moreover, won the confidence and respect, the admiration and affection of the whole of the Chinese community. I am confident, Sir, that they will be fruitful of the best results to the Colony and the New Territory. Personally I cannot bid
you farewell to-day without thanking you for your invariable kindness and consideration to myself and my colleague in this Council, Mr. Wei Yuk, in our capacity as representatives of the Chinese. No one knows better than your Excellency that it is oftentimes an arduous task to represent the multifarious interests of this community in the Council, but by your kindness and your great consideration and assistance we have found that task made very easy for us, and sometimes very pleasant, so that I myself cannot allow this occasion to pass without thanking your Excellency most sincerely for your past kindness to us. In bidding you farewell officially to-day I wish to assure your Excellency of my profound respect and esteem, and of my best wishes for your future happiness and prosperity. (Applause.)
Hon. WEI YUK―Your Excellency,―My hon. friend has so fully expressed my views and my own expressions with regard to your Excellency that he has left me nothing more to add than to express my entire concurrence with his remarks. I join him in wishing your Excellency good health, prosperity and happiness. (Applause.)
Hon. C. W. DICKSON―Your Excellency,― My hon. colleague, the senior unofficial member has given a resumé of what has transpired during the period I have had the honour to serve on this Council, has spoken of the marked esteem with which we one and all look upon your Excellency, and touched also on the fairness which has characterised the attitude of the official members towards the unofficial members. In these sentiments he has expressed I am very pleased indeed to be able to cordially concur, and in wishing your Excellency good-bye I join with him in expressing the wish that your Excellency may enjoy health and prosperity for all time. (Applause.)
Hon. GERSHOM STEWART―Your Excellency, ― Although a new member of this Council, I am an old resident in this Colony, and I have followed always with great interest the deeds of those who have been sent to rule over us. Comparisons are always to be avoided, and I shall content myself with saying that with the wise and liberal lines on which you have carried on the administration of this Colony I have always felt myself most entirely in accord. I think this Colony owes to you a debt of gratitude which, as time goes on, will grow larger and larger. (Applause.) For the last ten years we have been struggling with the scourge of plague. We have been learning in sorrow and bitterness the truth of the old saying that "cleanliness is next to godliness." It has been an immense support, and it has been of incalculable value to those who had interests in this Colony to feel that those who were placed over us have the
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courage and devotion to labour and combat that dreadful evil. (Applause). I am delighted to be able to say that in the Governor we are losing and the acting Governor we are about to get we have examples of devotion which have inspired other men. (Applause). I believe that, besides those things we know, this Colony is indebted to you for much work which perhaps has not been made public. The opening, for instance, of the port of Waichow would never have been effected without you. I think it is possible that that place may in future be of great importance to us. We have been associated― some of us―in an epoch-making event in regard to railway commencement in southern China. I believe the question which will agitate our minds here in the immediate future more than any other is whether or not this Colony shall be read the open door to the blue water for the arterial railway from Hankow to Canton. We will have the pleasure of listening to you once more, Sir, and I trust you will give us your views on that most important point. The keen sympathy and good-heartedness with which you have listened to and assisted in every possible way those in distress, has been an encouragement to that charity which you say has distinguished this Colony. We cannot forget the manner in which you took under your care that plague-stricken district in the west of the city, nor of the assistance you afforded to the sufferers by the typhoon of 1900, when hundreds of Chinese were rescued from a watery grave in the confines of this Colony. I cordially endorse everything that has been said by my colleagues, and I wish you, and both as Governor and as one of the largest hearted members of the human family it has ever been my good fortune to meet, farewell and all happiness. (Applause).
