"Heonghing Mercury"
209
THE
HONGKONG MERCURY
AND SHIPPING GAZETTE.
FRIDAY, 21ST SEPTEMBER, 1866.
It is not very easy to make out with what object the Meeting was summoned the other day by the Anti-Stamp Tax Committee. If only for the purpose of hearing read to them by Mr. MACLEAN the Governor's reply to the Memorial and Protest, it was ill-advised and unnecessary. His Excellency, by having his reply printed for circulation among the members of the Committee and others and by sending copies to the local papers, did more to give publicity to his case than could possibly be done at any public meeting likely to be got together in Hongkong. If the object in view was, not only to lay the Governor's reply before the public, but also to point out to the community the fallacies contained in that document, the inapplicability of some of its arguments and the weakness of others, and to elicit an expression of popular dissatisfaction and devise further plans for the defeat and overthrow of the obnoxious measure—the Public Meeting of Monday last was a complete and startling failure.
The Meeting was in the first place insignificantly attended. Neither in members nor in respectability could it compare with the first. The gross misrepresentation that stated the Meeting to have been well attended, “the Court House being filled and many being unable to obtain seats,” was worthy of the Journal in which it appeared. The part of the Court usually occupied by the bar and officers of the Court was certainly full and many gentlemen were compelled to stand. But the other half of the Court House ordinarily appropriated to the public was not quarter filled, while on the occasion of the first meeting every seat was occupied and the passages were crowded. With the exception of the members of the Memorial Committee, but few of the taipons were present in the body of the Court, and if many of those who were there could not find seats it was because the furniture from the offices of the Court had been moved into the Court-room out of the way of the white-washers, and the place was lumbered up with desks and tables.
In the second place, the only expression of popular feeling elicited on the occasion was in favour of the Stamp Act and in support of the Governor's speech or letter in reply to the Memorialists and protesting members of Council. Mr. GRANVILLE SHARP, while smoothing down the ugly passions of his hearers with one hand, dealt them some awkward hits with the other, justly ridiculing the idea—first propounded by the merchants themselves, although afterwards taken up and considerably improved by a section of the local Press—of a general exodus from Hongkong as the immediate consequence of the Stamp Tax. His speech went farther than the purely ridiculous aspect of the question, and unmasked those who, paying not one single cent of taxes, would impose a double burden on the small middle class here which does pay taxes. Mr. BARNARD, if he did nothing else, made the meeting laugh at him, if not with him, and made certain uncomfortable disclosures as to the motives of some of the more virulent opponents of the new finance measure.
It was really very unkind of the gentlemen present, when, at the commencement of his oration, Mr. B. stated that he proposed to say something about the Stamp Tax, although many there might think he knew nothing about it—to shout "hear! hear!!" in such a significant way; and it was really cruel when he referred to "the most respectable men in the Colony" to cry "name! name!!" so persistently that the unhappy gentleman yielded to the clamour. We don't envy him his task of explaining away what he then said. Mr. STOREY's speech was very good in its way. Perhaps it pledged himself too earnestly for the good behaviour of the Governor, and for his honest and uprightness of intention, but Mr. STOREY felt strongly and spoke strongly. That question to which the speaker referred pointedly, as evidencing the Governor's good faith—the question of the Kowloon Land Lots—is one which at a very early date will, we believe, become the subject of litigation between the Crown and its tenants and of earnest public discussion. There were three speakers, and all spoke in favour of the Stamp Act. The few words uttered by Mr. BOSMAN were undeserving of the name of a speech, and Mr. McDOUALL's utterance was a palpable confession of defeat. "We have nothing to say," i.e., we are answered and silenced—"somebody else speak."
What a pitiful position the Chairman must have found himself placed in! Long pauses; speeches in opposition to the objects for which the meeting had been summoned; no one to raise a voice in reply; an indifferently worded resolution carried as listlessly and as indifferently as if it were not of the least importance; failure in every way. Mr. MACLEAN felt it deeply and "dismissed" the meeting, like a pack of troublesome schoolboys, and as if he were heartily glad to be done with the whole affair. We regret for that gentleman's sake, that he did not meet with the support from his colleagues which his own conduct throughout the business eminently merited.