CO129-402 - Governor Sir May - 1913 [7-8] — Page 287

Council in which sit two Chinese members, one of whom

at any rate never loses an opportunity of protesting against any measure which he thinks inimical to the

interests of the population. Not a single word of

protest was raised against the ordinance outside the

Council Chamber by any Chinese. Firstly because they

were unable to impugn its reasonableness, and secondly because the principle underlying it is in accordance with Chinese ideas and follows precedent established

in China. Again among the European population only

one dissentient voice was raised--not in the Colony, but in the columns of the English newspaper "Truth". against thə ləgislation The contributor to "Truth" is a newspaper editor and newcomer to the Colony, whose opinion no one in it would at the present time

consult on any local question.

The enactment was therefore endorsed by native

and European opinion. And it justified itself by a success which would not have been vouchsafed to it

if it had not appealed so strongly to the strong

commonsense of this commercial community.

7. I venture to submit that the Ordinance is

justified not only by success and by precedent here and elsewhere, but by the necessity for a weapon to use against boycott, for which I need hardly remind you the Chinese, averse to violence and adept at passive resistance, are showing themselves more and more prone. If this weapon is cast aside some other must sooner or later be forged in its stead. The present opposition on the part of Chinese in Canton to the Green Island Cement Company ( against which, it is pretinent to

remark,

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