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445
condition of Hongkong requires large and sweeping reform. Those persons, if there still be any, who are opposed to such reform, base their opposition, not on a denial of the state exposed by Mr. Chadwick, and Dr. Ayres, but on some such mode of argument as the following: Hongkong is naturally a part of China. The overwhelming majority of the inhabitants of Hongkong are Chinese. The English have allowed them to dwell here hitherto much after their own fashion. Their mode of life has not proved unhealthy to them; they have hitherto been free from many diseases which similar conditions of life induce in Europe.
How far then are the foreign English justified in enforcing against the native Chinese, rules and restrictions of which they neither feel the necessity nor understand the force? It is to this sort of reasoning that Dr. Ayres, supplementing by his local knowledge the more general remarks of Mr. Chadwick, specially addresses himself.
5.
Mr. Chadwick states (paragraph