It is not my desire to inflict upon Your Grace my views, or opinions upon this subject, at this stage of my correspondence--but having touched upon two points in my previous respects to Your Grace which will tend to illustrate what I have advanced, I deem it my duty to seize upon the opportunity afforded in having called Your Grace's attention to these points, to demonstrate my meaning for Your Grace's informnation. The points I allude to refer, first, to the partiality exhibited by the existing local administration towards Mr. Alexander, the present acting Colonial Secretary; and second, to the suppression of the Colonial Surgeon's reports for three years.
The root of all the evil which has occurred here is the secret underhand system, invented I may say, by Colonel Caine the late Lieut. Governor, and Mr. Mercer, the present Colonial Secretary elect, now absent in England.
The system amounted simply to this. Every act and intention of the local government was kept secret--most flagrant abuses prevailed, and the grossest mismau- agement existed. Dispatches to Downing Street, the contents of which were kept a pro- found secret, were relied upon for exculpation. In fact the local government held them- selves alone responsible to the Secretary of State for the Colonies, who could only judge by these secret despatches. I cannot illustrate how little reliance can be placed on these despatches better than by appending the charges which I made before the Executive Council against the late administration of this colony for deceiving by the means I have pointed out, H. M. Government. These charges although published on the minutes were refused to be entertained. I may further mention that the published report of the Council contains a large quantity of the despatches which the late administration had suppressed.
The municipal affairs of the Colony are entirely out of the control of the com- munity, and are mismanaged by the local Government under the secret underhand sys- tem I have alluded to, to an extent so incredible that it would be in vain my attempting to ask Your Grace's credence to the facts which are patent to all out here. Your Grace is aware that the municipal affairs of this colony, comprise almost the entire func- tions of the local government. Nearly all the heads of departments are upon the Le- gislative Council, and it is hardly likely that they will meet to find fault with each other, especially when the smallest display of public spirit is, as I think I shall make it appear, deemed by the Governor a symptom of insubordination.
When H. M. Government directed that non-official members should sit upon the Legislative Council of this Colony, the intention must have been to introduce a little of the popular element therein, and the same motive must clearly have dictated the ad- visibility of admitting the Press to the Legislative sittings.
Never was a liberal idea more utterly defeated. The non-official members of the Council are selected by His Excellency. The heads of the two eminent firms are selected as a prescriptive right, the third non-official member being entirely under their control. The two leading firms I allude to have such enormous wealth and influence. that they have no sympathy whatever, but the, reverse with the general community.
These non-official Councillors do not deem it becoming to appear in opposi- tion to the wishes of the Governor. They desire to uphold above all things, the integri- ty and the supremacy of Her Majesty's authority: and although they could if they wish- ed offer a serious obstacle to the will of the Governor, they feel such a course discour- teous and therefore by all meaus to be eschewed. They carry their subservience so far that upon a late occasion when one of them (for the second time within my knowledge) proposed an amendment to a clause in an Ordinance, His Excellency the Governor would not allow the amendment to be put, and the Honorable Member submitted. As no Or- dinance can be put except with the Governor's consent, Your Grace cannot fail to see that His Excellency's power supreme.
As for the admission of the press, precisely the same remarks apply. It is true that since the privilege was granted the press have never been refused admittance, but if it be desired to exclude the reporters, the time of meeting has simply to be kept secret and the object is attained. Thus when His Excellency the Governor applied to the Coun- cil for a vote for furniture, (a grant the Council had no right to make) the press was excluded in the manner described. So also when the application was made for a general increase of the salaries of the officers of the Civil service, (the Colonial Surgeon's being de- creased owing as is supposed to the tenor of his suppressed reports) was the press in like manner excluded. As the non-official members were of course privy to the secret, their subservience to the will of the Governor cannot be more forcibly illustrated than by the relation of this circumstance.
To proceed with my subject. It was upon Mr. Mercer's strong recommendation that Dr. Bridges was given acting employment in the service of the local Government. In the conduct of the abuses, which give rise to so much scandal, there really was little difference before and after Dr. Bridges' taking office. Mr. Mercer must have been as well aware of them, as I, or any other old resident was. Dr. Bridges being a lawyer in full practice, and a money lender besides, combined his public functions with his private business, and hence it came to pass that hidden matters came to the surface.
The finding of the Executive Council on the Civil Service abuses, I respectfully submit, is as condemnatory of Dr. Bridges as it is of Mr. Caldwell. As thus, it condemns Mr. Caldwell, first, for associating with a notorious pirate, and second, for having stated
falsely on oath that some inmates of a brothel escaped into the private residence of Mr. May the superintendent of Police,-for having repeated the accusation (being well aware of its untruth,) before the Caldwell commission some five months afterwards, and again repeated it in a pamphlet which he published, called his Vindication.
