CO129-270 - Public Offices & Others - 1895 — Page 571

-8-

10. Your Petitioners fully recognise that in a Colony so peculiarly situated on the borders of a great Oriental Empire, and with a population largely composed of aliens whose traditional and family interests and racial sympathies largely remain in that neighbouring Empire, special legisla- tion and guardianship : are required. Nor are they less alive to the Imperial position of a Colony which is at once a frontier Fortress and a Naval Depôt, the head quarters of Her Majesty's Fleet, and the base for Naval and Military operations in these Far Eastern waters; and they are not so uupractical as to expect that unrestricted power should be given to any local Legislature, or that the Queex's Government could ever give up the paramount control of this important Dependency. All your Petitioners claim is the common right of Englishmen to manage their local affairs, and control the Expenditure of the Colony, where Imperial considerations are not involved.

11. At present your Petitioners are subject to Legis. lation issuing from the Imperial Parliament, and all local legislation must be subsidiary to it. Her Majesty the QUEEN in Council has full and complete power and authority to make laws for the Island, and local laws must be approved and assented to by the Governor in the name of the QUEEN, and are subject to disallowance by Her Majesty on the recommendation of Her Principal Secretary of State for the Colonies,

12. Your Petitioners recognise the necessity and pro- priety of the existence of these checks and safeguards against

-9-

the abuse of any power and authority exercised by any local Legislature, and cheerfully acquiesce in their conti- muance and effective exercise, but respectfully submit that, subject to these cheeks and safeguards, they ought to be allowed the free election of Representatives of British Nationality in the Legislative Council of the Colony; a majority in the Council of such elected Representatives ; perfect freedom of debate for the Official Members, with power to vote according to their conscientious convictions without being called to account or endangered in their positions by their votes; complete control in the Council over local expenditure; the management of local affairs; and a consultative voice in questions of an Imperial cha-

racter.

Your Petitioners therefore most humbly pray your Honourable House to move Her Most Gracious Majesty the QUEEN to amend by Order in Council the constitution of this Crown Colony, and to grant to your Petitioners, and to the inhabitants of Hongkong in all time to come the rights and privileges hereinbefore mentioned.

HONGKONG, May 1894.

565