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No females of any nation whatever, are now admitted into the Licensed Houses. Whilst the License Fees have been proportionally reduced so as to compensate for such restrictions. Even foreign travellers are not permitted to visit the Houses. The Chinese alone frequent them. Therefore, the Fees if used at all, and it would not be easy to justify a perpetual and unmeaning accumulation of them, ought apparently to be used only for purposes auxiliary to the original object of the experiment, viz.: suppression of Crime, or the special benefit of the race by whose peculiar infirmity that experiment was first necessitated and is now maintained.
The purposes, therefore, to which a portion of the Special Fund has been or will be devoted, are all in accordance with the above principles. Thus extended means of education are afforded such as new School Houses, a Lecture Room at the Central Hall, Apparatus for conducting experiments calculated to develop an interest in practical and scientific knowledge, especially of a kind applicable to manufactures. Assistance likewise in maintaining that useful corps—the Chinese watchmen—has been given and more is promised, though in proportion as it is assisted from without the Chinese subscriptions for its support decline, so that ultimately I fear the corps must be dissolved at least for a time. I might also enumerate an extended classification of Interpreters and the employment, on a different system, of abler and better paid men in that capacity, so as to meet a hardship long complained of by the native population in connection with our Courts—a large contribution ($15,000) to the erection of the Chinese Hospital under Chinese management (but with due precautions),—and a reimbursement to the Harbor Master's Department for loss of Revenue by abatement of Fees hitherto exacted from Chinese vessels only. Even the expense of special sanitary improvements in the physical condition of the Inhabitants of the Chinese Quarter of the City, which might otherwise have been indefinitely postponed, will be facilitated by contributions from the same source.
In all those particulars, however, care is taken that the Special Fund shall contribute nothing, except for items over and above the Colony's ordinary previous Expenditure, for which Expenditure H. M.'s Government is resolved that it shall raise an adequate Local Revenue. Thus under the head of Education (Page 19, Estimates 1870) you will perceive that the Expenditure has been increased, the difference only between the Expenditure in 1866, and that contemplated for 1870, viz.: $4,448, is to be taken from the Special Fund—a plan similar to that followed in the Police Estimates (Vide Estimates, Page 24).
All these contributions to useful purposes entail a large Expenditure. Nevertheless, at the end of the current year, there will be more than $140,000 still remaining to the credit of the Special Fund, which will again commence rapidly to accumulate, unless the License Fees be considerably diminished, a policy which it would be difficult to justify, as only benefitting the Licensees.
Now, it is evident that no Expenditure, so effective as that adverted to for suppression of crime and the improvement, physical and moral, of the large population in our midst, can take place without reacting beneficially on this Community generally. Therefore, it may be said that the licensing system, by increasing the power of Government to do good, directly benefits the Colony. I leave, however, to others, if any be still so inclined, to argue that such a result ought to make us abandon a policy which has effected a remarkable diminution of crime and corruption, and this, moreover, at a time when it has been raised from the level of mere experiment to that of successful Legislation. Let us hope, therefore, that different views are now entertained by former opponents of the measure. Their motives commanded general sympathy, and personally I have always regretted their inability to suggest some policy more in harmony with their own opinions.
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no females of any nation whatever, are now admitted into the Licensed Houses. whilst the License Fees have been proportionally reduced so as to compensate for such restrictions. Even foreign travellers are not permitted to visit the Houses. The Chinese alone frequent them. Therefore, the Fees if used at all, and it would not be easy to justify a perpetual and unmeaning accumulation of them, ought apparently to be used only for purposes auxiliary to the original object of the experiment, viz.: suppression of Crime, or the special benefit of the race by whose peculiar infirmity that experiment was first necessitated and is now maintained.
The purposes, therefore, to which a portion of the Special Fund has been or will be devoted, are all in accordance with the above principles. Thus extended means of education are afforded such as new School Houses, a Lecture Room at the Central Hall, Apparatus for conducting experiments calculated to develop an interest in practical and scientific knowledge, especially of a kind applicable to manufactures. Assistance likewise in maintaining that useful corps--the Chinese watchinen-has been given and more is promised, though in proportion as it is assisted from without the Chinese subscriptions for its support decline, so that ultimately I fear the corps must be dissolved at least for a time. I might also enumerate an extended classification of Interpreters and the employment, on a different system, of abler and better paid men in that capacity, so as to meet a hardship long complained of by the native population in connection with our Courts-a large contribution ($15,000) to the erection of the Chinese Hospital under Chinese management (but with due precautions),—and a reimbursement to the Harbor Master's Department for loss of Revenue by abatement of Fees hitherto exacted from Chinese vessels only. Even the expense of special sanitary improvements in the physical condition of the Inhabitants of the Chinese Quarter of the City, which might otherwise have been indefinitely postponed, will be facilitated by contributions from the same source.
In all those particulars, however, care is taken that the Special Fund shall contribute nothing, except for items over and above the Colony's ordinary previous Expenditure, for which Expenditure II. M.'s Government is resolved that it shall raise an adequate Local Revenue. Thus under the head of Education (Page 19, Estimates 1870) you will perceive that the Expenditure has been increased, the difference only between the Expenditure in 1866, and that contemplated for 1870, viz.: $4,448, is to be taken from the Special Fund a plan similar to that followed in the Police Estimates (Vide Estimates, Page 24).
as
All these contributions to useful purposes entail a large Expenditure. Nevertheless, at the end of the current year, there will be more than $140,000 still remaining to the credit of the Special Fund, which will again commence rapidly to accumulate, unless the License Fees be considerably diminished, a policy which it would be difficult to justify, as only benefitting the Licensees.
notwithstanding Zind
Now, it is evident that no Expenditure, so effective as that adverted to for suppression of crime and the improvement, physical and inoral, of the large population in our midst, can take place without reacting beneficially on this Community generally. Therefore, it may be said that the licensing system, by increasing the power of Government to do good, directly benefits the Colony. I leave, however, to others, if any be still so inclined, to argue that such a result ought to make abandon a policy which has effected a remarkable diminution of crime and corruption, and this, moreover, at a time when it has been raised from the level of mere experiment to that of successful Legislation. Let us hope, therefore, that different views are now entertained by former opponents of the measure. Ther motives Commanded general sympathy, and personally I have always regretted their inability to suggest some policy more in harmony with their own opinions and
of any that much
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11.
187
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