We have three dentists. About eighteen months ago I visited one, not professionally, but for the purpose of seeing the instruments he used, and I then found he had the same apparatus we find in all dentists' establishments. In fact, he did work for the first-rate American dentists we have here, being fully capable of making or repairing sets of teeth. He was a gentleman of intelligence, and impressed me, I must say, as favourably as a dentist could. I also find Chinese architects for the first time, five in number. For the first time, we also have in the list one geomancer. I have not seen that gentleman, but I find in the list perhaps an antidote to the geomancer; for the first time we see in this list a Chinese barrister-at-law. I think we may all congratulate ourselves on his appearing not only in the census returns as a barrister, but as being also a member, by the Queen's favour, of the Legislature of the Colony. I find also on this list three newspaper editors, but there were three in 1876. They are not exactly the same three, because one, a gentleman who was enumerated in 1876, was a friend of mine, the editor of the Chinese Mail, Mr. CHUN ATIN, and I believe that newspaper editor is now receiving a salary of twelve hundred pounds per annum as an officer of the Chinese Government in Cuba, where, I understand, he is the Consul-General. I don't know whether I am right in classing them amongst the professional portion of the Chinese community, but I find we have 84 fortune-tellers in the Colony, instead of 46 in 1876. The schoolmasters have increased from 114 to 171, and students from 341 to 2,562. These students are not to be confounded with school-boys, who are dealt with in another part of the census. Most of these gentlemen who return themselves as students are, no doubt, young men, but some of them possibly are old men, who devote themselves to literary pursuits. Portrait painters have increased from 170 to 200, and photographers from 30 to 45. Story-tellers have decreased from 5 to 1. Musicians, also, I am sorry to see, have fallen from 70 to 30. If it were not one of those statistical fallacies that sometimes occur, even in the best regulated Registrar General's Office, it would be a melancholy fact, that when our Chinese bankers and bullion dealers come upon the scene, the story-tellers and musicians seem to disappear. Perhaps great material prosperity is not without some drawbacks.
On the whole, it is manifest we have in this Colony an increased Chinese community of importance to the commercial interests of England, and, therefore, we may at once answer the question as to this large dealing in land, and may admit it was a just and natural process, and that this transfer of property from Europeans to Chinese was not of a merely speculative kind.
That I need hardly ask you, But it has sometimes been
Now, does Hongkong fulfil the object for which it was established? gentlemen, after the brief resumé I have given you of our census returns. discussed what the object of this Colony is, and in my time I have heard it said that it is a military object, or a naval object—I have generally been of opinion myself it was commercial,—but I find on referring to a despatch of the Secretary of State to Sir JOHN DAVIS, where this question was raised, that there it is briefly and clearly laid down for what object this Colony was really established. Sir JOHN DAVIS had to forward to Her Majesty's Government a memorial from the foreign merchants complaining of the taxation of Hongkong. They represented that Hongkong had been established, as they thought, for military objects in China, and, on that account, they begged the Imperial Government would undertake to pay for the cost of the establishments, and that they themselves should be relieved from taxes. The Secretary of State who had to decide on this memorial in the year 1846 was then a young man, but he evidently gave due attention to the subject, and, having reviewed the whole question, he expressed his opinion that the occupation of Hongkong was exclusively with a view to commercial interests; and, in a word, his despatch said it was established in the interests of trade alone, and that the traders naturally should pay the expenses of the Colony. I find that this same Secretary of State had in a previous despatch requested the Governor to have land sales in the town of Victoria at which none but Chinese could bid. Representations came from the Governor, either Sir HENRY POTTINGER or Sir JOHN DAVIS,—that there was a certain class of Chinese who would be peculiarly suitable for commercial operations, but that, owing to land jobbers, they could not compete at the land auctions in Hongkong, and therefore the Secretary of State directed that there should be some land sales at which none but Chinese could bid. Well, he incurred a little local criticism for doing that, and when this despatch of his was published laying down the purely commercial objects of Hongkong, and stating that the Colony should pay for itself, one of the foreign newspapers then printed here commented on it in these terms:—The answer of Mr. GLADSTONE is universally regarded by everyone with whom we have conversed since it was published, as sealing the fate of "Hongkong. We do not believe it will be met by any violent recrimination or outcry, but the disgust "it has excited is such as will not be speedily eradicated. What little trade we ever possessed here "has been all but extinguished." Well, a generation has passed since that criticism was published in the Colony, but I am bound to say, every year since then has justified Mr. GLADSTONE'S policy; and, at this moment, we are in a Colony whose commercial prosperity is perhaps unrivalled. Who now will venture to say that he was not right to encourage the Chinese to buy land and settle in Hongkong? Who now will differ with Mr. GLADSTONE as to the true character and object of this Colony?
