202
THE HONGKONG WEEKLY PRESS AND
OUR LEGISLATIVE DEBATING CLASS.
any
[October 14, 1907
**
the characteristic attitude of the Hongkong public, including the ratepayers? Economy is not a bad cry in such a crisis; bút thế officials have a poor notion of its meaning, and the people's representatives a worse: The Hon. Mr. OSBORNE did mention that our ideas of public buildings were too (Daity Press, October 8th.) extravagant, but then that was crying over We believe that it was a patriot who spilt milk. We are committed to the suddenly found himself unable to answer extravagance, or to most of it. Hongkong the stern logic of an opponent in debate roads are bad, and the trams have not made who fell back upon the complacent re- them better, but this is no time to clamour flection, "Ah, well, we always muddle for costly things like wood pavements. It through, somehow." One gentleman lectur- is the heavy initial cost which should make ed the legislators of Hongkong to the tune us, and the Hon. Mr. HEWETT, let that hare of nearly eight thousand words, and yet in sit. The officials don't care. They want nice all that verbal torrent it is hard for us, and comfortable quarters, and they see no probably no less so for the permanent necessity to wait till we can better afford officials, to see one floating bit of practic them. Yet at Taipo, even the Hon. Mr. able advice. Some of the things they were HEWETT, in this stringent time, thinks counselled to do involved more expenditure, "permanent buildings should be erected.” and it appears the government at present There is no need so far as we can see to hardly knows how to make ends meet, for boggle at a few plain words. Those për- the ratepayers won't have increased taxa-manent buildings in the New Territory can tion, the financial advisers are against a wait. If the officials out there find bunga- loan, and the present revenue, thanks to lows an improper hardship, change the certain moral reformers, has become pre- officials instead of the buildings. It will be carious. Many of the things they were told cheaper. As for the shelter over Pedder's well wait too, not, they ought not to have done were already Wharf, that can
Hon. Mr. HEWITT'S done, so there was no health in that sort of withstanding the criticism. But still the river Oratory was impatience. If the present picturesque in spate, and adown the turgid flood came matshed blows down again, the loiterers aturning and atumbling a procession of and bathing parties can buy umbrellas or
stay at home. It is not "a small affair, don'ts' and 'mustn'ts' and 'shouldn'ts
as the Hon. Mr. Hewart called it, in the and ought-to-be's,' until the mental eye
sense that it is these and numerous other fatigued, as the physical one does after a while of Niagara, and we turned away small affairs that are eating up the revenue.
clear-cut
of But cui bono? conception without
The Hon. Mr. HAWETT the gist of the matter, bemused with ploughed much sand; why should we har. We regret the verbosity. [That is our excuse for inability row it or our readers? to lighten the darkness.] The permanent position of the Government, and of the officials were less susceptible, more hardened. | ratepayers, and can do no more than re- Here and there they made a snatch at bits utter the fervent hope that they will of flotsam, and handled it, and pronounced | muddle through. it not worth salvage, and tossed it back again, as is their wont, in their own special streams of eloquence. We can but hope, as the patriot did, that our Government will manage to muddle through. The Hon. COLONIAL SECRETARY has a vein of elo- quence peculiarly his own, but he wastes it. He ought to know that the most silvery tongue sounds cracked if it preaches heterodoxy among the orthodox. We remember a local Brutus who was always put up to speak when his admiring fellow townsmen fore- gathered, and who in graceful phrase and sonorous periods started out to tell a Volun- teer assembly why he disapproved of the South African war. No one but his tailor got any benefit from that performance. So, the Hon. COLONIAL SECRETARY, having in a tone of light and airy cocksureness inform- ed the ratepayers of this Colony that they are assuredly under-taxed, gets tora shreds by " Batepayer," who wrote in our yesterday's issue a letter that according to public opinion so far ascertained leaves the official heretic naked and ashamed before his peers. We all want to see adequate shelter for the small craft of the harbour from typhoons. That topic was efficiently dealt with by an honourable member, concisely, tersely, as was best; and we have done our best to clinch his arguments and augment them. What else of the worly session stands out requiring treatment? That taxes are already bigh enough? The admission of that does not help us much
