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myself, and in bidding you farewell officially to-day I wish to assure your Excellency of my profound respect and esteem, and I desire also that your Excellency will accept our 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 no words to do anything more than to express my entire concurrence with his remarks. I join him in wishing your Excellency good health, prosperity and happi- ness. (Applause.)
Hon. C. W. DICKSON-Your Excellency, My hon, colleague at this Conncil has given a resumé of what has transpired during the period have had the honour to serve on this Council, and has spoken of the marked esteem with which we one and all look upon your Excellency, and touched also on the firness which has charac. terised the attitude of the official members towards the unofficial members in this Council. In these sentences which he has expressed I am very pleased indeed to be able to cordially conour, 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.)
THE HONGKONG WEEKLY PRESS AND
to the extent it now is. But to worthily up- hold the British flag in British waters requires a naval base, which requires protection. The armament and personnel now under this com- mand 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 a'zo 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 in- specting 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 wou'd be in actual warfare was of the great et use in making them valuable defenders of the Colouy. (Applause) I was watching them shooting the other day. A small squad of men were ready to shot 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 is ely 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 DOW 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
you may enjoy in that interesting and beautiful island to which you are now going many hippy days. (Applause.)
The ATTORNEY-GENERAL—Your Excellen- cy, The fficial members of this Council and the public servants of the Colony.enerally feel
Hon. GERSHOM HTEWART-Your Excel- lency,-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 Use. 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's debt of gratitude which, as time goes on, will grow larger and larger. (Applause) For the last ten years we have been struggling with that scourge of plague. We have been learning in sorrow and bitterness the truth of the old saying, "that cleanliness is next to god-wish you and Lady Blake God-speed; I wish liness." It has been an immense support, and it has been of incalculable value to those who had int rests in this Colony to feel that those who were placed over us have the courage and devotion to labour aud combat that dreadful evil. (Applause). I am delighted to be able to say that in th⚫ Governor we are losing and the Governor we are going 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 mad gablic. The opening, for instance, of that port of Waichow would never have b en effected without you. I think it is possible tha: that place may in future be of great importance to us. We have been associated — some of us-in an epoch-making thing in re gard to the 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 the open door for the arterial railway from Hankow to Canton. We will have the pleasure of listening to you once more, Sir.cquisition of yourself as its Governor, aud and I trus you will give us your views on that most important p int. The keen sympathy and good-heartedness with which you base listened to and assisted in every possible way those in distress have been an encouragement to that, charity by which you say this Colony has dis- tinguished itself. We cannot forget the man- ner in which you took under your care that plague-stricken district in the east of the city nor of the assistance you afforded to the suf- ferers by the typhoon of 19.0, 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 as Governor and one of the best-hearted members of the human family that it has ever been my good fortune to meet, I wish you fare- well and all happiness (Applause).
Colonel L F. BROWN Your Excellency,-
the utmost regret and sorrow that the time has come when you are about to relinquish the administration of the affairs of this Colony. It 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 loug training (Ap- plause.) 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 elsewh-re 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-nam-ly, the blue ribbon of the service in the Governorship of Ceylon We here congratulate the Civil servants of Ceylon and the Colony generally on the
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- November 21, 1903
PUBLIC WORKS EXTRAORDINARY. The Governor recommended the Council to rote a sum of $1,2 10 in aid of the vote, Pablic Works Extraordinary, to meet the cost of supplying and erecting sixteen tanks in Nɔs. 9 and 10 Health Districte. Passed.
NEW ROOFS FOR THE GVERNMENT CIVIL
HOSPITAL.
The Governor recommended the Council to vte a 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 con- structing new roofs for the Government (ivil Hospital. Passed.
REPAIRING A FLAGSTAFF.
The Clovernor recommended the Council to vote a sum of $150 in aid of the vote, Publis Works annually recurrent, to meet cost of repairing and removing the flagstaff at the Harbour Master's Office. Jassed.
INVESTIGATING A CATTLE DISEASE. The Governor recɔma nded 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
...80,000
(2.) Materials for Remunerative Industry
Passed,
Total
This was all the business.
500
...$1,500
THE "AMPHITRITE'S" ACCIDENT.
H.M.S. Amphitrite, Capt. Windham. C.V.O., arrived from Singapore in a damaged condition on the 18th. While on a voyage from Hongkong to Zingapore, on the 6th November, she ran on to an uncharted coral-shoal lying in Lat. 1.16.7 N., Long. 104.23 E. and sustained damage to the after part of he false keel and probably to some plates. Un arriving to Dingapore it was found that the damage, though much less than might hare been expected, was of such a nature that necessitated dockyard repairs, so the vessel was ordered to proceed back to Hongkong. A departure was made from Singapore on the 12th inst. and Hongkong was reached yester- day morning at half-past nine. Strong mon- Boon was experienced from Singapore to Lat. 16 N and from thence to port fine weather. Since the aosident, Commander Vaughan Lewis, of H.M.S. Fearless, has surveyed and sounded the dangerous shoal, which is, by
way, situated at the eastern entrance to Singapore Main Strait, south channel. His survey showed that
the
the shoal is 5 yards long in a N.N.W. direc tion and 30 yards broad. Least depth obtained was three fathoms (low water springs) with other pinnacle heads of four ad five fathoms having eight to eleven fathoms in amongst them. Close around and surrounding tho shoal we in this Colony, knowing you so well,
are irregular depths of twelve, fifteen and predict for you in the administration of the twenty fathoms. The Amphitrite has gone affairs of Ceylon the same conspicuous success
iato dock at Kowloon. No doubt her that has marked your administration of the repairs will keep her some considerable time. affairs of Hougkong. On behalf of the official It is very satisfactory for everybody concern- members of this Council I bid you a respectfuled that the shoal was an uncharted one. farewell. (Applause).
HIS EXCELLEN YI thank 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 Saturday I shall leave its administration in the hands of a man who ha the confidence of the whole commu- nity, who is well known to you all, who knows this place thoroughly, and whose honesty and
The recipient of a C.M.G. on the King's telegram as Mr. Kolshalma was Mr. T. H. recent birthday who appeared in Reuter's Kershaw, the late Legal Advisor to the F.M.B. Government. Mr. Kershaw was called to the Bar in 1877, and came out to the Straits in 1887 when ho was Registrar of Deeds. Singapore. Three years later he became Official Assignee and four years later still filled the position of Acting Attorney-General. In 186 he became Legal Adviser to the F.M.S.
In the farewell address to which we have just integrity are well known to you all. (Applause). Government, and in that position, as indeed in
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 assistanos I think it would have been scarcely possible to increase the garrison
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,
all the posts he held in the Straits, he proved himself a most capable officer. His last post before retirement was that of Acting Attorney- General from March 1901 to March 1902, during the absence on leave of the Hon. W. R. Collyer.