August 26, 1897.]
CHINA OVERLAND TRADE REPORT.
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the old days of quarantine with a vengeance and who come to this colony, do not know where would create a great hueand ory from the ship. they are going to reside. One has only to ping community.. The only way to carry out watch the soramble which takes place when a observation" is therefore the possession of an steamer enters this port, by the native coolie- island, on which some 16,000 passengers can be house runners bargaining with the passengers, to know how utterly impossible it is for them accommodated and housed for 8 days or more at a time, as is done at Singapore, after which to give their addresses. Again whether they the vessel be disinfected and released. Un-will remain one or ten days in the colony, it is fortunately no such means are available in impossible for them to know; it depends on Hongkong. The conclusion, therefore, is that whether they can get a contract to be sent to "observation" is impracticable in Hongkong at Singapore, Saigon or any other port and how soon they get this. Then comes the question present and will continue to be so until the above condition is available. The report of the of medical surveillance of these passengers. Let Venice Conference states that Her Majesty's us take for example that Cantoù and Macao are Government made the reservation "that in plague infected. We have a daily average of the United Kingdom healthy persons shall not 1,400 passengers according to the Harbour be subjected to observation i.e., detention, but Master's Report. These men must be ten days under surveillance; therefore at the end of this only to medical supervision in their own homes, and further that even as regards infected period we would have 14,000 passengers to be ships, the imposition of observation is only kept under surveillance, assuming that they inserted in the Convention as an alternative have given correct names and addresses. Does to surveillance, and surveillance is only per- the M. O. H. mean to say for a moment that he can keep these 14,000 passengers under mitted in the case of passengers and crews landing from suspected and healthy vessels. I control for this purpose while in the colony? consider it important to bear in mind these Who is to identify these 14,000 men on shore words of the report in dealing with the subject as being the same as those recently landed from the ships? The Police Force and Sanitary before us.
Inspectors would have to be more than quad- rupled to do so, even if then it was practicable. I have taken very low figures, but what if Amoy or Swatow had plague at the same time, or again what if the epidemic was small-pox in Canton, we would have an accumulation of 15 days' passengers, meaning some 20,000 and more to be under medical surveillance. It really seems waste of time to argue this point any further. The Captain Superintendent of Police, who knows the colony, realised this at once when he stated in his minute to the Sanitary Board Circular (C. S. O. 974), referring to this subject, "that the supervision of passengers landed from an infected port is impossible here." I submit, therefore, that the question of medical surveillance of all passengers landed in Hong- koug is under present conditions an absolute impossibility and rediculous even on superficial examination.
The question of the practical employment of surveillance next comes under consideration and will be best dealt with under the heading below.
(2)-Suggestions of the Medical Officers of Health. The first part of these "suggestions" embodies that all vessels from an infected port undergo medical inspection on arrival here and be granted pratique after the sick, if any, have been removed and the vessel disinfected. Thus far this is exactly the practice carried out to- day in this Colony to the very letter and no additional regulations are required for this. As soon as a port is declared infected this is precisely what is done. Why there should be any hesitation by the Government in declaring any port infected, when once there is definite information of an epidemic disease prevailing, I do not see.
The next provision in the granting of free pratique in the suggestions (a) embodies that the names aud addresses of all European, American, and Australian passengers should be given in order that they be subjected to a vary. ing period of surveillance from 5 to 15 days. The humber of such passengers being very small and being intelligent people to deal with, is possible that this can be carried out and may be carried out if necessary. It must not, however, be forgotten that it is not the white population from whom the chief danger comes to Hongkong, but the native and Asiatic sec- tion. -- An occasional case of smallpox, it is true, occurs among the white community, but very rarely any other disease.
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The main point treated by the Medical Officer of Health is that "in the event of the required surety for any one passenger brought into the harbour from an infected port not forthcoming, the vessel will not be granted pratique." There- fore the vessel, without discharging her cargo, must return to the port whence she came with this one passenger who could not find a surety resident in the colony for $50. I wonder what would be the effect to-morrow of informing the shipping firms that such a course had been adopted by the Government. I do not hesitate in saying that the whole shipping community would rise in a body and appe to the Secretary of State, while resisting it to the utmost here. A civil war would scarcely be an exaggerated
than one or state of the case. Again, I have already two shown that not per cent. of the Chinese immigrants could find this surety. It would therefore mean a complete stoppage of the entire immigration of the colony. submit, therefore, that it would not take long to ruin the colony if such an absurd proposition were adopted.
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With reference to this question of medical inspection of all vessels the Medical Officer of Health has made, in various parts of these papers, statements which I cannot allow to pass unchallenged. inasmuch as I consider some of them quite wrong and hers very liable to mislead and create a false and unnecessary
alarm.
