neutral ground
gratifying
tente cordiale, and whom have always been de-i lighted to welcome to the time of Govern. ment House.
(Applause). I see around me also the chief officers of the Civil Service and of the Garrison and Squadron; the Judges of the Supreme Court; the Members of the Exe- cutive Council and of the Colonial Legislature; the Foreign Consuls; and the foremost repro- sentatives of the mercantile community, and of every race, creed, and class in this cosmopolitan community. (Applause). During my long career of twenty-six years in which I have had the honour of serving Her Majesty as Governor in five important colonies, I need scarcely say that I have been the honoured guest of very many public demonstrations of this kind, probably some bandreds but I
can Buy most sincerely that I recolet none better ar- ranged or more admirably conducted or more hearty than the present one. (Applause). As some of those present will remember,, some years ago, on my return from Australiafas the Chief Justice has said after having presided, as the representative of the Queen. daring twenty years over three of the greatest provinces of the Empire-Queensland, New Zealand, and Victoria -I was welcomed at a grand banquet in Lon- don, at which the Duke of Edinburgh filled the chair, and which was attended by many leading statesmen of both political parties. The next morning The Times, in a leading article very complimentary to me, declared that “after such an hour of supreme honour and folicity, Sir G. Bowen should tempt Fortune no longer, but should die at once." (Laughter). However, gentlemen, you see that I preferred to live, and to become Governor of Hongkong-(lond cheers) --when it was proposed to me in very fateving-- terms-as the Chief Justice said jast now in his very
exhaustive speech--to undertake this Government, ou the eve of a very diffi enlt erisis, not only for this colony, the centre of British power, influence, and trade in the Far East, bat also for this entire. quarter of the globe, which contains one- fourth of the human race, and which must yet fill a great place in the history of the world. (Applause). So, perhaps, it may be thought by some here that after the gratifying reception which you have given me this evening, I should hesitate no longer, but should finally resolve to perform what our Japanese friends call the hara-kiri or "happy despatch." (Laughter). ! I see sitting at this table my excellent friend the Japanese Consul, who will be able to give you full instruction as to that. (Renewed laughter). But, gentlemen, no; after your great kindness to me I should indeed be ungrateful if I did not prefer to live for your sakes, to become! in England, as I have basu here, the earnest and successful champion of the honour and of the interests of this Colony-cheers--and to return hither, if nuother emergency should arise, and if Her Majesty's Government should again deom what my friend the Chairman has been pleased to term my unequalled experience in Colonial ad- ministration likely to be useful to the public service, (Applause. Otherwise, if no emergency should arise, it will be generally agreed that, after the hard and trying work of above a quarter of a century, I have earned, at my age, a period of rest before the evening of life finally closes in upon me, as it must close in, sooner or later, on us all, and brings with it the dim watches of that tran- quil night which heralds the dawaing of the eternal day. (Applause) Gentlemen, in my first speech to the Council on the day of my arrival here, I said that I hoped I and my family should lanve Hongkong when the time came, as I have! loft the other colonies over which I have pre- ailed, without the consciousness of one duty wilfully neglected, or of ons enmity wilfully pro- voked. (Hear, hear, and cheers.) The Chief Justice was kind enough to speak just now of the absence of Lady Bowen: I have bitterly re- gretted that her ulness forced her away from here with my family. My family and I have received from the society of this Colony much res- pect and courtesy; and if there is any unkindness in any single quarter we pray that it may be washed away in the first wave that bears us from
-levere
I have got no enemies;
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these shores. (Loud and continued applause.) I know that we leave behind us hosts of warm friends and well-wishers, and few, if any, enenies. I cannot indeed say with the famous! Spanish Governor, who, when he was on his deathbed, and was asked by his coufessor, "Does your Excellency forgive your enemies?" faltered out,I have already shot them all." (Laughter)."A thought has just struck me; would this Spanish Governor, if like me, he had had the good fortune to be Governor of Hong- kong have thought his few critics here worth i powder and shot? (Loud laughter and great cheer- ing). As for myself, if reciprocity be essential to enmity, I certainly can have no enemies, for, as the Irishman said "the reciprocity would be all on one side." (Renewed laughter). A former Prime Minister of England, in my younger days, the able and large-hearted Lord Melbourne, was wont to say that "the worst thing in public life is that politicians hate each other so dawnably. Now I love them all." This is also my feeling; like Lord Melbourne "I love them all." (Loud applause). I must not detain you too long for I know that there is to be a dance this evening in honour of my daughter, which is another proof of your kindness aud courtesy, which she and I fully recognise-my daughter who has done her best to fill the place of her mother in assisting to dispense the hospi- talities of Government House, (Loud applause). But I feel that on an occasion like the present I am expected to give a brief account of my stewardship, some is review of my administration. And as this may perhaps
be my last dying speech and confession," such review is sure to be candid and accurate. However, I cannot do better than, as the Chief Justice has done, refer to my Farewell Address to the Colonial Legislature, which best knows the large amount of practical work we have done together; larger, probably, than was ever done by any other Colonial Government in so short a period-some two and a half years-and to which address that body returned so gratifying a reply. I may say generally that I desire to be remem. bered here above all things as a constitutional Governor, whose heart was in the work of giving to this community an adequate voice and control in the management of its own local and munici pal affairs, so that it might no longer be dependent on the personal rule of one man. I recollect three or four years ago
a great French statesman, the late M Gambetta, said to me in Paris," You Governors of English Crown Colonies are almost the only despots left in the world, and you are not even, as Voltaire said of Russia, tempered by regicide." Laughter). Now I confess, gentlemen, that I adhere to the good old English principle that despotism is a very had thing for the despot himself as well as for the people whom he rules despotically. So in my farewell address to the Council which the Chief Justice has quoted just now and I do not think I can follow a higher example, I spoke to the following effent :---
Soon after my assumption of this Government in the early part of the year 1983, I satisfel myself, after careful study of the position of your affairs, that there were three subjects of presang importance to which I should first direct my special attention. These were:-
(a)The reconstitution of the Legislative Council. (b) The commencement of the much-needed works
of water-supply and sanitation,
(r.) The defence of the calony.
To the reconstitution of this Conneil, so as to wake
it representative of the colony generally, I attached primary importance; for when an energetic Euglish ommunity like that of Hongkong has acquired an adequate voice and control in the management of its own local and municipal affairs, all necessary and well-considered internal reforms should follow, Áo cordingly, I procured the assent of the Imperial Go- verument to a large increase in the number of the un- official members, while I gave the privilege of freely nominating their own representatives to the two principal Public Bodies, viz., the Bench of Magistrates and the Chamber of Commerce, which comprise the chief residents of every nationality. Thus the pro-
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