Enclosure 1.
YOUR EXCELLENCY,
142-156
Rech
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As Chairman of the Jubilee Committee, and on behalf of the Community of the Colony, I have the great honour of asking you to meet us to-day for the pose of unveiling the Statue of Her Majesty QUEEN VICTORIA. I need not enlarge upon the interest, the fervent and loyal interest, which the residents of this Island take in this ceremonial. I need not state that we are met together to discharge a most unusual and exceptional function. I need hardly remind you, Sir, that the event which has given birth to these proceedings is one which, only a few years ago, stirred to the depths the hearts of the British race in every quarter of the world, for was not that event the Jubilee of Our Most Gracions Sovereign? If any proof were needed of the feeling which dominates us at this moment, I would ask you to look at this concourse of Her Majesty's subjects, gathered here to offer their loyal and respectful bomage to the Throne. I would ask you to look at the Representatives of the other Powers, who, with fellow-countrymen of theirs, who are resident here, have come to do honour to this auspicious event.
Your Excellency, as we all know, Her Majesty's Jubilee occurred in the year 1887, and it will perhaps be not unfitting if I mention the reason why this Statue has not been erected before. It was not because Hongkong was one whit behind other British Colonies in wishing to prove its dutiful regard for Her who reigns over us; it was not because we did not desire to have in our midst a Memento of the Ruler to whom we owe allegiance. No, Sir. It was because we recognised that such a Statue as this should be placed in an appropriate and conspicuous spot, a spot worthy, if that could be so, by its very position to do honour to the occasion, and until this great work, this reclamation on which we are now standing, was practically finished, we had no such place to offer. Under your Government, this portion of the reclamation has now been happily accomplished, and here in this commanding position, in the best part of this City, named after our QUEEN, we feel that our Statue could find, in all this Island, no more ennobling site.
Sir, with the exception of Newfoundland, which was occupied about 1500, it was not until the early part of the 17th century that Great Britain first began to colonise in carnest. Thenceforward, however, down to the present time, Colony after Colony was acquired. Gauged by the test existing to-day, her earlier acquisi- tions were, in the nature of things, comparatively unimportant; but England's Colonies have strengthened with England's strength, and grown with her commercial prosperity and power, mutil, one Possession after another emerging from its incipient doubts and difficulties, they have gained their present status, and culminated in forging the magnificent chain, which, starting from the Mother Country, now girdles the earth with British soil. Of this chain Hongkong forms one of the liuks, a strong and a lasting one, we may be permitted to hope, and to those assembled here, and to you, Sir, as their Governor, it cannot but be interesting to remember that, after Her Majesty's accession to the Throne, this was the first Colony that Great Britain acquired.
Your Excellency, it is not possible to predict from the shadows which the future is casting before what Hongkong will yet develop into. It is not possible to surmise with any accuracy the part which will ultimately be allotted to her to play in the international theatre of the world. These questions lie in the womb of the future, and the future alone can answer them; but that she is destined to be always an important factor in both Imperial and local concerns, I for one have no doubt whatever. Such is her natural position, lying, as she does, on the fringe of the adjacent Empire; such is her mercantile value, being, as she is, the Eastern gate through which must pass the commerce of the West, that it is hardly too