2. That the Permanent Committee consisted at first of three members of the Board to whom the Board, in a great emergency, delegated all its powers, and that, as the older and more experienced member of the Committee and, probably, also because of my legal knowledge and training, I was constituted by the Committee its Chairman,
3. That this Commitice was appointed when the plague was in the very midst of us and that it bad to take up its duties without a moment's time for considera- tion, without any previous knowledge or experience of plague work on the part of its members and with no one in the Colony, who had any greater knowledge or experience, to advise them. That they had to prepare bye-laws, to organise a staff of workers, to devise, on the spur of the moment, the best plans for tackling the plague and to carry out these plans with firmness and decision amid a perfect clamour of contradictory opinions and advice.
4. That, for at least the first month of the plague (to be well within the limits), and until the organisation was complete and in perfect working order and uutil there had set in a sensible daily diminution in the number of cases, your Excellency's Government, most wisely, stood aside and left the entire duty and responsibility of combatting the plague wholly to the Sanitary Board and to its Permanent Committee, on whon; it was imposed by Ordinance, referring every question of plague administration to their decision acting, in all things within their province, on their opinion and advice, and simply providing money and lend- ing to the Permanent Committee such officers and men as it requisitioned for.
5. That all officers detailed for plague dury, all Melical Officers lent by the Naval or Military Authorities, or who volunteered for the work (except two specially engaged by the Me lical Department) reported to the Permanent Com- mittee, took their instructions from it and reported solely to it as to the perform ance of their duties. That when the assistance of the troops had to be asked for. the Military Authorities were put in direct communication with the Committee with which all detailed arrangements were made,
6. That while the Colonial Surgeon was busy all day in his hospital and general medical work, and Mr. May was fully occupied in superintending, from daylight till dark, the actual work of the house-to-house visitation, the removal of the sick and dead, the general cleansing and disinfecting, the clearing of Taipingshan and the housing of its inhabitants and the thousand and one multifarious and most responsible duties of the Committee out of doors, the duty fell upon the Chairman of the Committee, (and the responsibility) of considering and deciding upon many, if not most, of the questions of administration that were continually cropping up, of giving all orders for supplies, of carrying on the entire correspondence, of inter- viewing every person who had any business with the Committee, and generally of watching over and co-ordinating the work of the entire staff. That the Committee
could only meet in consultation for about an hour or an hour and half in the even- ing of each day and that much had to be left to the judgment and discretion of the Chairman.
7. That the work of the Permanent Committee did not end with the dis- appearance of the plague, but continued, although with the valuable assistance of Surgeon-Major James, A.M.S., and of Mr. R. K. LEIGH, until every insanitary bascument in the Colony had been cleared of its inhabitants, every illegal mezzanine and cubicle removed and every house in the Chinese quarters--east and west-and in the villages had been cleaned and white-washed, and until the resumption of Taipingshan, first suggested and recommended by the Committee, had been carried out on the lines recommended by them, and the sanitary laws and bye-laws had been altered and amendel broadly as advised by the Committee in their letters of the 28th and 29th June.
8. That the Chairman of the Committee in addition to his direct work ou the Committer gave your Excellency's Government every advice and assistance in his power in all matters arising out of or connected with the special plague or general sanitary legislation, in drafting Ordinances or otherwise--an assistance tuost handsomely referred to and recognized in Council by the then Acting Attorney General. Mr. LEACH,
These are the simple facts of the case, perfectly well known to every resident in the Colony, perfectly well known to your Excellency from your interviews and correspondence with me as Chairman, perfectly well known to your Colonial Secretary who, for the first month, was present at nearly every meeting of the
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Committee. These are the facts which Mr. ACKROYD, in his letter, did not think it necessary to refer to in detail but which were left to your Excellency, as Her Majesty's Representative, to bring prominently to the notice of the Secretary of State for the Colonies, and these are the facts on which the Committee felt justified in recommending me to Her Majesty's Government for some recognition of or reward for my services of a class and character higher than anything they could give. They felt that a medal or a piece of plate, however valuable, was no sufficient acknowledgment for such services.
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I am sure your Excellency will feel with me that it is impossible for me. under such circunstances to accept the inkstand you have sent me and which I now beg most respectfully to return. Will you say to the Right Honourable the Secretary of State when forwarding to him this letter, of which I furnish you three copics for transmission, that I am perfectly satisfied with the thanks of the community conveyed to me by their Committee and with their recorded opinion as contained in their letter of the 3rd December already referred to, I am much obliged for the expression of thanks received from your Excellency and from the Secretary of State. I shall have a sufficient memorial of the plague year and of my work during it in the gold medal to be presented to me by my fellow-citizens and in the state of my fee book. I am not at all ashamed to say that I should have been highly gratified if Her Majesty had thought fit to houour mne as my friend and colleague, Mr. MAY, has been so deservedly honoured; but the gift of a silver inkstand from the Government of Hongkong is, if your Excellency will pardon the expression, so ludicrously inadequate to the services rendered, even to the more time expended by me in working on the Permanent Committee, that I can only come to one conclusion, and that is, that the Marquess of Ripon has, in some strange fashion, been left under the impression that I was simply Secretary to the Permanent Committee, and not, from force of circumstances and because of the necessary divi- sion of labour between us, its brain and motive power. This is not said in any way in derogation of the ability or skill of my colleagues, who deserved the very highest praise and commendation, but they themselves constituted me their leader, accepted my leadership, and would be the very first to admit and proclaim that in our five months' campaign against the plague, I was the General in command. It is usual in England or, at least, it always has been, to award the honours of the cam- paign to the leader, however distinguished may have been the services of his coller-
ques.
This is the first time, I think, I have made either in speech or writing any report, or anything like a report, on the work of the Perniancut Committee as à whole. As Chairman I have reported very fully on the services rendered by all those who served with us and served under us. I have been strongly urged to prepare and send in a general report, but I have shrunk from it as it “would have sectard like reporting on my own work, work done freely, voluntarily and without a thought, at the time, of anything beyond serving the Colony, in which I have lived so long, to the very best of my ability. I apologise for speaking so much of myself now, but there are times when it becomes a duty to speak out, and I think my fellow-citizens will forgive me for doing so now, in justification of their recom- mendations to Her Majesty's Government on my behalf.
I
propose to publish your Excellency's letter, the needful extract from the Public Committee's letter of the 3rd Decciuber last, and this my letter in reply.
I have the honour to be,
Sir,
Your most obedient, buble Servant,
Mo & Maucis
t
me
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