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Rectract from Hong Kong Zaily Ress of 23th horauber 1907.
Kowloon and Tytam, and we hope that. auder the rider-main system now being adopted, zu effective check upon the waste of water will result.
We would specially refer to your Excel- leucy's devotion in dealing with the grave question of the periodical outbreaks of bubonic plague in the Colony, which have for so many years hampered our trade and checked our progress.
The self-imposed task carried out by your Excellency last summer in dealing with the plague in sectional blocks and your efforts to promote habits of personal cleanlinesS amoog the poorer classes of the Chinese.. would alone suffice to render the Colony your lasting debtor.
We are further indebted to your Excellency for your constant support of the afforts mado to secure the effective opening of the West River, and for the privilege accorded of an additional number of ports of call, resulting in a large increase to the traffic and a corre- sponding advantage to the trade of Hongkong. The warm interest exhibited by your Excellency in the important subject of education has been much appreciated in view of the increase in the juvenile population, for whom provision has had to be made in order that they may be thoroughly equipped for the battle of life, which here, as elsewhere, grows yearly more strenuous.
The encouragement which you have given to all healthy out-door sports and pastimes, in so many of which you actively partici pate, has been most vainable as an example of the benefit to be derived from physical exercise】 and recreation in au enervating climate,
In taking leave of your Excellency it is satisfacry to know that, when you leave these stores, your ripe experience will still be utilised in the service of the Empire, and we cor fially wish you all success in your new sphere of labour. We also trust that, when the time arrives for you to lay down the cares and burdens of the public service, both your Excellency and Lady Blake will long cojoy in your native land the leisured ease you have so well ourned, and that good health and hap- piness will always attend you.
We have the honour to be, Sir,
Your Excellency's Obedient Humble servants. [here follow signatures.]
Sir WILLIAM GOODMAN Continued.-It was I think, in 1886 on my homeward voyage from another colony where I was Chief Justice, that I first had the honour of meeting your Excellency and Lady Blake at Nassau, when you were Governor of the Bahamas. I recollect how much I appreciated the kindly hospitality I, a passing stranger, experienced on that ocession from you both, at Government House. How little did I then imagine that, seventeen years later, should, as Chief Justice of Hongkong, have the pleasure of read- ing 82 address to your Excellency on your departure from this For Eastern colony. But it is the unexpocted which so often happens; and now, after four most uccessful terras of office as Governor of four differout Colonies, your Excellency is about, as Governor of Ceylon, to enter upon another episode in your varied and brilliant career. In a few short hours, you will have left our shores. Our rocky island-with its evor- increasing swarm of thrifty and industrions workers, its noble edifices, as well as its crowded. tenements, its open-handed, large-hearted, far-seeing, and enterprising mercantile com- munity, its garrison, its forts, its ships, its band of Civil servants-all will bare sunk beneath the horizon. The presont will have become the past, and the five years of your administra tion of the Colony will be to you a matter of recollection only, The years and months pass rapidly but, as the Roman epigrammatic post wrote, nineteen hundred yea's ago, "Pereunt et imputantur." They are placed to our account, and I venture to think that, in the retrospect, your Excellency will have abundant cause for satisfaction in the work that has been accom- plished during your period of office here. A former Governor of this Colony, in replying to an address, once said, "The only reward a Governor can look to is the approbation of his Sovereign, the confidence of the
coloniste, and the success of those measures which he has put forward is the belief that they will be beneficial to the welfare and stability of the Colony in which his lot has been cast," The important appointment which His Majesty has conferred upon you shows that you have gained the Royal approbation. The address which I have read demonstrates the feeling of the Colonists towards you; and a consideration of even the Ordiúances and Orders in Conncil for the last five years canuot fail to impress any impartial person who, like myself, is fami iar with their result, with the conclusion that on the whole they have been most beneficial and useful. In whatever direc- tion we look we see signs of progress aud im- provement. If we look towards the harbour, we see the near completion of that splendid work the Praya Reclamation, and if we look further northward, across the harbour, we see a vast increase of territory resoned from comparative lawlessness, pierced by an excellent rad, ethoiesty policed, and destined in the future to form no unimportant portion of this growing and energetic Colony. If we look southward toward the Hill district, we find not only new roads, new and handsome honsos, but now hospitals, completed or being built, in which I trust, much suffering will be relieved, and many convalescents will be restored to health and strength. If we look towards the oast, wo will find a foreshore and land now covered by the sea, but hereafter destined, when the grand Eastern Reclamation Scheme, of which your Excellency has approved, is carried out, to form no insignificant portion of the improved City of Victoria. If we look towards the west, we find hundreds of commotions new buildings and that excellently graded Jubilee Road, which is now completed to Aberdeen, and which I trust will some day be carried round the Island. And if we look at the city itself, we see handsoms edifices springing up all around, soms of the finest within a stone's throw of the fall in which we are now meeting, we see electric tram-lines being laid from one end of the city to the other, and we fiad law and order, as much as it does in a Euro- pean city, reigning amongst an industrious aud prosperous coinmunity. Now, these are simple facts which cannot be gainsaid. The signs of material progress are all around us, and, considering the geographical position of this Colony and the constant changes in its population, I venture to say its social and moral progress has been of a most hopeful character during the term of your Excellency's adminis- tration. But I will not longer detain you. I will only, in the name of those who signed the address, wish your Excellency a hearty fare- well, a pleasant voyage, and happiness and
your prosperity in
future career, Lond applause.)
When the applause had subsided, HIS EXCELLENCY said- Sir William Good- i man, ladies, and gentlemen,-1 thank you. and through you the community who have signed this beautiful album, for your expres- sion of goodwill feeling that is, I assure you, warmly reciprocated by Lady Blake and myself. You are kind enough to re- capitulate certain incidents that have occurred during my administration, and your friend- ship attributes to me a larger share in the inception and carrying out of those projects than is always my due. The material progress of this great port is secured by the collective capacity and energy of the ommunity, and no one realises more fully than I that in such progross I have been the fly upon the wheel. But it is a happiness to me to know that the wheel has been going round merrily, that no sand has been allowed to get into the bearings, and that, notwithstanding the present univer al de- pression that will I hope soon pass away, Hong- kong is as sound and insistent in abounding energy and ever-increasing prosperity as when Ï came among you. (Applause). I have, accord- ing to my lights, taken the share of the work that fell to my lot, and I a cept with gratification your assurance that I have done it to your satisfaction (Applause). But to one thing I confess that I shall always look back with the keenest pleasure. I have secured, with the entire concurrenos of the Chinese authorities of Canton, that never again shall any man surrendered from under the folds of the British flag be subjected to the harrowing tortures that are still so prevalent in Chinese judical proceedings. (Applause). I experience difficulties in having my views
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