[
    {
        "id": 238103,
        "series_id": 27,
        "series_slug": "histsyn-co129-engine",
        "series_title": "CO129 Colonial Office Hong Kong Records 理藩院香港檔案",
        "series_use_hku_proxy": false,
        "document_key": "CO129-054 - Sir Bowring - 1856 [1-2]",
        "page_number": 282,
        "title": "CO129-054 - Sir Bowring - 1856 [1-2]",
        "content_text": "277\n\nà patrimonio, y se retiró al desierto, huyendo de regustos que atenta para la asisrocia la persecación que por entonces auttien los crisis surtos de la Real Lutera D. Patricio tion-tianos, allé una gran cuesa, cuya entrada zalezy Ulloqui y D. Francisco (:tega! crezia saa palina, fa unai le sumioíuró rentida l\n\ncon sus bujaj Aluntato com su frula, y eus } Lista de los pasageres llegados en la \n\n2 \n\nla espediuina del mar de Azof, os à la verfigacion rusa da Berlin, y pernouus de alta la llave de bóveda que cierra la grande opera cuenta en el ejército moscovita, con el objeto cionalitar ungo objeto tinat no es ciro que te que lo ilustre y is de su opinen aserca couplets ocupacion de la Crimea, y una amet la verdaders situacion de los negocios de ia feara terrible catrs la Besarabia, contra el cuiquerra, y de las probabilidades de éxito qua \n\npuede ofrecer la defensa de la Crimea y del im. \n\n12350 \n\nLebida erga de un arengo que salia dol, centro de la misma cogva. Pasiba los dias agata espaula Hagnolia. \n\nComisarin de Guera, D. las noches en la contemplacion de las cosas divinaa, y en esta soledad y pobreza se ter hijos de menor edad y sua criada: Capitan de Trugilio, con su ora apesa, una hija cuatro por ma feliz que los Principes Infanteria, D. José Marins, cos su eepra es sos palacios. Dios inspiré à S. Aquia que la fueso á visitar, y despues de hischer comido y os tres bijes Empleados de Hacienda, Don vaelt \n\nñade do los Angeles, cuyo glorioso tràosito sa- cedó el 15 de Enero dei suo de 345. \n\nSANTO DE MAÑANA. \n\nSAN REBARING T COMPAÑEROS MARTIO59, \n\nPARTE MILITAR Y DE MARINA. \n\nORDEN GENERAL DE LA PLAZA DEL 14 AL 15 \n\nEN DE 183. \n\nmes edad. \n\nKamon Ridriguez barcado los 30,000 aliados que ban desem-jteria 90 aquellas regiones, Esta cousu,ta de s tarau aun con nuevas divisiones, han tomada yati es el menos la aterpretacion que eu Alema Eupatoria, cuyas fuerzas dicese que se aume-dis peligro que amacazan \n\ny tomado posicion en las cercanías dicatativos ba side la cual evidento de los la vetta de Talasi, villa sita en la ruta quaje y en toda Europa se ha dado à evš pazo aquelia polauciu. \n\nconduce desde #aqual puerto à Simpberoput, RA IN \n\nEn tal situacion, amenszado de cerea por on \n\nhombres, bajo \n\ndado gracias, le wand qua facea por el moto 1). Risa v Yasquez, D. Joaquin res y mioutras que el grueso del ejército de operacio vereitas trinnfables en la Crimea, que de S. Atanasio pare enterrarse; y cuando vej., Querol y D. Francisco Piñol: Tepicute de Cajon, el que pranuco el asedio y ef afalto de retenden copar á los del principe GoersCILAKOFT, via S. Autonio da cumpir su entury, vi snel de Artilleria D. Jusé Pazos con za spate, el mando iuausdinto del partscal PELISSIE agar á la Península trachando y apudanda \n\nrabineros, D. Leonardo Castello: Teaiune Coro Sebastopol, fuorts de nos 80,000 bir el alioa de angairo Santo al cielo acompados hijos de mayor dad ? une criada: aleate nuc!a & movimiento u 18 direct delala garganta en Perssop; teniendo eufrenta da \n\nde Arutleria, D. Julian Tejero, coa ru espass Helback, con el visible intento de cerew \n\ndel alin y dos bijes de menor edad: artilleros, echo: par tresbar cada vez mas á ja trepas del principencen ya panin inaccesible à sas fuegos en aque alanss puertos una finis sio rival, cuyas poders- cercar y es- ticulares, D. Jo-é Parts, D. Antonio Alvarez GonsenALOFF. Los resultados de esta doblo las costas, dicasa que el Cran abriga pensa- \n\n61s navios y cuyas terribles bombardas no co Amalia Foutela del Pac, cen ma hija triple operacion combinada y concéntrica de las mientos de par, y que aspira a reanudar las \n\ntrepas invasoras y te la marina, co puedea mégociaciones en las cortes germanicas. Pero esta pas de ver funeries al Ras. El vapor americano de hélice Ihmado \n\nversion, transmitida por na carta de Berlin Con la cougencia del tricofo, que ceulau poras de dos principales periódicos de Paris, si Carolina