CO129-340 - Governor Nathan Acting Governor May - 1907 [4-6] — Page 467

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Crown Colony system was suited to the infancy of

Colony, it is now time that a larger measure of

self government should be conceded.

I therefore propose very shortly to examine

the separate points as to which the petitioners

suggest that some concession should be made.

10. They ask in the first place for "the free

#election of representatives of British nationality

"in the Legislative Council of the Colony."

The words are somewhat ambiguous, They may

mean that the voters should be of any nationality,

European, American, Asiatic or Chinese, provided

that the representatives for whom they vote are of

British nationality. The term British nationality

again may be taken to mean either British subjects

of all nationalities or simply persons who have been

born or are the children of those who have been

born in the United Kingdom. I assume, however, that

what the words are intended to convey is that the

English, Scotch and Irish in Hongkong should elect

representatives of themselves to the Legislative

Council.

If this is the meaning, then it is obvious from

the figures which have been given above that con-

siderably more than nine tenths of the population

will be entirely excluded from the franchise, that

Europeans who are not of the category described,

and Americans will be excluded as well as Chinese,

and that among those British residents who alone

will be entitled to vote, the civil element, some

proportion

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