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To one with the gift of drawing I would suggest a cartoon in which the Colony shall be a football field, the Ball shall represent the Bill kicked hither and thither by teams in the form of Council Members and Conflicting Interests generally mixed, and His Excellency shall be the inexpert referee. It should become historical and will certainly be applicable for some time. Faithfully yours.
CHARLES E. GARNER. (Messrs. Garner, Quelch & Co., Shanghai.)
[TO THE EDITOR OF THE "HONGKONG DAILY PRESS"]
DEAR EDITOR-I am not clever, like Mr. Garner, but I thought if I asked you some questions you would perhaps print my letter.
asked Daddy and he couldn't tell me. Why didn't the Government ask Mr. Garner to make the new law all by himself? It seems so silly to have made such a mess of it when he could have done it so easily and so much better. The two men who tried to help must feel beastly sick with themselves, if they have seen Mr Garner's letter.
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on
[September 27, 1909.
THE HONGKONG WEEKLY PRESS AND
sand dollars annually can be raised by taxing | It was to be found in the 11th Chapter of St verse-Have liquors only within an area of about 350 square Marks Gospel at the 22nd
faith in "God." The Bishop then dis- miles. The greater proportion of the revenue
coursed on this text, saying that they applied being collected within a tenth part of the area. What then will be the aggregate value of the to all phases of life. The grand antidote to spirits and liquors imported into Hong- discouragement and to being down-hearted
the taxation
God, There in to have faith in was kong ? Assuming that
open before them liquor is about 40 per cent. ad valorem and in Kowloon they had the revenue seven or eight lakhs of dollars, a great opportunities. In that part of the calculation of the total value of the intoxicating vineyard of God they had perhaps one of the liquor annually consumed in the Colony gives us most beautiful churches in the Far East, equip a figure in the neighbourhood of $2,000,000. ped in every way and now also supplied with a Taking a mean average of $23 as the cost per well-appointed Vicarage House. He rejoiced gallon we find that the consumption amounts to that there was here a nucleus of zealous-hearted between 800,000 and 900,000 gallons a year for Church people who desired to further the King- a population of about 350,000-or about 21 dom of God in that place, and that surrounding gallons per head. If these figures approximately the Church there were British speaking people represent the position as regards intoxicating who were far away from Home, and who by that very fact needed a shepherd to guide them and liquors to-day, what will the consumption a- mount to when the Chinese are entirely deprived who would respond, he was persuaded, to sympa. thetic brotherly appeal, This set before them of opium?
a great door of opportunity, but it was not Nothing that was without its difficulties. worth doing in life was without difficulties. There were difficulties from the very smallness of the British community. In their Home parishes the people had generally the choice of many places of worship. If their tastes were what was called High Anglican they could generally find a Church which would snit them, or if their tastes were in the other way they could also have them satisfied It
are
According to the able report prepared by Mr. Clementi less than two per cent. of the Chinese population of the Colony are opium smokers. The average cost of opium per head therefore works out at 15 to 20 cents. But, What does Mr. Garner mean when he says notwithstanding this high percentage of cost his interest in the "6 trade of the Colony as compared with that of alcohol, there is not amounts to £1,000 in a month, and a little
a single smoker who has been reduced to ex- while after he says he has no axe to grind ? treme poverty or has even been hauled up Has he finished them all? I feel quite sorry before His Honour" and given free-quarters for him. What is Mr. Garner? Daddy says he's at His Majesty's Sanitorium in Hollywood a traveller. I thought he sold whisky. Any- Road. how I think he's awfully clever, don't you? He En passant,
I may point out that the must be a very kind man, too, because he thinks figures arrived at by Mr. Clementi so much of other people, especially the small almost identical with those arrived at thirty shops who sell whisky. Perhaps he's a philanthro- years ago, when a similar agitation took place. pist. I think it's awfully kind of the Shanghai Though there has been a large increase in the people to let Mr. Garner come down to Hong-value of opium, yet its rate of consumption has kong to teach the Governor and everybody been a constant figure during these thirty years. how to make the laws, and I am sure they must Now, Sir, reflecting on these facts, will not thank him very much. I wonder when he's every reasonable person arrive at the conclusion going back?-Yours truly,
that it is nothing short of sheer cant and rank hypocrisy to shut our eyes to the fact that the mischief that has been done in Parliament by the "Friends of China" is and will be the cause of the ruination of our beautiful Colony? At no 'distant date living in Hongkong will not only be extremely expensive, but intolerable; for with the gradual abolition of opium there will come an increasing consumption of liquor (in spite of the duties) which will necessitate the building of more lunatic asylums, goals, and re- formatories, and call for more policemen to keep the peace of the place. All this, Sir. means money: whence is it to come from? The ratepayer.
Are not Poor ratepayer!
ΤΟΜΜΥ.
[TO THE EDITOR OF THE "HONGKONG DAILY PRESS."]
SIR,-To disprove his opening sentence your correspondent, "Tommy" should be more cri- tical and less funny; and he might have been
fair.
