CO129-190 - Governor Hennessy - 1880 [10-12] — Page 222

220

(18)

6. SIR ARTHUR KENNEDY.

1872-1877.

To stop the glaring abuses to which the system of allowing a Chinese teacher's salary to every Civil Servant who applied for it was liable, Dr. STEWART, for the third time, urged (C.S.O. No. 2290 of 4th August 1874) the establishment of a Board of Examiners. This was approved by Sir ARTHUR KENNEDY and a Board was formed on 27th August 1874, consisting of the Honourable C. C. SMITH, Dr. STEWART, Mr. Russell, Mr. Wong Shing, and the writer of this Report. The Board at once drew up a Syllabus, which was subsequently enlarged and is still in force under the title "Hongkong Civil Service Examination Scheme." The Board established also half-yearly examinations of all the Civil Servants drawing Chinese teacher's allowances, and of those Police Constables who applied for a certificate. It was known in the Service that the Honourable C. C. SMITH had recommended (C.S.O. No. 2612 of 4th September 1874) that the final certificate of the Board of Examiners should carry with it a permanent increase of salary, and it was believed that Sir ARTHUR KENNEDY had recommended this proposal to the favourable consideration of the Secretary of State. This created at first a rush for Chinese studies, but when it became doubtful whether any pecuniary advantage would ever be derived by ordinary Civil Servants (not being Cadets) from the study of Chinese, the ardour abated considerably. Sir ARTHUR KENNEDY then arranged with the undersigned to give each Student fortnightly lessons in Chinese and appointed him Director of Chinese Studies, the duties of which office he entered upon on 17th March 1875. The Board of Examiners was eventually gazetted (see Government Gazette 1876, p. 123) and has continued its work, with slight interruption, till the present day. But the number of officers studying Chinese and their zeal have, through the absence of stimulus, considerably decreased. The principal service the Board has rendered since its establishment is the encouragement its certificates and the slight increase of pay connected with them gave to European members of the Police Force to make themselves proficient in Chinese Colloquial. Court Interpretation was in no way affected by the Board of Examiners and remained as unsatisfactory as ever. In January 1877 an Interpreter of the Police Court objected to his being occasionally sent for to interpret in the Supreme Court, which elicited some valuable remarks from the Chief Justice, Sir JOHN SMALE. After stating (C.S.O. No. 7 of 2 January 1877) that the sole authority to appoint Interpreters in the Supreme Court is by Ordinance No. 12 of 1873, Section XV, vested in the Government, and that the right to test an Interpreter's ability is not in the Court, and remarking that on a former occasion he had offered suggestions for the improvement of interpretation which had not been acted upon, Sir JOHN SMALE makes the following recommendation:- "It seems to me," Sir JOHN SMALE writes, "that no Interpreter should be appointed for any particular Court, but that his engagement should subject him to be called on in every Court and by all Departments where his speciality is required, and that, as at Singapore, there should be a corps of Interpreters with a Chief to distribute them as wanted."

7. Sir JOHN POPE HENNESSY.

(a) State of Interpretation, 1877.

Nothing had therefore been done to improve the Interpretation in the Courts since the time of Sir HERCULES ROBINSON, beyond discussing schemes which were never carried into effect.

The good which Sir HERCULES ROBINSON had actually done for interpretation in the Colony consisted in his establishing Interpreterships in different departments and filling them with intelligent Chinese gentlemen from St. Paul's College and Dr. LEGGE's Anglo-Chinese College. But, as I have shown above, the treatment these native interpreters subsequently received drove the best of them out of the Service, and the consequence was that Sir JOHN POPE HENNESSY, in 1877, found matters interpretatorial as deplorably bad in Hongkong, if not worse than they were before Sir HERCULES ROBINSON's arrival in 1859.