Colonel L. F. BROWN―Your Excellency,― In the farewell address to which we have just listened, you scarcely touched on the assistance which you have given to the military forces of this Colony in increasing the armament and personnel which are now under this command. Without your assistance I think it would have been scarcely possible to increase the garrison to the extent it now is. But to worthily uphold the British flag in British waters requires a naval base, which requires protection. The armament and personnel now under this command have been gradually increased during your Governorship, and now the arms and the number of men in this Colony are scarcely inferior to those of Gibraltar. You have also kindly given to us the permission to make use of the uninhabited parts of the New Territory for training our men. I have been lately inspecting them on the slopes of Taimoshan―a perfect training ground; there is no training ground I know in England that is equal to it ―and the men have learned very valuable lessons there. This constant working on the hillside just as they would be in actual warfare was of the greatest use in making them valuable defenders of the Colony. (Applause.) I was watching them
shooting the other day. A small squad of men were ready to shoot for 25 seconds at ten small objects placed on the hillside, and before the 25 seconds were up seven of these were knocked over. Regiments that can shoot in that way need not fear the landing of almost any number of men who are not accustomed to hill climbing or who had not shot or worked in a country of this sort. I have no doubt that if a party from a foreign country arrived in this Colony they would walk into a death-trap. I have also been watching the firing of the new guns lately added to this armament. In range and power they are equal to anything to be seen anywhere, and the batteries of small quick-firing guns are now complete. The firing from them was also rather remarkable. At the small battery at Lyeemun vessels representing destroyers going about 15 miles an hour went through the pass, and shots were put on them at the rate of 20 shots a minute. I do not think any destroyers could enter the pass, at that rate. It has been my good fortune to serve under your Excellency now, and I hope it may be my better fortune to serve under you again. On behalf of the officers and men of the garrison I wish you and Lady Blake God-speed; I wish you may enjoy in that interesting and beautiful island to which you are now going many happy days. (Applause.)
The ATTORNEY -GENERAL―Your Excellency, ― The official members of this Council and the public servants of the Colony generally feel the utmost regret and sorrow that the time has come when you are about to relinquish the administration of the affairs of this Colony. That feeling is tempered by the knowledge that you leave the administration of the Colony in the hands of an able and capable officer who has had the advantage of a long training under yourself (Applause.) Still, sir, we have felt it to be a certainty for some time that your Excellency's services would be required by His Majesty the King elsewhere than in Hongkong, and we have felt the time had arrived in your Excellency's long and illustrious career in the public service of the Empire when you would achieve the highest distinction ―namely, the blue ribbon of the service in the Governorship of Ceylon. We here congratulate the Civil servants of Ceylon and that Colony generally on the acquisition of yourself as its Governor, and we in this Colony, knowing you so well, predict for you in the administration of the affairs of Ceylon the same conspicuous success that has marked your administration of the affairs of Hongkong. On behalf of the official members of this Council I bid you a respectful farewell. (Applause).
HIS EXCELLENCY ― I think you very much, gentlemen, for the kindness with which you have spoken. I feel it very deeply, and I assure you that I entirely concur in one remark that the hon. Attorney General has made, and that is in the fact that the Colony is to be congratulated that when I leave its shores on
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sum of $1,000 in aid of the vote, Public Works, annually recurrent, to meet the cost during the current year of the work of constructing new roofs for the Government Civil Hospital. Passed.
REPAIRING A FLAGSTAFF.
The Governor recommended the Council to vote a
Saturday I shall leave its administration in the hands of a man who have the confidence of the whole community, who is well known to you all, who knows this place thoroughly, and whose honesty and integrity are well known to you all. (Applause).
The Council adjourned.
FINANCE COMMITTEE.
A meeting of the Finance Committee was held immediately after the Council, the Colonial Secretary (Hon. F. H. May, C.M.G.) presiding.
PUBLIC WORKS EXTRAORDINARY.
The Governor recommended the Council to vote a sum of $1,200 in aid of the vote, Public Works Extraordinary, to meet the cost of supplying and erecting sixteen tanks in Nos. 9 and 10 Health Districts. Passed.
NEW ROOFS FOR THE GOVERNMENT CIVIL HOSPITAL.
The Governor recommended the Council to vote a
sum of $150 in aid of the vote, Public Works, annually recurrent, to meet cost of repairing and removing the flagstaff at the Harbour Master's Office. Passed.
INVESTIGATING A CATTLE DISEASE.
The Governor recommended the Council to vote a sum of $1,500 in aid of the vote, Sanitary Department, under Other Charges, to meet the cost of investigating a certain periodically recurring cattle disease. Passed.
GAOL CHARGES.
The Governor recommended the Council to vote a further sum of $1,500 in aid of the vote Gaol, Other Charges, for the following items:―
(1.) Provisions for Prisoners............................ $1,000 (2.) Materials for Remunerative Industry....... 500 Total.............................................. $1,500
Passed.
This was all the business.