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been the hope of every person interested in the colony of Hongkong that a railway from Kow. loon to the frontier should be built, and this Bill gives the opportunity of seeing the accom- plishment of that desire.
The COLONIAL SECRETARY seconded, and the motion was agreed to.
The ATTORNEY-GENERAL-I move that the Council resolve itself into committee to consider this Bill.
The COLONIAL SECRETARY seconded, and the motion was agreed to.
The Bill was then considered clause by clause. On the Council resuming, HIS EXCELLENCY said-I have to report that the Bill, entitled An Ordinance for raising the sum of Two Million Pounds by Loan for the purpose of defraying the cost of a Railway has passed through committee with only verbal from Kowloon and for other Railway purposes,
amendments.
The ATTORNEY-GENERAL-I move that, no member objecting, this Bill be read a third time, The COLONIAL SECRETARY Seconded, and the motion was agreed to.
HIS EXCELLENCY-The
Council stands adjourned till after the meeting of the Finance
Committee.
FINANCE COMMITTEE.
A meeting of the Finance, Committee was then held, the Colonial Secretary presiding. The following votes were passed ;
EDUCATIONAL.
THE HONGKONG WEEKLY PRESS AND
The Governor recommended the Council to vote a sum of Fifty-three Dollars ($53) in aid of the vote, Education-Other Charges. Belilios Pablic School, for incidental expenses.
JUDICIAL AND LEGAL.
The Governor recommended tho Council to vote a sum of Six hundred dollars ($600) in aid of the vote, Judicial and Legal Departments, Land Registry Office, for New Territories, Other Charges, for Language Allowance to Mr. J. R. Wood, assistant land officer, who has passed the examination in the Cantonese dialect.
RAINSTORM DAMAGES.
The Governor recommended the Council to rote a sum of two thousand three hundred and fifty dollars (82,350) in aid of the vote, Public Works Extraordinary, for rainstorm damages.
PRINTING.
The Governor recommended the Council to vote a sum of five hundred dollars ($500) in aid of the vote, Miscellaneous Services, for printing miscellaneous papers.
MISCELLANEOUS SERVICES.
The Governor recommended the Council to vote a sum of two thousand dollars (82,000) in aid of the vote, 22 Miscellaneous Services, telegrams sent and received by Government.
GAP BOCk cable.
The Governor recommended the Council to
vote a sum of five thousand eight hundred and seventy-one dollars and sixty-five cents (85,871.65) in aid of the vote, Public Works Extraordinary, for repairs to gap rock cable.
On the Council resuming,
The COLONIAL SECRETARY said—I have
to report that the Finance Committee have just considered the Financial minutes No. 43 to 48 and have approved of them. Under these circumstances I move their adoption.
The COLONIAL TREASURER seconded, and the motion was agreed to.
A NEW CLOCK TOWER.
His EXCELLENCY-I took the opportunity of the meeting to-day to get the Director of Public Works to lay on the table a plan showing the elevation of a Clock Tower which it has been suggested might be added to the Post Office Buildings. I am no more convinced than when I last spoke on the subject that the general desire is to remove the old Clock Tower but I think opportunity might be taken of this new building in course of erection to add to it a Clock Tower which would be visible from the harbour generally and from the different levels of Victoria City. I should like members to look at the plan. The Council stands adjourned sine die.
A Peking message says that the British authorities have commenced work on a harbour at Weihaiwei with a view of the place becoming an open port; the Chinese Government is said to approve the soheme.
THE CLOCK TOWER.
A PLEA FOR ITS PRESERVATION.
(Contributed.)
[October 16, 1905.
so wisely maintained in the face of this annually recurring olamour. Up to now the enemies of the old edifice have had it all their own way. They have loudly called a wind to blow it down. Now there has come a lull and in the calm a word from a friend When the critics of the Government find them. selves 8 "graveled for lack of matter" that they ged painfully out of a usually silent person by may perhaps be listened to. It is a word drag- are driven to fall back upon renewing, after a year's inactivity, the attack upon the Clock Towerless manner in which an act of wanton vandalism a sense of indignation caused by the thought- the fact shows in a striking and satisfactory man-
is being urged upon the Government. ner how little the Colony has to complain of at the hands of its administrators. Presumably if
First I must attempt to clear the ground over there were any very serious wrongs to be put which the combined attack has been delivered. right no eloquence or attention would be devoted I call it a combined attack because the forces to airing this minor and, to my miud, merely which are directed towards the Tower's removal imaginary grievance. The fact that attention
are disunited on the question of its ultimate and eloquence have been thus devoted is a toler-fate. Esthetically they are divided into camps genuine grievances grow. In the absence of there is a group protesting that the edifice ably sure indication of a famine in the land where holding diametrically opposite views as to the genuine grievances publicists and pressmen labour under a powerful temptation to mauu-
is too ugly to be suffered any longer to facture spurious ones. By this I do not mean
exist and demanding that it shall be pulled. down and that grievances are consciously and deliberately
cast into the sea. On concocted, but that, under the strain of the
the other there are those who 003- painful necessity of utterance-a predicament meriting general sympathy-critics struggling in adversity, searching vainly for things. gone wrong, are apt subjectively to create imaginary objects of attack, just as Don Quixote's fovered fancy turned the windmills into knights.
