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any
economical and moral forces to be taken into consideration, and it is due to these that the average condition of the working classes in England and America is higher than that of their continental brethren. This very Sunday rest, which is spoken of as entailing sacrifices, has been a strong factor in the improvement of the status of working men, and has largely contributed not only to their moral bnt to their physical welfare also. And did time and space permit, it would not be difficult to prove that their employers have benefited to a corresponding if not a greater extent. Compare the wealth of England and America with that of Continental nation. Many canses have favoured these two countries, but he would be a bold man who dared to say that Sunday rest impeded their material progress. And the workmen of Great Britain aud America understand this. They know full well that if they consented to Sunday labour, their condition would become much worse than it is. They have not jumped at this conclusion all at once.
There was a time when, had the opportunity of working on Sunday been presented, they might have availed themselves of it. They are thankful now that the laws of the country, the precepts of the religion and the force of public sentiment prevented them. They have come to kiss the rod that ruled them; and now the law is little required because workmen themselves will not work on Sundays.
In Hongkong we must arrive at the same state by the same process--a compulsory law. The more the subject is discussed, the more apparent does it becoms that this is the only remedy. If shipowners take the same views as Mr. Mackintosh, and a great many of them do, if their heads are bent to their ledgers as closely as his, and a great many heads are so inclined, is there any hope of voluntary co-operation or is there any prospect of its permanence?
Is it likely that some owners will grant Sunday rest, if others refuse? Is it in human nature to willingly make such sacrifices, which may become real sacrifices, because the absence of a compulsory law patting all on equal terms, may within such a narrow area of this Colony, give at least a temporary benefit to a firm which insists on Sunday labour. As we have over and over again repeated, there is nothing so peculiar to Hongkong as to make the regulations in force in other places inapplicable here. The Custom House 'bogey is a pure creation of the imagination. It is not in reality the fact of a Custom House being closed that keeps a shipmaster from discharging his ship; it is the fact that he knows he will be punished if he duos so. So, in Hongkong, a shipmaster would not seek to discharge or load his ship if he knew that the law forbade it. What does it matter if the detective service is a Police launch instead of a Customs lanuch? The end is equally secured.
If the interview with the Administrator has one lesson it is this-that the time has gone by for discussion and argument in Hongkong. The rest of the fight must be carried on in England; and we can assure the members of the Officers' Association, according to advice received by this mail from an influential source, that the contest is by no means hopeless, that indeed victory is close at hand.
“SINGAPORE FREE PRESS," (Another Leader) Tuesday, December 2nd, 1890.
WHAT might be called the local chapter in the history of the Sunday Harbour Labour agitation at Hongkong has now closed with the recent inter- view of the representatives of the British Mercantile Marine Association with Mr. FLEMING, the Acting Governor. And although it was manifestly impossible for that gentleman,--merely holding that post as he does till the arrival of Sir WILLIAM DES Vaux from England,-to give any assurance whatever respecting the introduction of legislation, it is hardly to be expected that the arrival of the Governor himself will make any perceptible difference in the position of affairs. Lord KNUTSFORD has practically thrown the responsibility of pushing for action upon the Colonial Chambers of Commerce. The Chambers of Commerce are not inclined to venture forth into action on their own account, although a generally benevolent attitude, more or less cautiously expressed, is assumed towards the movement. The complexities of the case are by no means inconsiderable, and the prevailing idea that has dictated the non-committal reply of the Hongkong Chamber of Commerce to its memorialists is clearly the reluctance to engagelin any change of trade practice that in operation might be found to hamper one section of the mercantile community to the relative advantage of another.
It was
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SUNDAY LABOR IN HONGKONG HARBOUR.
suggested that the whole question was one which could be more satisfactorily solved by negotiations between mercantile marine officers and their employers, but that view was demonstrated by the promoters of the movement to be unsound, and incapable of being reduced to practice. The prime difficulty lies in the fact that the opinion of the Chambers of Commerce is not entirely a free opinion, for a large proportion of local firms in the two Eastern ports referred to are but the agencies of the great shipping companies who run lines of steamers to the Far East. The touching of the vessels at these ports is but a contributory incident in the voyage, and it is felt that the principals in the case are really the officers and men of the mercantile marine, their home employers, and the Secretary of State in consultation with the Colonial Government. If the shipping owners in England were to express views in support of the matter advocated, and to communicate those desires in definite form to their representatives in Hongkong and Singapore, this would enable the local Chambers to adopt an expression of opinion of a less neutral character, and dispose the local Government to approach the question of legislation with some definiteness of purpose. It was pointed out by the Acting Governor at Hongkong in response to the deputation that interviewed him ou behalf of the movement, that there was an eventual prospect of attaining the desired object, in some degree at least, "if there existed an earnest desire and real co-operation among those who were interested in the shipping business of the Colony to diminish Sunday labour in the extent to which it was now carried on.' But herein lies the difficulty: Will there bo such display of unity of aim and earnestness in co-operation among those concerned as to justify the Secretary of State in causing the required legislation to be jutroduced? That is, in view of the tone of the Governor's remarks in Council and in the noutrality of the reply of the Chamber of Commerce, at present exceedingly doubtful. Till there be manifested But that community of purpose, it is to be apprehended that little will be done. at all events the work is being gone about in the way that promises success, for the scene of action is now being transferred to England, as we learn from this paragraph in a Hongkong contemporary :-
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An effort, we hear, is being made at home to get the shipowners in England to address a letter to the Secretary of State, assuring him that they have no objection to restrictions being placed on the Sunday working of cargoes in Hongkong and Singapore similar to the restrictions already in force in the Australian and other British barbours in which customs dues are levied, provided such restrictions apply equally to ships of all nations, and that there be reasonable provision made for cases of urgent necessity."
It seems almost a pity, however, to admit that success, if obtained, will be obtained not so much on the merits of the case, as by appeal to the benevolent ignorance of popular opinion at home. It may be taken for granted that the narrowness of the section of the public that may take up the case will not enable them to understand the local difficulties which have so impressed the Governor and the Chamber of Commerce at Hongkong, but the thing will be taken up, and perhaps carried solely on Subbatarian grounds, instead of the broader ground of reasonable and necessary physical and mental rest to a hard-working and descrving class of men. In fact a good result is being hoped for from that same well-meaning iguorance that has in other directions already interfered to the public detriment in India and the Eastern colonies. Still there will be little disposition to quarrel with the result, even if the meaus by which it is attained be not such as we should sanction as altogether logical.
A CRITIQUE ON THE ARGUMENTS ADDUCED AT THE CONFERENCE.
Irrespective of its religions side, the vital importance of the Sunday rest question is one which caunot be permitted to remain where it is. Throughout the civilized world, a weekly day of rest is universally acknowledged to be an indispensable physical and moral necessity. The koon race for very existence, and the high pressure rate at which everyday life is now conducted renders it doubtful if enlightened civilization can be maintained without such periodical rest. Labour organizations, which are now the order of the day all the world over, have hitherto devoted their efforts, and with success, towards a reduction of the bours of labour, and even in this direction it is pretty generally accepted that eight hours' work a day is to be the rule in future. With such patent exainples before them of what is
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