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er. Local industries are of course ffected by the want of water, and ʊui put at the sugar refineries at East Point has been restricted in consequence. In soine uses recourse has been had to wells, but this only gives a precarious supply, and in some instances work has had to be suspended. The sanitary condition of the City of Victoria has so far been much more satisfactory than, under all the circumstances, could either have been hoped for or expected. This due we believe, partly to the absence of moisture we so much lament since plague makes most progress during the rains, when the masses retire into their close houses and shut themselves up there, instead of living mainly out of doors as they do in dry weather and partly to the ener getic measures adopted by the Sanitary Board to cleanse the corners and drains of the city. We are glad to give credit where it is due. The Sanitary Board have made the whole town redolent of disinfectants, but if they succeed in keeping down the enemy or minimising an epidemic the result will in either case justify the efforts made and the money spent. Meantime, however, great inconvenience is being felt, not only in factories and other places but also by every householder, by the difficulty of pro- curing a sufficiency of water for cleansing purposes. So far, we believe, few persons have complain of actual inability to sufficient for potable purposes, but that will come presently if the clouds will not yield the needed showers. A mere squall or even a passing thunderstorm will not give us the water required. The few showers experienced early in the month were grateful to the thirsty soil and parched vegetation, but they made no appreciable addition to the storage.
obre to
THE HONGKONG WEEKLY PRESS AND
{April 21, 1902.
EDUCATION IN THE COLONY. Į the Improvement of Existing Schools," the
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most drastic change proposed is, as has already been indicated, the reversion of Queen's College to its original purpose the teaching of Chinese students only. The internal reforms to follow upon that are
each in charge of a class, with Chinese subordinates; and that pupil teachers should be organised under a practical system. These would go far towards re- moving the unsatisfactory state of things which exists under the present methods of inaparting Western knowledge to Chinese pupils. Various changes are also proposed in connection with the Grant Schools, but upon this aspect of the question we cannot enter at present. The Report must strike the impartial observer as being eminently fair and well-balanced, advocating no rash measures, but rather bearing the evidences of a true spirit of advancement being held carefully in check by a proper degree of That the Government cool calculation. will stamp it with its imprimatur is to be hoped.
NATIONAL CABLES.
(Daily Press, 17th April.)
(Daily Press, 12th April.) The exhaustive and complete character of the Report that has been drawn up and presented to the Government by the Sperial
no less 'drastic, as well a Committee 'appointed to enquire into the educational position and requirements of being much needed. It is now suggested the Colony bears testimony to the pains among other things that every division of taking concientious manner in which the every class should receive instruction in Committee have performed the task allotted English from an English master for not them. Not the least interesting of the less than one and a half hours a day; should be various recommendations put forward in that the English masters very
the Report are the suggested improvements upon existing educational institutions; yet one cannot but be impelled, in the first instance, to give primary consideration to those proposals which introduce entirely new subject-matter. That it is essential that the children of British parentage be educated by themselves, and not side by side with the children of other nationalities or races, is taken as having been already approved in principle. It is upon that basis that the Report has been formulated; Now that a British School and rightly so. for Kowloon is become an established fact, the recommendation of the Committee that such a school should be provided may be allowed to fall out of the account. There remains then as the central idea of their proposals the establishment of a British | School in Victoria, coupled with the proviso that the Queen's College revert to the purpose for which it was origin- ally intended, and supply an education to Chinese only. Subsidiary to this principal It is now some time since French publicists and almost non-controversial proposal first began to agitate for a telegraph line there are two others of a kind which should which should connect France with her meet with general approbation: the first, colonies without the messages having to that a boarding-house should if possible be pass at any point over British lines. The established in connection with the Victoria change which they called for has not yet British School; the second, that all boys been effected, though a step in that direction The existing crisis should, however, teach of sufficient age should be required to join has been taken in the establishment of a