Thus it has come about that many ill-advised agitations have been set on foot of late years for no better reason apparently than that those who must be talking may find something to say. Many instances will readily occur to old residents. They will remember first and fore- most the agitation in favour of representative goverument. The amount of ostensible support that this revolutionary proposal received was as astonishing as it was misleading. A petition praying for it was freely signed and not only by persons of no account. Many men in leading positions signed it, men who subsequently in private were more thau ready to admit that with a population such as ours the scheme would have worked disastrously. All sensible men saw that and yet they allowed the agitation to go on for years with the con- sent that silence is supposed to indicate. Indeed it did not die until the departure from the Colony of its industrious but misguided pro- moter. With the cessation of the latter's tire- some advocacy of an impossible idea-with the last of his long and dreary harangues on the subject this particularly stupid "cry" sputtered ignominiously out. In its inception it was in sincere, in the sense that no one really desired the change advocated; no one ever thought it safe or even practicable and yet, as long as the clack was kept up, no public protest against it was made.
"
cause of their discontent. On the one hand
sider that the Tower's architectural merits entitle it to a more prominent position than desire to have it removed and set up on the it occupies at present and who for this reason Praya where it may command more general attention and confer greater pleasure upon an appreciative public. When opinions differ so widely the truth of the matter is generally to be found about midway between them, and it is just here that it seems to me to lie in the present dispute.
As far as I can see, the Tower is by no means unsightly, of course Taste, is purely a personal matter; one man likes this style, another that; there is no absolute criterion. Each man as he moves about the world acquires a certain modicum and each man naturally prefers his own to any other. For myself, I happen to have seen the Taj and the Jumma Masjid and every day I learn some- thing from the back view of our own Cricket Pavilion and the gentle graces of the Provost Prisou. Reflecting upon the merits of the last two mentioned and remembering that against these no outcry has been made I feel streng- thened to say that a public whose artistic feelings remain unruffled under the strain which these might have been expected to impose cannot seriously pretend to be badly afflicted by anything the Clock Tower can conceivably do to offend the sight. However, I do not happen to possess any special qualifications for judging architecture and can easily conceive that a more highly educated eye than mine may be able to detect faults to which I am blind. In matters of detail or technique I would be quite prepared to learn that modern canons of art are variously trans- grossed and to hear why the belfry is not altogether satisfactory, but, when all is said, the total effect, though not arousing any very poignant pleasure, needgive rise to no such violent antipathy as that which characterised a memorable outburst of rhetorio rage in im- . passioned advocacy of its destruction a year ago.
Again, take the more recent case of the agitation in favour of putting the currency of Hongkong on a gold basis independently of any action which China might take in the matter. The rate of exchange bad been falling rapidly and, in the panic thus created, many people were to be found clamouring for the Colony to
go gold' on a one-and-sevenpenny dollar. From one point of view the aspect of the Tower Now that the dollar is well over Is. 11d. these is distinctly pleasing. From the bottom of people must be aware of the unwisdom of the Pedder Street it is seen to stand well up above outory they then raised and feel grateful to "the the old houses immediately behind and with the powers that be "for having saved them from Roman Catholic Cathedral rising stately in the themselves. Numerous instances might be cited back ground and Sir Paul Chater's towers peep- to show that in this community it is not at alling over far above, it materially helps to form safe to assume that because a certain number of people, more vocal than the rest, cry aloud for something to be done, it necessarily means that there is any real need or even genuine desire for change. Silence in these matters, on the part of the people who disapprove does, not mean consent in Hongkong; it means faith and hope that the Government will do nothing rash. In all such cases experience has proved that the wisest course for the Government to pursue is a policy of masterly inactivity and even in less important matters than those indicated the best thing for them to do is just nothing, until the storm of excited words has blown itself out and in the succeeding calm the still small voice of wisdom can make itself heard.
In the comparatively unimportant matter of the recently-renewed attack upon the Clock Tower it is earnestly to be hoped that the Government may pursue a Fabian policy and refuse to surrender, without much better cause that has yet been shown, the position hithert
one of the most picturesque vistas to be mot with in the streets of Hongkong. Imagine the Clock Tower removed, and try to see, with the mind's eye, the resulting picture with its unin- terrupted view of a gaping shop-front in the pigeon-hole style of architecture-and you wall realise what a plain, even ugly effect would replace the existing one. There would then be nothing to relieve an over- whelming sense of oppression caused by the sheer and hideous precipice of the Hotel. The common- sense of the matter seems to be that on grounds of ugliness there is no case made out for the Tower's destruction. But though it looks well enough where it is I doubt if it would look at all well down on the Praya. At present its height is augmented by the fact that it stands on a rise, with old and low houses on the right and in rear. Down on the sea front it would appear somewhat insignificant in comparison - with the lofty buildings rising there on every. hand. The case for removal is not convincing