}
THE CHINA REVIEW,
starvation may be endured for two years bur scarcely for three.
With all its drawbacks, however, the Hongkong Student-Interpreters' scheme has done much good. It has leavened the Government Service with a true knowledge and appreciation of Chinese matters and Chinese thought and feelings, instead of the helpless ignorance and quack impostare which were the rule for the previous' twenty years. There are very few departments now where there is not some one who can read a Chinese petition for himself and efficiently check the oral interpretation of the native clerk acting as interpreter. The Coroner's Court, the Magistracy, the Police Depart- ment, the Registration Office and Chinese Protectorate, even the Colonial Secretary's Offies are all well provided with a sufficient chenk on any interpretation that may be going on.
The worst of it is, nevertheless, that this slowly advancing tide of Chinese knowledge has not yet broken on the sterile ehores of the Superior Courts. "My learned brother,” as Mr. Crooks said, "gets on somehow in a muddle," and in the Supreme Court of Hongkong it is still possible to listen to a game of cross questions and crooked answers which would be amusing if it were not so painful. The reason of this is thresfuld. First, and naturally, no young gentleman has ever said,--and in view of the number of villainous patois enrrent in Hongkong none is ever likely to say, at the end of two Fears study, that he was prepared to inter- pret at large. Secondly, and also naturally as lawyers go, the judicial department clung to its present interpreter with a tenacity which would be inexplicable did we not know how toudly lawyers hold to anything which is a time-honoured ancient institution. Thirdly, and lastly, I think the Executive has never quite risen to the idea of what interpretation is. It is not necessary that a Student Interpreter should be able to make a Bakka stonecutter or a Ch'iu-chow chair- coolie understand every word he says. It
might be quite enough if he were to sit in Court and said at the end of the casc, “My Lord, the evidence has been correctly inter- preted to you." It might be a sufficiently high ideal of interpretation in the Supreme Court to have an English interpreter appear with a Chinese assistant at his elbow, as Mr., now Sir, Thomas Wade, more than once actually did appear in the Supreme Court, the Chinaman to ask the questions and the Englishman to interpret the answers. Yet, in the course of some twelve years, sincs the realisation of the Student-Interpreters' scheme, amidst incessant complaints as to the interpretation at the Supreme Court, it has never once occurred that that Court has taken the simple and dignified position of saying "This is a hard and important case, will the Government be good enough to ask one of its Student-Interpreters to attend and assess the interpretation." It is much to be regretted that the practical value of the Student-Interpreters' scheme was never put on its trial at the Supreme Court.
During Sir Arthur Kennedy's term of office aucther scheme developed itself, spe cially tending to promote Chinese studies and a knowledge of the Cantonese dialect among the Government officials of Hong- kong. In 1873 the following rule appeared in General Orders for the Police Force, "every Constable who passes in Colloquial Chinese will be entitled to receive a fourth class good conduct allowance," and this small boon, equal to an addition of pay to the amount of $2 per month, at once induced many of the English and Sikh Constables to study the Cantonese dialect. For some years previous, allowances of a Chinese teacher's salary had been granted to any Government Officer who felt inclined to take up the study of Chinese. But there was yet no Board of Examiners. With a view then to see that these teachers' allowances, made out of the public funds, should not be wasted, the then Acting Colonial Secretary, the Hou, C. C. Smith, A.M., himself the first of Sir Hercules Robinson's Student-Inter-
CHINESE STUDIES AND OFFICIAL INTERPRETATION.
preters, induced Sir Arthur Kennedy to establish a permanent "Board of Examina- tion," which forthwith devised a regular course of study, divided into two standards, A lower one for Students of Colloquial only, and a higher one for Students of both Colloquial and Classical Chinese. All those Government officers who drew teachers' allowances, as also Constables who applied for the above mentioned good conduct allowance, were theueeforth required to undergo periodical half-yearly examin- ations, each for the term of three years. And further, to avoid cramming for these examinations and to insure a steady con- tinuation of Chinese studies ou the part of such Government officers, as were placed under the Board of Examination, Sir Arthur Kennedy appointed a special Director of Chinese studies," who during the last few years continued to superintend the studies of these Government Officers, adrised them in all difficulties they had with their own native teachers, and held with them special fortnightly classes for practical exercise in Chinese pronunciation, tones, idioma and grammar. This being the aim of the Board of Examination and of the Directorate uf Chinese Studies, the whole scheme must be pronounced a great success so far. A large number of Government officers, especially also members of the Police force, took up the study of Chinese and placed themselves under these periodical examin- ations. The Board issued altogether 87 certificates under the first Standard and 33 certificates under the second (higher) Standard. This remarkable zeal on the part of so many members of the Civil Service of Hongkong was, to a great ex- tent, due to the fact that at the outset it was generally understood that Sir Arthur Kennedy had pressed upon the Colonial Ofice a scheme of attacking an increase of salary to the final certificates of the Board of Examination. In view of the system which has been adopted years ago in the Civil Service in ludia, it was but reasonable
0
to suppose that some similar scheme of rewarding Government officers for proficiency in the native dialect would be approved of by the Imperial Government. But nothing
further has been heard of it so far.
II. After this cursory review of the past history of Chinese studies in Hongkong I proceed to consider the actual state of Chinese knowledge among the members of the Civil Service, with special reference to official interpretation both documentary and oral. Apart from the six Student- Interpreters, who are now Heads of Depart- ments, there are at present many students of Chinese, who subjected themselves to the periodical examinations of the Board of Examiners. They are distributed among the different Government departments as follows:- Colonial Secretary's Department 1, Surveyor General's Department 1, Registrar General's Department 1, Supreme Court, Judge's clerk 1, Attorney General's clerk 1, Magistrate's Court 3, Police Department 3, Foreign Police Constables 23, Educational Department 4, Medical Department 1, mak- ing together with the 6 Heads of Depart- ments above mentioned, a total of 45 Govern- ment oflicers, every one of whom speaks Chinese to some extent, one half also read- ing Chinese with more or less facility, but nearly all of them are now well qualified to check the interpretation carried on by native interpreters in their respective offices. This is certainly very satisfactory, provided the system of encouraging Chinese studies among the Civil Officers and supervising their studies through a competent Board of Ex- amination is not allowed to fall into de- crepitude.
Such being the state of Chinese know- ledge in the different departments of the Execative, the condition of affairs in the Courts of Justice forms a great contrast to it. There is indeed one Police Magistrate, who! also nets as Coroner, who has gone through a course of thorough Chinese study as one of the above-mentioned Student-Interpreters, and he is perfectly able to check the interpre- i
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