Complaints against
the Observatory.
303
the way of avoiding Hongkong.
41.
Turning from the question of
relief to the sufferers of the past calamity to that of
the prevention, in so far as it lies within human power,
of its recurrence I have to inform Your Lordship that the
fact that practically no warning of the approach of the
typhoon was given by the Observatory was immediately after
and has ever since been the subject of unfavourable comment
in the local press, and though I have no reason to believe
that the Observatory Officials Dr. W. Doberck, Director,
and Mr. F. G. Figg, First Assistant, in the absence of
local indications or definite information from other
stations could have made an earlier prediction I deemed it
advisable with a view both to allaying public distrust in
those officials and to giving them the opportunity of
vindicating themselves to direct an enquiry into this
point by a small committee consisting of the Attorney-
General as Chairman with a Naval Officer, a Captain of
the Mercantile Marine and the Superintendent of the
Eastern Extension Telegraph Company as Members. As it has
since been generally and publicly stated that the working
of the Observatory is hampered by the unsatisfactory
relations