CO129-267 - Governor Sir Robinson - 1895 [4-6] — Page 521

1

Ruot

BANK BUILDINGS, HONGKON

10 JUI S

27th May, 1895.

517

and as Chairman of the Perma

nent Committee

of 1894:

I have the honour to be,

My Lord Marquess, Your Lordship's Most Ordient

Humble Servant,

Main Rohingy

C

His Excellency

So,

I have the honour to acknowledge the receipt of your holograph letter of the 22nd instant, in which you inform me that, by direction of the Marquess of Ripon. you have much pleasure in forwarding to me a handsome silver inkstand with an inscription to the effect that it is presented to me by the Hongkong Government, with the approval of Her Majesty's Government, in recognition of the services rendered by me as Chairman of the Permanent Committee of the Sanitary Board during the epidemic of Bubonic Plague at Hongkong in 1894.

Your Excellency is also so good as to remind me that I have already been thanked for these services by yourself and also by the Secretary of State for the Colonies, and, again expressing your appreciation of the work done by me so will- ingly and so ably, you ask me to accept the inkstand from the Government of Hongkong as a slight recognition of any disinterested and valuable labours.

In reply to an inquiry 1 addressed to you, you have been so good as to send me a copy of the letter of the 3rd December, 1894, addressed to your Excellency by the Chairman of the Committee appointed at the Public Meeting, held at the City Hall on the 27th September last, for the purpose of giving due recognition to the services rendered the community during the plague, and to inform me that this inkstand is the sole response of the Secretary of State, so far as I am concerned, to the recommendations contained in that letter.

I find in the copy of the Committee's letter the following passage:----

7. The Committee consider that to Mr. FRANCIS their best thanks are due for all his exertions and the time he devoted to the wants of the Colony for so many weeks. As Chairman of the Permanent Committee Mr. FRANCIS had a heavy, troublesome and labourious task to performs, and throughout the duration of the epidemic he was unremitting in his devotion to his duties and gave up a great portion of his time, no doubt to - the detriment of his extensive practice, to carry on the work he had volun- tarily undertaken. Your Excellency is too well acquainted with Mr. FRANCIS services for any need of further mention. Our Committee decided that his actions are deserving of the fullest reception, that the best thanks of the community, with a gold medal should be tendered to him, and that his valuable services and useful work should be brought, through your Excellency, to the special notice of the Secretary of State,”

I have taken the liberty of italicising one or two words in this extrací.

The Committee in their letter did not enter into any detail of the work done by me knowing that your Excellency was "too well acquainted" with the parti- culars to render it hocessary for them to do more than refer to them, and they, therefore, left it to your Excellency to report to the Secretary of State on the precise nature and details of the services rendered by me to the Colony,

I did not feel at liberty to ask your Excellency to let me see your report sent home with the Committee's letter, nor to ask for a copy of it, as such documents are usually confidential, but I am bound to assume that your Excellency, in your reports to the Secretary of State, did full justice to the Sanitary Board and to the Permanent Committee, and put the Secretary of State in possession of all the materials necessary to enable him to form an opinion of the work done by all its members.

I think your Excellency will agree with me that the following are the material facts in the case :---

1. That the Sanitary Board was not a department of the Local Government, acting, like the Public Works Department, under your Excellency's orders and by your authority, but was an independent body, popular in its constitution, possessed of Statutory powers aul jurisdiction, legislative and executive, taking orders, as the Attorney General, Mr. GooDMAN, put it the other day, from no one, and invested with very extraordinary and almost dictatorial powers in the event of any epidemic appearing in the Colony.

SIR WILLIAM ROBINSON, K.C.M.G

Governor of Hongkong.

}