CL
There is one aspect of this progress and prosperity which concerns us as a legislative body dealing with financial matters, and it is this, that as the Colony makes progress, the revenue should improve without the imposition of any new taxes. That has also taken place. The revenue and expenditure of this Colony for the last three years were as follows:—The revenue in 1878 was
have three dentists. About eighteen months ago I visited one, not professionally, but for the purpose of seeing the instruments he used, and I then found he had the same apparatus we find in all dentists' establishments. In fact, he did work for the first-rate American dentists we have here, being fully capable of making or repairing sets of teeth. He was a gentleman of intelligence, and impressed me, I must say, as favourably as a dentist could. I also find Chinese architects for the first time, five in number. For the first time, we also have in the list one geomancer. I have not seen that gentleman, but I find in the list perhaps an antidote to the geomancer; for the first time we see in this list a Chinese barrister-at-law. I think we may all congratulate ourselves on his appearing not only in the census returns as a barrister, but as being also a member, by the Queen's favour, of the Legisla ture of the Colony. I find also on this list three newspaper editors, but there were three in 1876. They are not exactly the same three, because one, a gentleman who was enumerated in 1876, was a friend of mine, the editor of the Chinese Mail, Mr. CHUN ATIN, and I believe that newspaper editor is now receiving a salary of twelve hundred pounds per annum as an officer of the Chinese Government in Cuba, where, I understand, he is the Consul-General. I don't know whether I am right in classing them amongst the professional portion of the Chinese community, but I find we have 84 fortune-tellers in the Colony, instead of 46 in 1876. The schoolmasters have increased from 114 to 171, and students from 341 to 2,562. These students are not to be confounded with school-boys, who are dealt with in another part of the census. Most of these gentlemen who return themselves as students are, no doubt, young men, but some of them possibly are old men, who devote themselves to literary pursuits. Por- trait painters have increased from 170 to 200, and photographers from 30 to 45. Story-tellers have decreased from 5 to 1./ Musicians, also, I am sorry to see, have fallen from 70 to 30. If it were not one of those statistical fallacies that sometimes occur, even in the best regulated Registrar General's Office, it would be a melancholy fact, that when our Chinese bankers and bullion dealers come upon the scene, the story-tellers and musicians seem to disappear. Perhaps great material prosperity is not without some drawbacks.
On the whole, it is manifest we have in this Colony an increased Chinese community of import- ance to the commercial interests of England, and, therefore, we may at once answer the question as to this large dealing in land, and may admit it was a just and natural process, and that this transfer of property from Europeans to Chinese was not of a merely speculative kind.
That I need hardly ask you, But it has sometimes been
Now, does Hongkong fulfil the object for which it was established? gentlemen, after the brief resumé I have given you of our census returns. discussed what the object of this Colony is, and in my time I have heard it said that it is a military object, or a naval object-I have generally been of opinion myself it was commercial,--but I find on referring to a despatch of the Secretary of State to Sir JOHN DAVIS, where this question was raised, that there it is briefly and clearly laid down for what object this Colony was really established. Sir JOHN DAVIS had to forward to Her Majesty's Government a memorial from the foreign merchants complaining of the taxation of Hongkong. They represented that Hongkong had been established, as they thought, for military objects in China, and, on that account, they begged the Imperial Govern- ment would undertake to pay for the cost of the establishments, and that they themselves should be relieved from taxes. The Secretary of State who had to decide on this memorial in the year 1846 was then a young man, but he evidently gave due attention to the subject, and, having reviewed the whole question, he expressed his opinion that the occupation of Hongkong was exclusively with a view to commercial interests; and, in a word, his despatch said it was established in the interests of trade alone, and that the traders naturally should pay the expenses of the Colony. I find that this same Secretary of State had in a previous despatch requested the Governor to have land sales in the town of Victoria at which none but Chinese could bid. Representations came from the Governor, either Sir HENRY POTTINGER or Sir JOHN DAVIS,-that there was a certain class of Chinese who would be peculiarly suitable for commercial operations, but that, owing to land jobbers, they could not compete at the land auctions in Hongkong, and therefore the Secretary of State directed that there should be some land sales at which none but Chinese could bid. Well, he incurred a little local criticism for doing that, and when this despatch of his was published laying down the purely commercial objects of Hongkong, and stating that the Colony should pay for itself, one of the foreign newspapers then printed here commented on it in these terms:-The answer of Mr. GLADSTONE is universally regarded by everyone with whom we have conversed since it was published, as sealing the fate of "Hongkong. We do not believe it will be met by any violent recrimination or outcry, but the disgust "it has excited is such as will not be speedily eradicated. What little trade we ever possessed here "has been all but extinguished." Well, a generation has passed since that criticism was published in the Colony, but I am bound to say, every year since then has justified Mr. GLADSTONE'S policy; and, at this moment, we are in a Colony whose commercial prosperity is perhaps unrivalled. Who now will venture to say that he was not right to encourage the Chinese to buy land and settle in Hong- kong? Who now will differ with Mr. GLADSTONE as to the true character and object of this Colony?
CL
There is one aspect of this progress and prosperity which concerns us as a legislative body dealing with financial matters, and it is this, that as the Colony makes progress, the revenue should improve without the imposition of any new taxes. That has also taken place. The revenue and expenditure of this Colony for the last three years were as follows:-The revenuc in 1878 was
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