CO129-304 - Governor Sir Blake - 1901 [1-4] — Page 206

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The Honourable C. P. CHATER addressed the Council as follows:-

Your Excellency,-As the Senior Unofficial Member of the Council, the sad task is upon me to formally second the humble expression of our grief which your Excellency proposed. Little could we have thought but one short week ago that so dire a blow wa falling on her late Majesty's subjects, or foreseen that her nation was losing its august ne beloved Queen. It is not for us now to dwell upon her royal worth as a monarche thoughtfulness, her care, her solicitude for her people. These things the past has verified to all, and the history of the future can only prove yet more and more the innnensity of our loss. To their Majesties the King and Queen of Great Britain and Ireland and the Royal Family we tender, in the words of the resolution, our most heartfelt, loyal, and respectful sympathy, and if what we say to-day can lighten, though but for a moment, their burden of sorrow, we, Sir, may venture to hope that we shall not have spoken altogether in vain I beg to second your Excellency's resolution. The Honourable Dr. Ho Kai addressed the Council as follows:--

Sir,-

-As the representative on this Council of the British Chinese subjects and they Chinese community of this Colony, I and my colleague desire to express, on their behalf and on behalf of ourselves, our entire concurrence with the sentiments which have been expressed by your Excellency and by the Honourable the Senior Unofficial Member. In the eat death of our well-beloved and much-respected Queen, we have sustained a great and irrepar able loss. We feel that we have not only lost a just, august, and mighty Sovereign, but also a kind and affectionate Mother, whose parental care has for more than half a century cast a mantle of protection and peace over us and our island home. No part of the British Empire could feel the dreadful loss we have just sustained more than this Far Eastern Colony, and none in this isle could mourn her loss more than her loyal Chinese subjects inhabiting its shores, seeing that this Colony was born as it were in Her Majesty's reign, and brought up through the successive stages of infancy and childhood under her fostering and watchful care, and that we, Her Majesty's Chinese subjects, owe our liberty, security, wealth, and happiness, and indeed our all, to her wise and beneficent rule. Truly, to as the loss is woefully great, and our sorrow and grief are proportionately profound. I regret, Sir, that in a great national calamity and affliction of this nature, our hearts are too fuil and overwhelmed to give appropriate expression to our sorrow, or to convey to those who, on account of natural ties, are even more afflicted than we are, an adequate sense of our heart- felt sympathy and sincere condolence. We can only say that we sincerely mourn with

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those that mourn and weep with those that weep, and that our united and earnest prayer will ever be May God bless and confort Their Majesties and Members of the Royal Family in their sore distress and bereavement.'

His Excellency asked every member who sympathised with the Resolution to rise.

All

rose,

and the Resolution was carried unanimously. The Council then adjourned sine die.

Read and confirmed, this 31st day of January, 1901.

R. F. JOHNSTON,

Acting Clerk of Councris.

HENRY A. BLAKE,

Governor,

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