314
SANITARY BOARD.
A meeting of the Sanitary Board was held on April 13th at the Board Room. Mr. R. O Hutcheson presided, and there were present Hon. Mr. W. Chatham, C.MG., (Vice President), Colonel Bedford, Mr. A. Shelton Hooper, Dr. G. H. L. Fitzwilliams, Mr. Lan Chu Pak, Mr. Ho Kom Tong, Dr. F. Clark (Medical Officer of Health), Dr. Pearse, (Assistant Medi- cal Officer of Health) and W. Bowen Rowlands (Secretary).
CEMETERIES, RITES AND CEREMONIES,
Mr. HOOPER said he wished to propose a slight ly different resolution to that of which he had given notice. As two days notice would be necessary, and as this had not been given he moved the suspension of the standing orders in order to enable him to move his resolution.
Hon. Mr. CHATHAM seconded and the motion was agreed to.
C
1
any
law
SO
|
"
THE HONGKONG WEEKLY PRESS AND
[April 17, 1909. was proposed there was no idea of laying any, alienate the good feelings of any section of the hardship on any faith or sect, and that this was community, much less of the Japanese, whose ally purely an omission instead of an act of proscrip- we were. On the ground also that the resolu tion.
tion breathed a spirit of class or racial dis- Mr. LAU CHU PAK said he had listened with tinction, he was strongly opposed to it in great attention and interest to the eloquent and principle. More especially so when the contem- able speech made by the mover of the resolution. plated measure was founded on sentiment, and If the resolution which had been so carefully traversed the sensitiveness of other people. and ingeniously worded, would, when carried, From his inquiries, instances of cracker-firing benefit instead of deprive non-Christian persons in the Colonial Cemetery had been few and far of their right, not only the speaker, but every between. Even granting, for the sake of a general practice. body who was acquainted with the circumstances argument, that it was would give it their hearty support. But in there was already in existence the necessary point of fact that resolution was aimed at cur-legal machinery to regulate it, in order to reduce tailing the privileges hitherto enjoyed by the to a minimum the so-called objectionable obser- Chinese and other fellow citizens, the majority vances, according to the orthodox rituals of of whom belonged to no particular religious those belonging to the Buddhist persuasion, denomination ; whatever his sympathy Mr. Lau Chu Pak had said that the Colonial might be with the resolution, he did not think Cemetery was not consecrated ground, and as he should allow his sentiment to carry our Colonial by-laws provided against fireworks him beyond his duty. In opposing the within 'God's acre," there was no danger of motion he abstained from criticising the many the Chinese, or of the Japanese for that matter Mr. HOOPER then proposed the following ro- points raised by the mover and seconder. He resorting to the Cemetery of all places, to indulge solution. That as the new Cemetery Bye-laws would simply state the views of those he re- in pyrotechnic displays. He was well aware that prohibit the burning of jobs sticks and firing of presented on the Board so that members might in this British Colony equal opportunities would orackers in the Colonial Cemetery it is desir. consider those views with the mover's views be accorded to all-in life as in death--and that able for the Government to select a new site and and form their decision according to justice and fundamental principle would determine the authorise a cemetery for the interment of bodies fairplay. The Colonial Cemetery, as its name rejection of the motion before the meeting. of persons of the Bhuddist and other non-Chris-implied, was open to every resident in the Colony tian Faiths, and for whom no special Cemeteries irrespective of nationality and religion. It was have been provided-where it may be lawful maintained at the cost of the public, and was for the practice of any rites and ceremonies the public's property. During the last pertaining to the religion of the deceased" sixty years, strictly in accordance with Proceeding, he pointed out that the only differ. British justice,
been ence in the resolution proposed from that of which he gave notice, was that it included other non-Christian faiths than Bhuddism and all religions that had no cemetery provided for the burial of their dead. The Board on the 13th October last passed a bye-law prohibiting the burning of joss sticks and firing of crackers in the Colonial Cemetery and that bye-law was approved by the Legislative Council on 3rd December 1908. At the time when he propesed that resolution he had not the least idea that any hardship would be created and that it would tell against any section of the coin- munity. He thought the joss-sticks were burned at graves by Chinese only, in which case it would have been no hardship to prohibit, because the Government had pro- vided them with cemeteries where they could bury their dead and perform their funeral rites according to their religious customs, but it was brought to his notice that there were several interments in the course of the year of Japanese, most of whom belonged to the Bhuddist faith, and they felt it a hardship that they were not able to inter their dead with the ceremonies enjoined by their religion. It was to meet this that he proposed the resolution just read. It was the duty of the State in any country to provide for the burial of its dead, and as an English colony we were only too pleased to provide cemeteries for all denominations. support he read an extract from the proclamation dated 1st February, 1841, when we took over the Colony: The inhabitants are hereby promised protection in Her Majesty's gracious name against all enemies whatever and they are further secured in the exercise of their religious rites and ceremonies and social customs." Since that date the Government had loyally carried out what was stated in the proclamation, and had provided so far as the burial of the dead was concerned sufficient and proper cemeteries for all classes. Under those circumstances he was sure that every member of the Board would wish that the same justice should be meted out to any race, Asiatic or otherwise, who claimed protection under our flag. He was sure he had only to appeal to his Chinese colleagues at the Board for their support to be given to the motion. They recognised how dear to them were their religious customs, therefore they must realise how dear to other countries were their customs, although perhaps, they might not be of the same way of think. ing. But in this case they were of the same way of thinking, so far as their religion was concerned in the majority of cases. He alluded to the Bhuddists. great many Chinese in the Colony were Bhuddists. They had their own cemeteries where they could perform these rites, and we could not deny the same right to the Japanese or any other nation.