lesson for the future. Had the extension a Cadet Corps, if the Military Authorities connection between Indo-China and Amoy, of the reservoirs been proceeded with earlier, can arrange to form one. The evidence avoiding Hongkong, and thefice by land the storage of water would have been suffi- given before the Committee went to show lines with the Russian telegraphic system. cient for the wants of the Colony and this amply that the first of these addenda The full scheme, if ever adopted, is likely scarcity would not have been so pronounced; to the main proposition has had not a to take long to carry out, and until then although it must be admitted that it is little to do with the successful found- France is obliged to rely to a certain extent on British cables for communication with partly due to the unprecedentedly shorting of similar schools in the East, if it rainfall of 1901, which did not even fill the be not, indeed, an almost indispensable her colonies. But France is not the only Tytam Reservoir. At the same time, the accompaniment of such institutions. It country which is making an effort to get rid of British influence over the world's "necessity of providing for a recurrence of may be taken for granted that British re-
Recently we have such a short rainfall is apparent to all, and sidents in Canton and other Treaty Ports telegraphic service. it is to be hoped that no further delays will would take advantage of it to send their geard of a Dutch scheme for connecting take place either in supplementing the children to Hongkong for their education. Netherlands India with Europe via America. later comes the suggestion that storage for the supply of this island, or in As regards the Cadet Corps, we know the Still the construction of the projected new water kindly attitude which His Excellency Germany should put a stop to the system works for Kowloon. The scheme prepared Major-General Sir W. GASCOIGNE bears whereby American news to Germany is "coloured" by passing through London. by Mr. OEMSBY will, we understand, pro- towards such a scheme: he has already given vide an ample supply for the whole of the expression to the pleasure it would afford A Berlin journal, the Kreuz Zeitung, claims peninsula, allowing even for an enormous him to see a Cadet Corps formed in the that English interference is responsible for increase in the population. If thought Colony; and we are sure the project will most of the recent anti-German feeling in desirable, however, the scheme should be get His Excellency's warmest support. The the United States, and that REUTER'S extended now, because there can be little desirability of the formation of a Cadet agency (which, we are told, is invariably doubt of the continued development of the Corps it is unnecessary, we think, to enlarge hostile to Germany) has a complete in- peninsula and the growth of industrial upon. With respect to the High School fluence over the German agency known as
for Chinese already authorised to be "WOLFF's Bureau." enterprise thereon. There ought to be no
The Kreuz Zeitung malign difficulty in securing an unlimited and established, the Committee have two sugges. calls for the abolition of the unfailing supply of water on the mainland, tions to put forward, viz., that it should be influence of British middle-men" and a whatever may be the case in the limited open to all Chinese of respectable, anteced-closer drawing together of Germany and water-shed of this island.
ents and connections, and that the fees the United States, sign of which is charged should be high; the latter provision to be the establishment of a German- ensuring that the cost, so far as it exceeds that of the other Angle-Chinese Schools, shall fall upon the scholars and not upon the ratepayers, and thereby doing away, doubtless, with the only real objection which has been brought against the scheme. In the New Territory, the Committee are of opinion, it will, to commence with, suffice to open Anglo-Chinese Schools at Uen Long and Sheung Shui, with Vernacular Schools attached.
At the boxing tournament held at Yokohama on the 3rd inst, Jack Slavin was to box three rounds with Mr. J. W. Thompson, but for some
son or other the latter did not appear as his opponent, and Mr. Slay n-boxed with a marine instead. The cintests for Messrs Arthur and Bond's cups were most interesting. Mr. J. Jones would have won both 9 and 10 stono prizes, as he was by far the best of all the testants, but,opposing a man of heavier
in the last bout in lieu of another who lisabled his hand, the boxing was only of endly nature, and Mr. Jones yielded the trophy to his opponent Mr. Guerin,
In that part of the Report which comes under the head of "Recommendations for
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American cable with no filtration of news through English hands. The demand, in three different countries, for a telegraphic system over which Great Britain has no control need not excite much astonishment. It is one of the indirect results of the South African War. Though it may sur- prise us that REUTER should be accused of unduly favouring the British in the trans- mission of news, it is not to be wondered at that the extent of British influence over the messages despatched from South Africa should be a cause of jealousy and resentment