Why single one out as trying to tell the Government what to do when so many have also given their views?
*
The "two men who tried to help" are cer- tainly not affected, as Tommy" suggests. If it is their advice that has been followed-well, is it brilliant? And I think I have proved that the larger wine firms who have bottling es- tablishments have now
a greater advantage over spirit imported in bottle than before.
My interests in the liquor trade of the Colony would not have been affected more than that of other merchants if the scale of world- wide adoption been applied here; my criticism, however, has been general, and looked at from a broad view; also, I have no business with the smaller importer, whose interests I defended, so I repeat was grinding no axe of my own.
As to who I am, inquisitive Tommy, I refer you to the Hong List, and shall be glad to elaborate that information if you will give me your name.
I regret I must to-day leave for Shang hai, but if any fair critic wishes to dis- cuss any point on which we differ and will not hide himself under a nom de plume I shall be happy to deal further with the matter when I return next month.-Faithfully yours,
CHARLES E. GARNER.
[TO THE EDITOR OF THE HONGKONG DAILY PRESS."]
Sir,-Would it be called impertinence on any one's part if the following deductions were to be published in your valued paper?
The Colony has for the last few weeks been intensely interested in the Liquor question, and the varied opinions of experts or others, con- sumers and producers, have disolosed remarkable facts which may be not only interesting but astounding to the so-called "Friends of China, who are
so solicitous for the welfare of its inhabitants. In the first place, in the discus- sions at the Legislative Council it was stated that a revenue of seven to eight hundred thous
**
these facts palpable truths?
Should it not be an object lesson to our le- gislators at Home who, though avowedly free- traders, have by their anti-opium policy not only opened the way to an increasing demand for alcoholic stimulants with all their attendant evils in the Colony, but have driven the Co lonial Government to adopt an economic policy diametrically opposed to their views.Yours, D.S.G.
ST. ANDREW'S, KOWLOON",
INDUCTION OF THE NEW INCUMBENT.
some who
was not so here. There was but that one Protestant place of worship to which all who desired on this side of the harbour must come, and therefore it was obvious that in the congre- gation there were bound to be diversities of thought. There would be some who would like one form of service and would like another. It was absolutely im possible for any man to please all people. A man must go where God led him and must exercise his own conscience and do what he thought to be right. Then all right-thinking people would rally round him. And there were other difficulties in any Colonial place. There were the influences of the non-Christian atmo- sphere in which people lived. It was disap- pointing, was it not, to find that the Lord's Day in the East was much more like a holiday than a holy day, to find that too many altogether disregarded the house of God? These things were depressing and saddening to any minister of the Gospel, so that he needed to hear the voice of Jesus saying to him "Have faith in God." That was the message, too, to those of the congre- gation. He thanked God that they had been able to keep together as they had during those eight months that they had been without a shepherd, and he asked, and knew that he would not ask in vain, for their cordial support of the new minister. Would they be loyal to him and loyal to their Church? Would they give he had him their forbearance ? For, as said, it was impossible for him to please all. He was certain to make mistakes. It had been well said that the man who made mistakes seldom made anything else. But he asked above all that they would give him their prayers not only in that institution service but also in their homes. But after. all the blessing which was to attend that church did not depend upon their new chaplain, it depended upon no amount of parochial organisation or financial support. It depended upon God Himself. Let them look up to Him then, and in the work of the Church they would have faith in God.
مر
On Sunday morning the institution of the Rev. H. O. Spink to the charge of St. Andrew's Church, Kowloon, took place. There was a large
At the close of the ordinary "service the congregation to witness the induction ceremony, which was conducted by his Lordship the Right Vicar-elect was accompanied to the chancel by Reverend Dr. Lander, the Bishop of Victoria, Mr. Packham, vestryman, who formally pre- and the clergy present were the Revs. E. J. Bar-sented hin, to his Lordship. Mr. Spink then nett, G. A. Bunbury and A. D. Stewart. His made the usual declaration assenting to the Lordship preached the sermon, in the course of Thirty-nine Articles and the Book of Common which he said that they were gathered together Prayer and subscribed the oath of allegiance that morning to institute their new chaplain. to His Majesty the King and the oath of The Rev. H. O. Spink came to them with an
canonical obedience to the Bishop of the excellent record. Educated in a public school Diocese. This was followed by prayers, and he had had the advantages of a business his Lordship placing his hand on the head training in London, then he graduated at Dar of the Vicar inducted him to the charge of the ham University with first class theological church and congregation. The service closed honours, and for the last five years he had been with the singing of the National nthem. working with much acceptance and manifest blessing in two of the most important parishes in the Diocese of Liverpool. He had come to work in Kowloon because he believed that God had called him to do so, and that morning he His Lordship) desired to give him and the congregation as well a watchword and a motto.
Mr. G. H. Soidmore, late American Consul at Nagasaki, is shortly to be transferred from Kobe to take charge of the American Consulate- General at Seoul. His successor at Kobe has not yet been appointed.
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