In
DE FITZWILLIAMS seconded the motion. He felt quite sure that when this restriction
Those
or
Hon. Mr. HEWETT said he would rather this question had never been raised at all, but having been raised, he thought he had the right to make a few remarks an the subject. He understood the question was that Bhuddist there had never
rites, which included the firing of crackers and to the or regulation contemplated
use of joss sticks over the graves of
in should be prohibited the confine its to people of
use
any parti- the dead
an offset, a cular nationality or religious denomination. Colonial Cemetery, but that as If the cemetery was in a congested state the new cemetery should be provided for Bhuddists Government could be asked to extend its area and other non-Christian races who wished without encroaching on the rights of the non- to have a cemetery of their own. That, he European section of the community. Those thought, was a perfectly reasonable proposal. Chinese who made use of the Colonial Cemetery There had been, for a great number of years were chiefly the British boru, the British here, special cemeteries set aside for different It seemed to him naturalised." the Christian converted and the religious denominations. Eurasian Chinese, and recently Japanese had perfectly reasonable that the Colony should pro- also made use of it. As these people had already vids a special cemetery for the Bhuddists, and been admitted into the European paradise on any other denomination sufficiently represented earth, he thought it was scarcely fair to debar to justify such an expenditure on the part of the them from using the passage to the European Colony. He was afraid Mr. Lau Chu Pak had paradise in heaven. The better class of Chinese spoken a little bit off the line. The point was who had made Hongkong their permanent home that the Bhuddists and others wished to carry had not a decent cemetery in which to bury their out the ceremonies and perform the rites"
control in dead, and the Chinese had no
over the graves of their dead which were not in accordance with Protestant what were called Chinese cemeteries. cemetries were simply tracts of barren land set Catholic ideas. Personally he had no view apart by the Government for the burial of on the subject but he wished to hold an even He Chinese dead of any class. The Government balance between different denominations. reserved to itself the right of resuming the land could quite conceive that members of the and ordering the remains to be exhumed and Christian church might be extremely opposed buried anywhere else as the Government might to any other rites than those which pertained from time to time be pleased to direct. If it to their religion being carried out in the was desirable to induce the better class of cemetery; and that being so they should respect Chinese to stay permanently in the Colony, it the sentiments-they might be only sentiments was scarcely wise to impose too many restrictions or to introduce class legislation. The creation of the by-law to prohibit the burning of joss sticks and the firing of crackers had already limited the use of the Colonial Cemetery to a. certain class of Chinese. If the other Chinese liked to bury their dead there without observing the rites of their ancestors it would certainly save the missions a lot of money and trouble to convert them. Last of all, it was a policy to be condemned, the excluding of the very class of people the Colony invited to come here and settle, from sharing in the privileges for which they paid, if not more, as much as any other section of the community. views he had to submit for the consideration of members on behalf of the Chinese. He thought they deserved careful consideration, and before any steps were taken to exclude the Chinese community from the Colonial cemetery their views should receive proper weight.
These were the
Mr. Ho Kom TONG said he did not propose to traverse the ground so fully covered by his friend and colleague who had just spoken. Mr Lau had omitted to touch upon one important point, and that was that the resolution before the Board affected their Japanese friends principally, most of whom were of the Buddhist faith. The motion, if adopted, would affect them as a community on the whole much more so than it would the Chinese, who in numerical propor- tion were far less hurt in their sentiment than were their Japanese fellow-residents. He could not a party to a measure of doubtful practical expediency which might
be
+
of these people. He did not think that by passing the resolution, they were casting any reflection, or drawing any racial distinction between Asiatic and Occidental. The resolution was provided to meet the various sentiments of the different denominations in the Colony. He trusted that the Chinese members who had spoken so ably against the resolution would recognise the sentiment underlying it, and which would certainly make him vote for it.
He did not wish, either alive or dead, to draw any distinction between the diff- erent nationalities here, but he was perfectly con- vinced that it would be a very great source of to a large section of the Christian Church to know that Bhuddist rites were being carried on in their cemetery, in the same way as Bhuddists would object to see an alien religion forcing its services in one of their temples.
sorrow
Mr. HOOPER thought as proposer of the re- solution he had a right to reply. Mr. Lau Chu Pak said in the first place that the eemetery had always been called the Colonial Cemetery, and that indicated that every member of the Colony had a right to be interred there. He found, on reference to an old book dated 1866, called "The Treaty Ports," a map of Victoria, on which the Parsee, Protestant and Roman atholic cemeteries were marked. He wonld next turn to the official organ of the Colony, the Government Gazette. of September 17th, 1867, there was a schedule of fees for interments, monuments, etc., in the Protestant Cemetery. He found that the word Colonial" cemetery was first applied by the
In the issue