should be extended. In order to interest the public in the Board of Health, the Government have consented that two members should be appointed by those ratepayers who are included in the Special and Common Jury Lists and those exempt from serving on juries on account of their professional avocations, and the Government are of opinion that they cannot go further than this.
The ACTING CHIEF JUSTICE—As I intend to vote against this amendment perhaps I may explain my reasons. It seems to me there has been a mistake made in going so far as to increase the size of this board, because anyone who has had anything to do with the working of Committees or Boards knows that the business is generally left to two or three members. Here we are dividing the responsibility, and what is everybody's business is nobody's. One or two settle the thing as a rule and the others give their assent, perhaps, without knowing the reasons. Therefore, I think in giving way so far as to increase the numbers composing this board a mistake has been made. Certainly if there is any necessity of having such representative body this necessity should be shown. Now if the members nominated could be shown to be the creatures of the Government and simply carrying out the opinions of the Governor there would be some reason for trying to get another body of men. It seems to me if you begin in this way you are framing a constitution and not framing it on a logical basis. It is objected now that the Crown lawyers should not be allowed to elect the members originally proposed because seventy-five per cent of the electors would be Chinese: but if you have representation it should be on a property qualification, and the power of election should be given to those who have a stake in the Colony. The idea of popularising the Board by the introduction of the elective principle is founded upon the opinion that we could have a Municipal Council here. Now that opinion has undoubtedly arisen from what occurs at Singapore and probably at some of the Coast ports. As to Shanghai, there is a Municipality, but no Chinese whatever have anything to do with it. It is in the hands of the foreign ratepayers. In Singapore, Malacca, and Prince Edward's Island there is a Municipal Council, but that Municipal Council was established by an Indian Act of 1856. That Municipal body consists of five Commissioners who are a body-corporate and in whom is vested land and the power of assessing taxes and spending money in connection with roads, streets, bridges, &c. Under the old system before the Settlements were made into a Crown Colony there were five Commissioners and there are still five, but the resident Councillor was Chairman and had the control of nearly everything and nearly every resolution had to be submitted to the approval of the Governor. To adopt a municipality here as there we should have to change the entire system and instead of the Legislative Council having control of the funds of the Colony you would have to place them in the hands of a municipality. No doubt at Singapore they have five commissioners and only two of them nominated by the Governor, but, as I say, this had its origin as far back as thirty-five or forty years ago and it was considered unnecessary to change it. However, as the Attorney-General has said, if members of Council think the time has arrived for having a wider representation then it ought to be argued and the change ought to take place in this Council. If the people ought to be better represented it ought to be here, in this Council, the place where the laws are made and money raised and spent. The matter would then have to go before the home authorities, and if good reasons were shown why there should be representation it would be granted no doubt. On the representation of Sir George Bowen, the Justices of the Peace and the Chamber of Commerce were allowed to elect one representative each. It might also be that the home Government would allow another member to be elected either by the Chinese or the ratepayers whose names appear on the jury list. But it seems to me this is not the proper way to try to introduce the elective principle, and it is not logical that you should try to obtain it without a proper qualifying property vote. I intend to vote against the amendment and for the section as it stood at the last meeting.
His EXCELLENCY—Gentlemen, I have also thought over this subject considerably. I have had some little experience in the Colony now, and I must say as regards this matter, I cannot see what you would gain by this amendment. We are in our infancy here as regards sanitation, and the result would be that landlords, the possessors of property, would be represented on the Sanitary Board. We all know what elections are.
Free as they are in our own country, in England, hard as the State has tried to make electors perfectly free and independent, we all know perfectly well what it comes to, that the men of money and property are those generally selected. We find very few working men representing us in England, and we know perfectly well—as we imagine—this Government thinks it knows—what that representative Board, as you call it, would be. We cannot help thinking that with regard to the interests of everybody—the Garrison, the Navy, the people who pass through the Colony, and the people for whom we legislate—we think they will all be very much better off as regards the regulation of sanitation under the Board as the Government proposes to constitute it, than under such a Board as, apparently, some of the members would wish to constitute it. There is no such arbitrary body of men, I suppose, at home as a Municipal Sanitary Board. I suppose we all have to suffer. They have been educated. They required to be educated in the first instance. I don't know exactly the history of all these Municipal Boards at home, but the way is clearly pointed out to them and now in all those towns in England where people live and die, where a father of a family is most jealous as regards the operation of all the rules relating to sanitation as affecting his wife and children and so on—feelings which we hope sometimes preponderate over the interests of property—I don't know that there is anybody more arbitrary and more down on the landlord not fulfilling his duty than what you call a Municipal Board of Health. Well, we are young as regards sanitation and I think we are doing our best to show that we are trying to lead the Colony—to educate the Colony. We say the Bill is a very mild one. Some say this is a very weak Government, not sufficiently strong, that we generally give way to private interests. Well, it may, perhaps, be good to have that character. But occasionally we can be strong also. We are merely trying to lead the Colony, and in this matter of sanitation we have a serious duty to perform. At all events for the present we consider that the least we can do is to give the Government proper control in the interest of the public over the Board, although at the same time making it as representative as we think is right and proper.
Hon. P. RYRIE—Your Excellency, pardon me a moment. The arguments you have used are in favour. We are not infants here. We have been here for over forty years. We know what we want, and to say that we are going to have a grandfatherly Government and to say we shall do this or that—we resent it, we don't like it. We do not suppose that your Excellency is dealing with men who have not known all about Sanitary Boards in England as well as elsewhere. We know what they are, and you say we cannot go on without being in leading strings. The community of this Colony are decidedly of an opposite opinion.
They think that they can manage their own affairs, and I say that they are perfectly capable of doing it.
HIS EXCELLENCY—Do not let me be misunderstood. I think everybody knows that I am very much in favour of people managing their own affairs. I only speak in a general way as regards the whole Colony. As was very properly explained by my hon. friend on the right, we are dealing with a very large population of Chinese, and therefore I speak of all classes, of the whole Colony; I am not speaking of those gentlemen round me now who represent—
Who sent the best intellect in the Colony, ever could suppose that I was making any personal reflections? I am speaking of the place as a Colony containing, according to the last census, 160,000 Chinese, the number would be rather more now, because that census was taken some years ago. I am speaking of Hong Kong as a whole, and I say, and I repeat it, that when we are commencing sanitation the Government ought to take the initiative. I should be very, very sorry if anybody in Hong Kong thought that I in any way depreciated the good sense and intellect of the place, and I am surprised that the hon. member should attempt to attribute that to me.
Hon. P. RYRIE—You forget, your Excellency—
The ACTING ATTORNEY-GENERAL—I rise to
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