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29th, 1927.
THE HONG KONG DAILY PRESS, FRIDAY, APRIL 29th,
H.E. THE GOVERNOR.
"YOU WILL WIN THROUGH."
H.E. THE GOVERNOR then address- ed the meeting. He said: I am glad you invited me to be present here to-day, for it gives me an opportunity of expressing publicly my admiration of the dogged deter- mination with which the mercantile community of Hong Kong has con- tinued to do "business as usual in spite of the discouraging and even alarming situation in which, for no fault of ours, we find our- selves placed. Neither strikes, nor boycotts, nor armed pickets, nor bandits, nor pirates, nor civil war have deterred British or Chinese merchants in this Colony from main- taining their trade with Canton and the other principal centres of com- merce in China. (Loud applause.) Under the bludgeoning of fate you have suffered, you are unbowed, and, what is more, you will certain- ly win through to eventual success; for your aims are precisely those of the great mass of the Chinese people safe and normal trading conditions. (Applause.)
"Britain Has No Territorial
Ambition In China."
Now, as always, British policy in China aims wholly and solely at security, freedom and equal op- portunity for British trade through- out the territories which once form- ed the Chinese Empire, but which are now distracted and disinte- grated by Bolshevism and civil war. Great Britain, as all the world knows, has no territorial ambitions whatsoever in China. It is, there fore, most amazing that the self- styled nationalists of China should vociferously and incessantly denounce Great Britain as their
61
enemy," while clasping to their hearts as bosom-allies the Russian Bolshevists, who appear to be pur- suing in Chinese Turkestan, in Outer Mongolia and in Manchuria the old Czarist schemes of Slavonic aggrandizement in the Far East. This self-deception is one of many symptoms of the madness now afflicting the wild men of the Kuo- mintang. When sanity returns to them, they will see-as all but the purblind now see-that it is Great Britain, not the Russian Soviet, which would rejoice at the estab- lishment of a strong, stable, en- lightened, patriotic and efficient Government of a re-unified China. (Applause.) From such a Govern- ment we should have nothing to fear; for it would restore peace and security to the harassed population of the Eighteen Provinces and give back to Chinese merchants the thing they most desire, I mean safe and normal trading conditions, free from the tyranny of bolshevized Labour. (Appause.)
"We Will Have No Bolshevism
Here."
We are quite determined to have no Bolshevism in this Colony. (Ap- plause.) The Chinese as well as the European community of Hong Kong is of one mind in this matter, and I have no doubt whatever that we shall succeed. All the recent emer- gency measures taken by the Hong Kong Government aim at obviating any disturbance of the law and order and good feeling now hap- pily prevailing among us. We shail certainly not allow any imperium in imperio to be formed here by an armed and violent proletariat, as unfortunately has been the case at Canton, at Hankow and in other Chinese cities. The shelter which Hong Kong offers from the storm now raging in China is appreciated by none more than by the Chinese themselves, who of late have been taking refuge here by the thousand. They are welcome and they will be protected. (Applause.)
we
Another thing
are resolved upon is that our coastwise shipping shall not be preyed upon with im- punity by organized piracy, such as that emanating from Bias Bay. Time and time again the Cantonese authorities have been urged by the Hong Kong Government and by His ton to stamp out this pest. Majesty's Consuls-General at Can- Over and over again we have offered them for this purpose our full naval and military co-operation, if they desired it. They have, however, rejected our offer of help and they have done nothing whatever them- selves. In fact they have been scandalously forgetful of the first daty of any civilized and self- respecting Government, namely the suppression of piracy and brigand- age and the maintenance of law and order. At long last His Majesty's Government has now in- flicted salutary punishment upon the pirate dens in Bias Bay. We hope that the lesson given will suffice. We hope that the Can- tonese authorities will now them- selves take the necessary steps to police Bias Bay and to prevent its use as a pirate base. But, if they do not, we are determined to see this matter through and to protect our shipping from further outrage of this kind. (Applause.) The report of the Piracy Commission, just published, indicates very clearly what we have to do.
Comparison With Boxer Rising. An instructive comparison and contrast can be drawn between pre- sent-day happenings in China and the events of the Boxer year. In 1900 the anti-foreign extremists of northern China believed that in the bullet-proof Boxers they had found a weapon capable of driving all foreigners into the sea. But the great Chinese Viceroys at Hankow, Nanking and Canton-Chang Chih Tung, Liu Kun I and Li Hung Chang-knew better and kept peace
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