Council in which sit two Chinese members, one of whom
at any rate never loses an opportunity of protesting against any measure which he thinks inimical to the
interests of the population. Not a single word of
protest was raised against the ordinance outside the
Council Chamber by any Chinese. Firstly because they
were unable to impugn its reasonableness, and secondly because the principle underlying it is in accordance with Chinese ideas and follows precedent established
in China. Again among the European population only
one dissentient voice was raised--not in the Colony, but in the columns of the English newspaper "Truth". against thə ləgislation The contributor to "Truth" is a newspaper editor and newcomer to the Colony, whose opinion no one in it would at the present time
consult on any local question.
The enactment was therefore endorsed by native
and European opinion. And it justified itself by a success which would not have been vouchsafed to it
if it had not appealed so strongly to the strong
commonsense of this commercial community.
7. I venture to submit that the Ordinance is
justified not only by success and by precedent here and elsewhere, but by the necessity for a weapon to use against boycott, for which I need hardly remind you the Chinese, averse to violence and adept at passive resistance, are showing themselves more and more prone. If this weapon is cast aside some other must sooner or later be forged in its stead. The present opposition on the part of Chinese in Canton to the Green Island Cement Company ( against which, it is pretinent to
remark,
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