(b.) Under this heading the Medical Officer of Health wants all Asiatics and Africans similarly to furnish their names and addresses of destination and be subjected to medical surveillance for a like period, but further "each one must in addition furnish a reliable surety in the colony who shall guarantee in writing to the extent of $50 that such person will con- tinue to reside at the address given by him for a period of not less than ten days." This sag- gestion really seems to be too ridiculous to be seriously dealt with. The Medical Officer of Health must be absolutely ignorant of the qon- ditions of the local immigration taking place in the colony to-day, or he would have penned such a statement. I wonder how
There is many of the 2,300 passengers daily coming
(a.) The Cheang Hok Kian case. into the colony could find such a reliable surety
an attempt to creat a panic by alluding to "the resident in the colony ?" I have no hesitation in stating that not more than one or two per great danger to the colony that would have cent, of such passengers could be found. Many accrued" had any one of these 50 coolies who landed from the Cheang Hok Kian found his of these passengers have never been in the co- lony before and many are returning after years way to one of the water reservoirs or filter beds of absence en route to their homes in the heart while suffering from cholera." In the first of China, and probably do not know a soul place perhaps Dr. Clark is not aware that each one of those 50 coolies was examined prior to in Hongkong. For the information of the
Officer of Health I Medical
may landing and showed no trace of disease. But state that practically the whole of this for the sake of argument, if we assume that larger number, excepting a few from Singapore each one of these 50 coolies was suffering from and America, are men who have scarcely 50 cholera at the time, does Dr. Clark mean for a cents in their pockets and much less able to find moment to say that these men were going to security of $50. Further, if they were able leave their sick beds to go out to Pokfolum, to find such security, it is the heght of improb- Tytam or Bowen Road filter beds, or other ability that they would ever come to this places. Has Dr. Clark seen a case of cholera? colony. Again by far the majority of those | If he has, I am sure he would not suggest
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such a thing which to my mind is the height of impossibility, to say the least of it. A cholera patient is not only disinclined to leave his bed, but is mostly unable to do so, much less to go for a chair ride or walk to these sources of water supply.
The above statement made by the M. O. H. is calculated to create a gross and false alarm and bias the mind of any one unacquainted with the subject. It is more than likely that every one of these coolies who landed left Hongkong within 12 hours of their arrival for Canton, inasmuch as they were returned immigrants from Singapore on their way to their homes in China. Even if the medical inspection of all vessels was in force, these men would have landed all the same under sur- veillance. i.e., with the only difference of having given a name and address, which whether false or correct, would only be proved later on. very exaggerated idea of the danger the colony has escaped exists in the mind of the M. O. H. whereas such danger was infinitesimal, if not, nil. And certainly this case cannot be used as an argument for the medical inspection of all vessels.
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(b.) In his minnte to the Sanitary Board on the Quarantine Regulations, the M.O.H. states that "what is urgently required is the appointment of an additional Medical Officer of the Port," and, again, that "this is not the class of work a medical man would care to take up permanently," and yet he says that "no difficulty would be experienced in getting good men at a salary ranging from $156 and quarters for a period of three years.". I wonder if Dr. Clark would have come out at this salary for a period of I think it is impossible to get' three years. good men at such a nominal salary, or if they did come out under a wrong impression they would resign in a month.
(c). Dr. Clark thinks that these two medical men working each 6 hours a day could accom- plish the Herculean task of medically inspect- ing all vessels, of doing the same to all junks and boats coming from different ports, and of attending to the emigration from the colony. From the Harbour Master's Report I find that the daily average of omigrants is 2,300, of crews coming into the port 1,388, and of emi- grants leaving the colony 593; making a total of 4,281 men to be examined daily. Allowing the highest possible figure per minute for in- spection-and a very poor inspection at that- viz., 3 men per minute, by simple arithmetic we have nearly 24 hours' constant work with- out a moment's delay of any kind. Every- thing must go like clock,work; not a minute must be lost in going from one ship to medical another, not a minute can the officer get for a morsel of food or a drink of water. Work! Nothing but work from daylight to dark! This is the "reductio ad of the proposition. It therefore absurdum wants at least four medical officers to do the proposed work. Probably there is no port in the world with such stupendous figures for im- migration and emigration. The port of Londor, which has nothing like the figures of Hong- kong, has I think, four medical officers doing the work and are further assisted by the
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Customs officers.
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(d.) Finally the Medical Officer of Health says the expenditure upon launch and crow "would not exceed that incurred at present." The Harbour Master has shown that it would be essential to have two inspecting stations, one at each end of the harbour; therefore the medical officer on duty at each station would require his launch in readiness to go from one` ship to another. Thus we have two lannches. But a third would be required for the medical often three and four ships leaving the colony officer doing emigration duty, as there are very of a morning and requiring to be inspected for the passengers. So that we want three launches as a tota and minimum and such was actually when there were four medical officers and three the cage in the epidemic of 1894 in Hongkong- launches at work. Again in the draft "Sug- gested Additional Quarantine Regulations," the when any vessel is not visited by a health following #ppears: "Provided always that officer within a period of 18 hours from the time of her arrival in the colony," then the vessel may come up to her anchorage and land her passengers. The M.O.H. evidently thinks that a vessel may under his scheme be detained as