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port, like the sister Crown Colony of the Straits Settlements, stringly protected by an Imperial Garrison and British ships of war it has owed its prosperity to these advantages, as well as to the molicy of the Imperial Government, and to the fact that, being strongly guarded, it has attracted a large Chinese population who have found that under British rule their
I should be lives and their property have been safe. inclined to judge not merely that it has prospered as
a Crown Colony but that it has prospered in great measure because it has been a Crown Colony.
9.
It may however be contended that while the Crown Colony system was suited to the infancy, of colony, it is now time that a larger measure of self I therefore propose government should be conceded.
very shortly to examine the separate points as to which the petiti mers suggest that some concession
should be made.
The words
American,
10. They ask in the first place for "the free election of representatives of British nationality in the legislative Council of the Colony". are somewhat ambiguous. They may mean that the voters should be of any nationality European, Asiaticor Chinese, provided that the representatives
nationality. for whom they vote are of British 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.
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