20.
18
-
203
The Hon. Mr. HOLYOAK-May I express to you, gentlemen, before you leave, the appre ciation of the Committee of the Chamber of Commerce in what amounts to a vote of confidence in us. (Applause) Believe ne, the work of the Committee of the Chamber and of its representative is by no means light, and it would certainly not be carried on for one single moment if the Committee or its representative did not feel behind them the unted opinion of the Chamber. (Ap plause.)
during the whole debate; I was in a posi- | made, we have nother course but to make tion peculiarly favourable both as to seeing allusion to then. With these few words I put the resolution which has been proposed and hearing, for I faced H. E. the Governor, and not only heard every word he said but by Mr. Dodwell and seconded by Mr. Ede. noted particularly the inflection of his voice,
The resolution was then put to the mort- and I can assure you that the impressioning and carried unanimously. conveyed to my mind was that the slight on I would this Chamber was intentional. specially call your attention to the following paragraph in Mr. Holyoak's speech:-Finally remind you the views I have en- deavoured, however incompetently, to set forth are unitedly shared and endorsed by the Committee of the Chamber of Commerce, which, at a recent meeting specially convened to consider the whole matter, unanimously adopted the identical motion on which I ard now addressing you. The composition of this Committee is so well known to your Excellency and this Council that I am certain its carefully considerd opinion will not fail to carry the weight it deserves with the Secretary of State for the Colonies." In this H. E. the Governor was clearly informed of the unnni:nity existing, and there is therefore less excuse for that which tran- spired. (Applause.) I understand that His Excellency the Governor has stated that a wrong construction has been put upon what he said, but I regret, very much, with all respect, that, having been present and having weighed the point most carefully, I, for one, cannot accept this explanation. (Hear, hear.) Fortunately, this matter can be judged by you all on its own merits, and I therefore leave it to you to show by your voting un- resolution that you animously for the take exception to the way in which this Chamber, through its representative, was Alighted, and its considered opinion brought to nought. (Applause.)
The Hon. Mr. HOLYOAK-1 am glad that the burden of proposing or seconding this resolution has not fallen to me as your Chairman. I say this because I was present and deeply interested in what took place. I also felt and expressed the resentment, which I can perfectly clearly see is also felt deeply by you, in the Council. There I propose to leave the matter. But it is due to His Excellency that I should tell you that he sent for me on Saturday, and in the course of an interview he again explained to me that he could not see how I or anyone else could possibly place upon his words the interpreta- And it is also tion which we have done. due to him to say that he said he never in- tended any such interpretation at all. Be that as it may, gentlemen, when utterances are made by public men, be they governors or be they politicians, they must accept responsibility for the spoken word. (Hear, her. And in the absence of any public withdrawal, as public as the statement was
In reply to Mr. Bell, the CHAIRMAN Sand that the resolutions would be forwarded to the Secretary of State for the Colonies and also to the Committee of the United Cham bers of Commerce at Home.
Mr. FORBES-The question of the exclusion of the Germans is one on which I think the majority of the members of this Chamber have made up their minds. We do not want the Germans here, we are quite capable of carrying on the trade of the port without them, and we must decline to have anything more to do with then. If there are any friends of the Kaiser in this Colony, I woull like to say that we have no use for them and we will do everything we possibly can to defeat their aims to restore German shipping and business here after the war. As the Government is against us, we should, I think, cable fully to the London Chamber of Com merce and other Chambers in the Empire to ask for their support and ask them to take the matter up to arrive at a decision. I would propose, instead of a period of 10 years, that it would be better to leave this for the Imperial Government in order that the ques- tion may be discussed fully. There are many members of the community who are not represented at this meeting and it would be well to ascertain their views. I therefore propose that we should have a public meet- ing at as early a date as possible.
Mr. LOUGHLIN seconded.
The Hon. Mr. HOLYOAK said that at an early date an endeavour would be made to hold such a meeting. He had been inundated with letters and telephone calls asking him to make that meeting public, but he had to explain that it was a private meeting of the Chamber of Commerce and that only mem hers would be allowed to vote. They would try and arrange a meeting for Thursday at the Theatre Royal, if it were possible.
This was all the business.
CROWDED PUBLIC MEETING AT THE
THEATRE ROYAL,
RESOLUTION CARRIED WITH ONLY TWO'DISSENTIENTS.
A crowded and enthusiastic public meet. The Hon. Mr. P. H. HOLYOAK was accordest ing was held at the Theatre Royal, Hong- a great ovation when he rose to address the kong, on April 26th, with the democratic meeting. He said Gentlemen, I have object of giving everybody an opportunity brought this resolution before you at of expressing his views on the question of public meeting because I was inundated excluding Germans from the Colony after with letters and telephonic messages and the war. The meeting was presided over by enquiries as to whether the general public of Mr. H. P. White, who was supported on the Hongkong could attend the meeting of the platform by the Hon. Mr. PH. Holyoak Chamber of Commerce, and I was obliged to (Chairman of the General Chamber of Cora- say "I am afraid you can neither attend, merce and representative of the Chamber on
because the building's capacity will not the Legislative Council, and the Hon. Mr. H. hold you, nor can you vote if you do attend, E. Pollock, K.C._(representative of the because you are not qualitied to do so, And Justices of the Peace on the Legislative in every case the reply was this:-"Will Council).
you arrange a public meeting so that we can have a voice! That is why I have ventured to call you together this evening, and I am confident that you will endorse the resolution which I am going to put before you. (Applause.) The resolution which I have to propose is :
The Chairman and the gentlemen support- ing him were greeted with loud and pro- longed applause when they appeared upon the stage to take their seats.
The CHAIRMAN, who was given a rousing reception, said:-Ladies and gentlemen, this meeting has been called in response to a widely-expressed wish that the commercial public of Hongkong, outside of the Chamber of Commerce, should be given an opportunity of expressing their views in regard to the exclusion of Germans from the Colony for a prescribed period after the conclusion of the war. We all realise and recognise that this question is one of Imperial policy, and, as such, it will ultimately be determined by the Imperial Government, which no doubt, will be guided in arriving at a decision by the attitude slopted by the Allied and other Powers. All we maintain is that the com- mercial community of this Colony has an undoubted right to express its opinion on the question at issue (applause) and that its views should be transmitted through the proper channels to those at Home who will represent the Colony at the Imperial Con- ference when the time for doing so has arrived. (Applause.) I now call upon the Hon. Mr. P. H. Holyok to propose a resolution, which will be open for discussion after it has been seconded, and I ask, gentle- men, that the discussion shall be allowed to proceed without andue heat, and that tolerance may be shown towards those who may express views which do not coincide with our own. (Applause.)
"That it is the opinion of this meeting that it is in the best interests of the Colony that persons of German nationality should be excluded therefrom for a pre- scribed period of years following the de- claration of peace, and that subsequently they be only admitted to the Colony under strict licence."
Now, gentlemen, you will notice a very slight difference between the terms of this resolution and that which was adopted by the Chamber of Commerce. In the Chamber resolution, as you know, we had the words "for a period of ten years," and, in speaking to that resolution in the Chamber, I said that I meant that the Chamber does not really care whether it is for ten years or for ever-(applause) or whether it may seeun wiser to the Imperial powers, to whom all these questions must be referred, that it shall be only for a period of shorter duration. But we are determined that whatevor dura- tion it shall be for they shall never come back except upon terms by which we can control them. (Applause.) Now, gentlemen, the opposition, so far as I can follow it in the discussions which have taken place, and in the various letters, anonymous and other- wise, which have passed through the papers -in a word, the bulk of the important part of the opposition to our resolution-is to be
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