CO129-190 - Governor Hennessy - 1880 [10-12] — Page 50

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MACDONNELL went away and some years after Sir ARTHUR KENNEDY came, but without sanction. This notice adopted a distinction of nationality without the knowledge or consent of the Executive. When this notice was brought to my knowledge, what did I do? I proceeded to lay the facts before my advisers. The notice was fully considered, and the conditions on which the grant was made, and a unanimous resolution of my Executive Council was passed that unless the conditions laid down by Sir RICHARD MACDONNELL were carried out, the grant should be withdrawn. A letter was written by the Colonial Secretary informing the Committee that unless they would agree to modify the notice and abolish this distinction of nationality I would not be able to place the vote of $1,200 in the Estimates for 1880. Some correspondence took place. My honourable friend, the Chairman of the Committee, knows a division took place in the Committee. I believe it is a matter of notoriety that the two leading members of the Committee were not in entire accord with my honourable friend; and that Mr. RYRIE and Mr. SASSOON took a somewhat different view to that taken by my honourable friend, and, I think, three other members. I think it well for the whole of the community to understand exactly who are the gentlemen who have been moving in this matter and what they have done. Mr. RYRIE was the sole trustee, and when the discussion took place in the Executive Council-I now state the fact, but I believe it was well known before the Acting Attorney General said Mr. RYRIE was the only gentlenian there who had anything to do with the legal estate. He is the only gentleman responsible to the Government, and my attention was called to the fact that Sir RICHARD MACDONNELL not only laid down very proper conditions, which have been violated, but that he also gave instructions as to whom the money should be paid. Here again I find an official paper. I can assure my honourable friend it is not a private paper-it is in every sense a public paper.

Honourable W. KESWICK-Was that sent with the others?

His EXCELLENCY---It was sent some months ago to the City Hall Committee with the others. It was read at the meeting of the Committee. A communication was made as to the City Hall expenses, and Sir RICHARD MACDONNELL'S Minute was this--

year,

Mr. AUSTIN, --As this expenditure is regularly provided for in the Estimates of the current I see no objection to payment of the money to the Trustees, as requested by Mr. RENNIE.

"R. G. MACDONNELL.

11th May, 1869.”

Therefore, I was not only acting on the advice of my legal adviser as to paying the money to the trustee, but I was acting in accordance with the only precedent put before me showing any minute of the Governor with respect to the person to whom the money was to be paid. As I mentioned, two of the members of the Committee, my honourable friend here on my right (Mr. RYNIE) and Mr. Sassoox. were disposed to think it would be better to abolish this invidious notice about nationalities, but there were three other gentlemen. I understand, who supported my honourable friend (Mr. KESWICK). They attended the Public Meeting-at least some of them-and therefore I have no hesitation in mentioning their names. They are Mr. Horrus, Mr. FORBES and Mr. RUTTUNJEE. I believe at the Meeting at which the divisiou took place and the proposal to come to terms with the Government was rejected by a majority of one, my honourable friend was in the chair, Messrs. HoPPIUS, FORBES and RUTTUNJER Voting against Messrs. RYRIE and SASSOON. Now, a good deal has been said about the City Hall Committee and the action of the Government. I think I had better read, for the information of the Council, a passage from Her Majesty's instructions, which Her Majesty was graciously pleased to address to me, and which, as the Council will at once see, governs, in spirit. every transaction of this kind. In the Queen's instructions I am told, with respect to the work of this Council, that is the legislation of the Colony-

"You are not to assent in Our name to any Bill whereby persons not of European birth or "descent may be subjected or made liable to any disabilities or restrictions to which

persons European birth or descent are not also subjected or made liable."

of

The Royal

power,

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Her Majesty declares that I am rendered incapable of giving my assent to any such bill. commission and Royal instructions give the Governor of a Crown Colony a good deal of doubt, but for reasons which Her Majesty and the Queen's advisers thoroughly understand the advantages of, the Governor is precluded from giving his assent to any such bill. Now, the Royal instructions are the chief guide of the conduct of a Governor of a Colony, and in accordance with the spirit of that clause I see that Sir RICHARD MACDONNELL acted as a loyal Governor when he insisted upon that condition, and gave effect in that condition he imposed on the Committee to the clause of the instructions I have read. Is it to be said that Mr. Hopfius, and Mr. FORBES, and Mr. RUTTUNJEE are to teach the Governor of this Colony on this all important question of the relations between persons of European birth and those not of European birth? That, indeed, these gentlemen are to upset the conditions framed by Governor MACDONNELL and instruct the present Governor how he is to conduct the Government with respect to the Queen's subjects? Perhaps Mr. Hoppus may say, *What "do I care about Queen Victoria's instructions? The conduct of the Governor may be in accordance