226
Regarding the first portion of the finding. When the papers of the pirate chief, whose intimate associate Mr. Caldwell had been, were seized, Mr. May, the superintendent of Police, officially informed Dr. Bridges, then acting Colonial Secretary, that the papers implicated Mr. Caldwell. Dr. Bridges garbled and threw discredit on this dispatch, and subsequently did his utmost to have Mr. May suspended as well as Mr. Anstey in fact he had all but succeeded, and his failing was simply the result of chance. Dr. Bridges and Mr. Caldwell had many business connexions together, and after the pirate chief was sentenced, Dr. B., who as acting Colonial Secretary, had a seat on the Executive Council, did his utmost to further Mr. Caldwell's endeavors, and but for another fortuitious cir- cumstance, would have obtained a remission of the pirate's sentence. Dr. Bridges sub- sequently ordered the papers to be burnt, and then on his oath in the witness box in the libel case of the Queen v. Tarrant, stated that when he ordered those papers to be burnt he had no knowledge of any connexion between the pirate Chief and Mr. Caldwell. So much for the first portion of the finding.
As for the second portion-It was Dr. Bridges that forced Mr. Caldwell to utter the falsehood in the first instance about the women escaping into Mr. May's house. It turned out, that Sir John Bowring the Governor, had called upon Mr. Caldwell a day or hoo after the charge was made, to prove or retract it. Mr. Caldwell retracted it, and Dr. Before the Cald- Bridges then acting Colonial Secretary, suppressed the retractation. well Commission Dr. Bridges himself repeated the falsehood.
Thus far My Lord Duke every circumstance I have named as to both portions
of the finding in relation to Dr. Bridges, was proved before the Executive Council at their sittings on the Civil Service abuses. One circumstance more remained to be proved-- namely Dr. Bridges' connection with the pamphlet called the Vindication. The finding was not published until some months after it had being arrived at. Subsequently to its pub- lication, I was prepared with evidence to show that Dr. Bridges had corrected the proofs of that pamphlet--but I was not allowed to bring forward the evidence.
Your Grace must not suppose that either Mr. Caldwell's or Dr. Bridges' culpa- bility is confined to these two delinquencies. The finding restricted the guilt of the form- er to these two points, and therefore I simply wish to show Your Grace that as far as the finding goes, Dr. Bridges is fully as culpable as Mr. Caldwell.
Having connected Dr. Bridges and Mr. Caldwell, I now proceed to show their connexion with Mr. Mercer. I should explain that the sittings of the Executive Council upon the Civil Service abuse Enquiry lasted over a period of ten months, and embraced about thirty sittings, many of which lasted the entire day. Not only had I to bring the charges and prove them, but as Mr Caldwell was allowed to be on his defence from first to last, I had almost perpetually to be combating the falsehoods and tutored evidence which he relied upon. It is impossible therefore, under such circumstances, that any man of ordinary intelligence placed in my position should not form impressions, amount- ing to convictions, as to what was the respective state of mind of each member of the Council. The Governor was repeatedly forcibly struck with the weight of evidence against the accused, as it was elicited, and more than once gave vent to his feelings in terms of indignant remonstrance. The Chief Justice at the commencement appeared difficult to convince, but as conviction stole over him his consistency to the last could hardly be mistaken. As for Mr. Mercer, his strong friendship and continual partisanship with Dr. Bridges were so notorious, that at the opening of the enquiry I strongly objected to his sitting on the Council. His ascendancy over the Governor was clearly supreme and it always appeared to me that His Excellency had been talked over, for at each meeting I had as it were to begin over again. From the first to the last I was never informed that I had proved one single point. Whenever Dr. Bridges' name appeared, Mr. Mercer came to the front-on one occasion a most damning fact against Dr. Bridges had come out which was omitted on the minutes, and Mr. Mercer opposed its insertion in the most determined manner, until I begged that my protest against the omission might be substituted. On this occasion Mr. Mercer pleaded in Dr. Bridges extenuation a conversation he had had with a special juryman who had sat in the case of the Queen v Tarrant. But for my own perseverance and the integrity of the Chief Justice I have a As it was, after my strong conviction that no finding ever would have been come to. patience had been severely taxed, the enquiry was stopped at the most important, and most easily proved charge, just at the point where the guilt of the accused had become so apparent as to make it evident, even to himself, that he could not longer remain in the public service, for he resigned.
After Dr. Bridges' guilt had been proved, until the day he left the Colony. He boasted on the eve of his he remained on friendly terms with the Governor. departure for England, (which occured ere the close of the enquiry) that His Excellency had requested him to look after the interests of this colony in Downing Street, relative to the Kowloon cession. I offered to prove this unseemly boast before the Council but I was "pooh-poohed.”
No comments yet.
Private notes are available after approval.