made, though we are disinclined to adopt |ance; and it will be not far short of a it, that the ambitions reclamation scheme crime if another typhoon season be allowed now apparently abandoned had something to burst upon us without some provision. to do with it. Certainly, if the idea was to let the place develop into dry land by itself, it has come pot far short of being realized. Barely half of the space is available for the refugees who go there when a typhoon is. expected, and outside the breakwater a large flotilla anchors and fatalistically waits for the destruction that would be inevitable with a westerly blow. We submit that even if the new refuge were going to be ready far sooner than it is likely to be, the Cause way Bay shelter ought to be dredged. That breakwater was not constructed for nothing, Why should the expenditure be wasted, simply for lack of reasonable enterprise? The boat population of Hongkong is im- portant in point of its numbers, and not less so in point of its usefulness to the trade and commerce of the port. The question of adequate shelter is not one merely of the duty of humanity, It is also a matter of business, in which the prosperity of the port is involved. Twelve months ago we had a taste of what it means to be deprived for even a short time of the assistance of these people. That is going to happen agam, if the Government thinks that any reason is adequate for postponing these precautions. It is a matter of urgency. If a start be made now, on the simple, primitive and economical plan suggested above, we should have, by the next typhoon season, sufficient accom- modation to make the absence of the new shelter a matter of comparatively small consequence, though there will always be a use for two such places. We will not try to recall the beartrending scenes of a year ago. If they and their sequelæ have already been forgotten, mere pen pictures would not avail to awaken the sense of duty. There is one point that has not been made by the Hon. Mr. OSBORNE and the others who share our views on this subject. Here at Hongkong the Government has been favoured by Nature with a harbour that has cost them nothing. Considering that the majority of busy harbours in the world are maintained at the cost of almost daily dredging, the Hongkong Authorities may be said to have a big reserve fund for harbour expenditure. Looked at in that way, they can well afford to make some sacrifice now, to make the harbour what it should be. They have done very little for the harbour and shipping hitherto, because they have not been called upon to do it. An immediate provision of shelter for the smaller but indispensable craft is as import- ant as the new fire float, and more so, though that is a thing we should have had long ago, if our officials had a sense of proportion and a right view of the proper sequence of our obligations. The water population, big and important as it is, has no direct representa tion on the Legislative Council, as it almost seems entitled to, but perhaps the Chinese members will consider its claims and elicit its opinion. It occurs to us that the boat people would probably not refuse a special toll in case the Causeway Bay shelter were properly dredged. A toll of say half a cent a picul per night would soon recoup the cost, without being unduly burdensome, and it would also assist the police in seeing that the hospitality of the place is not abused. That, however, is a suggestion thrown out for the Government to consider, In case its financial embarrassment seem
to
"forrader." The Government wants more spending money, its constituents want all sorts of things which necessitate expend. really too great for it to attempt to meet iture. In the absence of more practical and its obligations without some such assistance. practicable counsel than was and is forth- With or without a toll, whether its funds be coming, it looks to us like a case for prayer high or low, this question of typhoon-prayer that the authorities may muddle shelters is of first and paramount import through somehow. Is that, or is it not,
HAGUE'S SMALL VALUE.
(Daily Pres*, 9th October.)
It seems almost imposs ble to disbelieva that the Hague Conference is not destined ultimately t be of some practical use seeing that so
may eminent diplomatists take part in it, and that the nations generally appear still to have unbounded faith in it. But the more that we see of it in action, the more palpable are the shortcomings which experienced statesmen at once saw must attach to any such machinery for the settlement of international disagreements, It has bec me evident that there are only two kinds of questions with which it has the power to deal effectively-first those of purely speculative character in which a general expression of international opinion may possibly form a guide to international feeling and action upon a future occasion, such for instance as the just fiability of throwing explosives from an airship, and secondly questions of so small a nature that it is not worth the while of the least self respecting nation to fail of its own initia- tive to carry out the decision which an arbitration tribunal appointed under the rules of the Conference may decide upon. In a practical point of view but little is gained in either of these directions. Mere abstract questions, important though they may be, will, however much the contrary may be wished, be settled by a belligerent nation as it may see fit, notwithstanding any decisions on the abstract principle that may be arrivel at by any outside tribunal. The only consideration whica a nation once engaged in war will entertain in regard to the lengths to which it may go in offensive warfare is the question of the÷re- prisals that it has to fear from the enemy