with the Royal instructions, but I am a German." And perhaps another gentleman, Mr. FORBES, "What do I care about this? I think it well to impose invidious restrictions on the Chinese. may say, "I am not bound by the spirit of Her Majesty's instructions. They are not the instructions of the President of the United States." Well, my honourable friend was the Chairman of the City Hall Committee. He cannot say that. But it is not merely the question of the Governor acting in accord- ance with the law, with the conditions laid down by his predecessor and the spirit of the Royal instruc- tions. That is not the only question. What about a reference made to the Secretary of State? What about the suggestion of the Secretary of State, and the way in which it has been received by the City Hall Committee. I don't believe that in the history of Hongkong any body of gentlemen, whether they were subjects of the Queen or not, whether they were Germans, Americans, or British subjects, have taken the responsibility that the present committee have assumed in rejecting the suggestion of the Secretary of State. This is a question affecting the grant of public money, money of the ratepayers of this Colony. Perhaps the most illustrious man who preceded me in this Government, Sir HERCULES ROBINSON, he it is who has said:"The Chinese pay 98 per cent. of the taxes in this Colony." I am "They are 98 quoting from a despatch laid before Parliament and laid upon the table of this Council.

I know myself "per cent. of the population and they pay about the same proportion of the revenue."

And the City Hall Committee come to these that they contribute considerably over 90 per cent. ratepayers and say to them, "Give us $1,200," knowing well that $1,100 of these dollars are Chinese dollars, and the Committee say, "We will endeavour in some little way to gibbet you on our notice "board and make a distinction of nationalities," though the Governor, when the grant was made, stipu- lated there should be no such distinction. But with respect to the Secretary of State, an appeal was made. I was requested by my bonourable friend to submit the correspondence to Sir MICHAEL HICKS- BEACH. I did so---what was the result? Sir MICHAEL HICKS-BEACH wrote a despatch, and he re- ferred to the objection made by the City Hall Committee to the admission of Chinese on a par with Europeans--the objection, that is, that Messrs. HOPPIUS, FORBES, and RUTTUNJEE made-that is, to use their words, "there was some likelihood of disturbances arising between the lower class of Chinese "and the answering strata of Europeans." Well, I must say I thought that very unlikely: Sir MICHAEL HICKS-BEACH thought it very unlikely. If the Chinese go to the City Hall to look at a dried snake in the Museum, why should they be prevented, when they can go to the Gardens to look at a live snake Where is the distinction? The or go to the Library and call for a book with pictures of snakes? Library is open to them, the Public Gardens are open to them, but, forsooth, Messrs. FORBES, HOPPIUS and RUTTUNJER are to prevent the Chinese subjects of the Queen from having free access to the City Hall Museum. One would have thought when the despatch came from Sir MICHAEL HICKS-BEACH, in which he expressed grave doubt of these collisions occurring, and says he has never heard of such collisions occurring, that the Committee would have acted on his suggestion that for six months the entire free opening of the Museum should be tried, and then, if collisions occurred, some modifications It was referred with the could be considered. When that despatch came, what was done with it? trust deed, with Sir RICHARD MACDONNELL'S minutes and all the correspondence to the new Attorney General, who expressed a very clear opinion-an opinion coincident with that of all his predecessors-- that the legal estate vested in Mr. RYRIE, that the money, if any were to be paid, should be paid to Mr. RYRIE. A letter was written by the Acting Colonial Secretary to the City Hall Committee, in which he said:-"The Governor desires me to say he is authorised by the Secretary of State to suggest "the free opening of the Museum for a period of six months. In doing so I am to express the hope of "His Excellency that the Committee will see its way to the adoption of the suggestion, and so remove all cause of difference between themselves and the Trustee." The answer is: The new regulations were so fully considered, and the majority were so clearly in favour of them, that the Committee are "unable to see that any useful end could be served by trying the experiment suggested." So it comes to this, that these gentlemen, the majority of whom are not British subjects, are, forsooth, to exclude the Queen's Chinese subjects from the City Hall, for which land worth $70,000, or more, was granted by the Crown to all the inhabitants-that these gentlemen are to set aside the trusts of that deed, the conditions of Sir RICHARD MACDONNELL, the resolution that was passed by the present Governor in However powerful Council, and the suggestion of the Secretary of State. Of course, they can't do so. these gentlemen may be, they are not strong enough to do that. The spirit of the Queen's instructions will be carried out. The conditions imposed by Sir RICHARD MACDONNELL in respect of this ground will be fulfilled, and the law will be strictly enforced with respect to the payment of any money, if any money again has to be paid to the Trustee. Gentlemen, I observe it was said also, at a place where I was not present, at a meeting at the City Hall, that there was some agreement come to by the Governor with regard to these new rules, and that from that agreement the Governor had deviated. I don't know that it was said very distinctly, but whether said distinctly or not, it was a mistake.

In 1879, my attention was called to the matter, and a letter was written to the City Hall Committee. When they refused to accede to the wish of the Governor of the Colony, I received a letter. It is not marked private, and I will quote a passage from it. It is from a member of this Council, His Honour the Chief Justice. He says -"Could you not let the vote for the year he passed "conditionally that the rules meet your approval, and thus give time for arrangement?" That letter of Sir JOHN SMALE's was written to me on 27th October, 1879. To that I at once agreed, namely, that the vote, which had been struck out of the Estimates for 1880, should be put back again under the condition that the Committee proceed to revise their notice and that the rules were to meet my

Dec.