At a meeting of the Legislative Council, held on 12th November 1877, Sir John Pope Hennessy spoke (see Government Gazette 1877, p. 527) as follows:-

"I have received reports on the state of the interpretation in Hongkong from leading merchants, from leading members of the Bar and from the Judges, recording the fact that the interpretation of the Colony is disgracefully bad. What are we to do to remedy it? Hongkong is a wealthy and prosperous Colony; something should be done to provide a proper staff of interpreters. A distinguished predecessor of mine, Sir HERCULES ROBINSON, took steps to do that. He had the great advantage of consulting with Dr. LEGGE, an eminent Chinese scholar; and acting on the advice of Dr. LEGGE, he prepared a scheme, which was sent home to the then Secretary of State for the Colonies. That scheme was approved, was carried out, and under it a few highly able and intelligent young gentlemen came to this Colony as Interpreters. Soon after they arrived, the scheme was abandoned and not one of those gentlemen is an Interpreter in the Colony. There is not a single Interpreter trained according to that scheme, and, to use the words of the reports, 'our present system of interpretation is deplorably bad.'"

(19)

A

prosperous Colony; something should be done to provide a proper staff of interpreters.

C

I append (see Enclosure F.) some documents showing still further the state of Interpretation in the Courts and in the Colonial Secretary's Office in 1877.

(b.) Provisional Remedies. 1878.

To solve the Interpretation problem handed down unsettled through three successive administrations, Sir JOHN POPE HENNESSY did three things. In the first instance, he appointed Mr. BALL, a gentleman born and bred in Canton but educated in England, Oral Interpreter to the Supreme Court for Cantonese Colloquial, and thereby successfully supplied a stop-gap which answered the most urgent needs for improvement as regards interpretation in that Court. In the second instance, he invited the Director of Chinese Studies, the writer of this report, to enter the Government Service and attached him to the Colonial Secretary's Department as Translator, to act also as Chinese Secretary to the Governor, urging upon the Secretary of State at the same time the establishment of a separate Interpretation Department. This was done with a view to combine all the Interpreters in the Colony under one head, in one corps, going back, in fact, to the idea first started by Lieutenant Governor CAINE. In anticipation of this measure, Sir JOHN POPE HENNESSY had, in December 1877, removed the reception and translation of all Chinese petitions and letters on Government business from the Registrar General (Protector of Chinese) to the Colonial Secretary's Office, which enabled His Excellency to reduce the staff of the Registrar General's Department considerably. In the third instance, His Excellency submitted to the Earl of CARNARVON reports drawn up by the Judges and the leading members of the Bar with a view to revise the Cadet Scheme, and suggested reference to Dr. LEGGE in Oxford, the effect of which was an amendment of Sir HERCULES ROBINSON's scheme of Cadetships, copy of which I append.

Enclosure E.

(c) Revised Cadetship Scheme of 1878.

This amended Cadetship Scheme, dated Colonial Office, 8th July 1878, states its object to be "to supply Interpreters and other civil officers in Hongkong." That it may supply officers who are not to be Interpreters cannot reasonably be doubted. The question therefore is, What advantage has the new scheme over the old one as regards the supply of Interpreters? This new scheme, I regret to say, also starts by stating, as the old scheme did, that the holders of these Cadetships are required to devote themselves "for a certain time" to learning the Chinese language. The mode of selection of candidates and the subjects of the examination which they are required to pass are pretty much the same as before. The principal deviation from the old scheme consists in requiring the Cadets, after being appointed, to remain for one year in England, and to begin learning Chinese by attending a class for students of Chinese at King's College. This is a very good arrangement, though in my opinion six months under Dr. LEGGE at Oxford would have been more to the purpose.

After arrival in Hongkong, the Cadet will be required "to continue his study of the language." The limit of two years, formerly fixed upon, has therefore been very sensibly done away with. But now comes the crucial point, viz., What is to be done with the Cadet after a few years' study? I quote the important paragraph, which indeed contains the quintessence of the scheme, in full.

"7th. As soon as he is declared by a Board of Examiners to have acquired a competent knowledge of Chinese, he will be employed either as an Interpreter or in such Department as may require his services, at a salary of $1,800 per annum without other allowances, and will be considered eligible for promotion in the Civil Service of Hongkong on the occurrence of any vacancy which he may be deemed suitable to fill."