CO129-263 - Acting Governor Barker Governor Sir Robinson - 1894 [5-8] — Page 308

RS

The letters from the Honourables J. J. Keswick and

ER. Belilios were received were received

by

me

after

I had drafted

this despatch.

Enclosure 1.

To the

Honourable The

Commons of the

United Bingdom of Great Britain and Ireland in Parliament assembled.

THE HUMBLE PETITION of the Undersigned Merchants, Bankers, Professional Men, Traders, Artisans, and other Ratepayers, inhabitants of the Crown Colony of Hongkong.

RESPECTFULLY SHEWETH :--

1. The Colony of Hongkong, situate in the China seas, at the south-castern extremity of the great

Empire of China, is one of the smallest, but by in means the least valuable or important, of Her Majesty's possessions outside of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.

2. It is a little over 50 years since the Colony was founded on a barren rock, the abode of a few fishermen and pirates. To-day it is a City and Settlement with upwards of a quarter of a million inhabitants; a trade estimated at about Forty millions of pounds sterling per annum, and a revenue of some Two millions of dollars, wholly derived from internal taxation. Hongkong is a free port, through which passes upwards of Fourteen millions of tous of shipping per annum, and it ranks amongst the very first in the list of the great seaports in Her Majesty's dominions. It is the centre of enormous British interests, and is an extensive emporium of British trade in the China seas, and, while it remains 1. free port, it is destined to expand and develop, and to continue to be the centre of vast traffic and of constant communication between Europe, the Australian Coloules, the United States, and Canada on the one hand, and China, Japan, the Philippine Islands, British North Borneo, Java, Indo-China, Siam, the Straits, and India on the other.

3. Hongkong has attained to its aluost unequalled commercial position, through the enterprise, skill, and energy of British Merchants, Traders, and Shipowner; through the labours of Her Majesty's subjects who have spent their lives and employed their capital on its shores; through the expenditure of many millions of dollars in Roads, Streets, and Bridges; in buildings, public and private; in extensive Reclamations; in Docks, Piers, and Wharves; and ast, but not least, in Manufactures of great and increasing value. The prosperity of the Colony can best be maintained by the unremitting exertions and self-sacrifice of your Petitioners and the valuable 4o-operation and support of the Chinese, and only by the continuance of Hongkong as a free port.

4. Notwithstanding that the whole interests of your Petitioners are thus inextricably and perma- nently bound up in the good Administration of the Colony, in the efficiency of its Executive, and the soundness of its Finance, your Petitioners are allowed to take only a limited part or small share in the Government of the Colony, and are not permitted to have any really effective voice in the management of its affairs, external or internal. Being purely a Crown Colony, it is governed by a Governor appointed by Her Most Gracious Majesty the QUEEN, and by an Executive and a Legislative Council. The former is composed wholly of Officers of the Crown, nominated and appointed by the Crown; team the latter crinsists of seven Official Members, seievied and applied by the Queen, and five Unofficial Members, two of whom are nominated by certain public bodies in the Colony, while the other three are selected by the Governor, and all are appointed by Her Majesty,

5. The Executive Council sits and deliberates in secret. The Legislative Council sits with open doors, and its procedure appears to admit of full and unfettered discussion, but there is virtually no true freedota of debate. Questions are considered, and settled, and the policy to be adopted by the Govern- ment in connection therewith is decided in the Executive Council. They are then brought before the Legislative Council, where the Government—the Official Members being in a majority--can secure the passing of any measure, in face of any opposition on the part of the Unofficial Members, who are thus limited to objecting and protesting, and have no power to carry any proposal which they way consider beneficial, nor have they power to reject or even morlify any measure which may in their opinion be prejudicial to the interests of the Colony.

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