North China Daily News of the ot
instant on
the
subject of the Legis-
lahve Cormeil in Hong Kong.
I have the houcour to be,
My Lord Marquess,
Efour Lordships most obedient
humble servant,
Witham Robinsy
REPRESENTATION IN HONGKONG.
1x its criticism of our recent editorial comments on the reception the Public Health Bill met with in Council, our Hongkong contemporary, the Daily Presa, is not disposed to take exception to our pain contentions. But it demara to the rollary. What! Representa- tion a sham Hongkong better without it Flat burglary as ever was com Amitted." And this, too, from the Model Settlement whose representative system is at once the envy and the despair of less favoured and more governed neigh bours!
Well, we are sorry to hurt anybody's feelings, but surely the bearing of our remarks lies in the application of them. It is a false analogy which would com. pare two bodies so different both in principle and detail as the Hongkong Legislative Council and the Shanghai Municipality. Different in principle, because, to take one instance out of many, the one is legislative in its funo- tions and the other is not. Different in detail, because, while in Hongkong the executive exercises judicial powers over the natives, the same powers are in Shanghai vested in the Chinese authori- ties themselves. The Shanghai Muni- cipal Council is a local committee with powers to levy certain taxes on the com- munity and expend them for the common weal, and upon the whole their modest powers have been used with a discreet energy which has commanded general admiration. But this is a very different thing from the wider scope of a repro- sentative legislature which the Hong- kong Council was intended to be. And it is just here that, in our opinion, it has lamentably failed and must by its very nature continue to fail. For what does representation mean? On what is it to be based? On taxation. Well, taking taxation as a basis what do we find in Hongkong ? According to the last census, taken in 1891, the total population amounted to 221,441, but of this number there were, exclusive of the military and the navy, only 795 British adults. Of these adults 795 out of 221,441-many are merely birds of passage and very few have any stake in the Colony. The amount of taxation they represent cannot be large. Is it fair, then, that they should monopolise "representation"? But if they are not allowed to do so, is the Colony prepared to give the Chinese a vote and so enable them to swamp everybody and every thing? No sane man would dare to face the opening of a flood-gate which would end in a British Colony fighting for its own existence. Besides, would the Chinese like it themselves? It is as well to clear the mind of all cant on the subject. The word "representa tion" has been of late years elevated to a sort of fatich by the political enthusiasts, who imagine that in an institution which has proved more or less of a success among the ordered Bations of Europe, they have discovered * universal panacea for all the ills of government everywhere. The fact of the matter is that representative in- stitutions are not suited to the Chinese
in their present stage of development at all. And, when all is said and done, that is the problem to be faced in Hongkong, how to govern Chinese fellow-subjects, And we are much mistaken if the Chinese are not fairly well satisfied with the Crown Colony system of government, under which justice is meted out to them with an equal hand and under which their prejudices are respected and their cus toms receive due-some folk would say more than due "--consideration, Cer- tainly they have shown no desire to change it for government by the men with whom they have daily mercantile transactions, It is well known that Chinese ideas of what is proper and fitting are totally opposed to anything like commercial officialdom. Let the constitution-mongers pipe never sweetly the Chinese will not dance to any tune in their repertoire, for they have a shrewd suspicion that the men who pose na the champions of the people are really endeavouring to place author. ity in the hands of a few and to deprive the mass of the population of any voice in public affairs,
So
We regret to differ from our contem. porary, but, apart from the bétises of the present unofficial members, the Legisla tive Council is a mistake in principle, and until we see reason to the contrary we must continue to believe that the affairs of Hongkong would be better administered under a strong Governor with Downing Street behind him as a court of appeal."
302
C.O.
4790
18
P13 MP 96
REC
North China bail, hews
6 Feb. 1820
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