Hegade ayer, procedenta do Hong kong seguro, y animados de ese sepirito bemaaitario bi parece a primera vista la mas razonable en el corto tirono de dos dias de navegacion, vilazilor que ha caracterizado desde et prisla has léjies, dista mucho de pedersa Dreemus continuará a viage Calcula en donde cipis de esta gorra bi proceder de les genera-cou las unidas mitares qus sin cerar está to- conciliar hamas sabido \n\nque hace mucha falta para el ser-les de Occidente, quieren estos todavia esceti \n\nGRE DE DIA. Dentro de la pisca, 13: Coranine eke ¦ Sich \n\nvicio del rio, Su gran faerza de 700 catallas ymar la tiva B. Antoniu Bannerie Pare insurer, bi do lado la cabida de 000 tonelades, le hace ano de sus contrarins, Asi se esplica i lestitad de ados los gabieros de su leporio, \n\nmandó el Czan, con los grandes armamentos que de sus soldados, y tambien la de ha decretado y que está practicaudo en casi to nisa caso . Mertua Gimeno y Orisga \n\nPABADA. Et Hogimica infanterie del Principe los buques mas útiles para el remolque dautres, gunaa operaciones y el sistema de las espada v \n\nBorstal Cotua num. 2. Sargento para el jaise de formata. Sabemos que se admitirian postural dadar Negro, para bloquear y aislar al \n\ncomo tambien para fletes \n\nconduccion de ia cless maritimas que ban ejecutada las Dalas delige GonTSCHAKDEF on a proclamas at ejéreits y hasta faufarreu uss el príu. anders di Rospital, Principu núm. 6. \n\nDe drdan de S, El Teleme Granel furgeous ma-para o la empresa quisisen sonpearlo obgarte à reeditse ruas bizo que à suicidarse, ments fanático que anima at partido de los \n\nalguna \n\nal ecomigo, yy sobre Lode, com ese expirin obstinada- yor-Jos Carvajui. \n\nAsi tambien su esplica la actitud que los vence- No podemos men \n\nmeans de llamar a atoucau de dores de Sebastopol bee lowate \n\nPep \n\npartido que mau de la Viej la ciudad, Rus, que es el partito de la guerra, la cual las personas à quienes pudiese convocir su ad-cuya parte Nurte continúa ano ocupada por los on quiere decir precisamente que es el que sa quisicion, pues ya por su cablia, com parus, o que aquatics persistau cu formalizar bstà escrpeina, sin embargo, de cuatro su fuerza mattiz, sería uno de los mejores va- un segundo sitio, que seria boy ya un lujo de veranos del antiguo rejimo, enemigos de toda pores de este Archipiélago. \n\nsangre y da mariauiled. A qué inteatar Dueves idea, aimana ó francesa, y amantes sulaments asaltas, quando los sucesos han poder enta de la giorias que procura is faeczy, tales como rameste la victoria del tado de las armas alia-los MENSCHErr, as GeschaKorr, los An das? Esla conducta prudente y habil de los ge-RASLEPP, etc.) sine el partido que manda á los nerales vencedurus 8 está ganjauda los demas que se batan, partido que per desgracia yores eligios vu toda Kurapa. Solo los all olgus pais del mundo. Subrogado ciastes, que no quieren é do puodeo compreny douinado el joven Czan por la total inancia der eta dina tactics, se muestran descontenta de este partido, parace to mas probable dizos. Per po su bare para ellow to grossa \n\nque, aup á despecho de ei mimo, se ves precizado \n\nmira. 6. Kandat, Reina nó, 2. Finta de prinESANNED \n\nSECCION NO OFICIAL \n\nNOTICIAS DEL PAIS. \n\nCAPITAL. \n\nNota de la distribucion de los cargos muni cipales de esta M. N. y S. L. Crudad, veri Giada por el Esemo. Ayustamicolo en primera Sesion ordinaria para el presente año, quedando dichs Carporacion constituida en la forma si- guiente: \n\nSEÑORES ALCALDES, \n\nD. Farsando de las Cajigas. \n\nD. Prudencio Santos, \n\nSEÑOS RENIVORES. \n\nD. Francisco Orega, Alforen Real. \n\nD. José Borch, Sindico precuador, \n\n1. José Vicente Velasco, Obraco mayor. \n\nD. Vicente Carranoja, Jeez de policia de la \n\nCiudad. \n\nD. José Maria Soler, Id. de extramures. \n\nen hos 468. \n\nNOTICIAS DE EUROPA. \n\nESPAÑA. \n\nREVISTA DE EUROPA. \n\nDies quisiéramos dar boy á nuestros lectores datus was positivos acerca del rumbo que en daat, \n\nCup of ten. \n\nTu༦ \n\nAcis \n\nEn tan crilices circonstancias para los Rosos. Ludavía a desangrar y à debilitar mas las fuer- \n\nporvepic many cercapo hahran dalomar la conerador ALUJANURO se ha traslado á Nico-zas de la Cusia, autar que someterse á ningun \n\nyi Karson, seno sabeu ya nuestros lecsuero de condiciones, lo cual seria tal vez hay raciones de la guerra de Oriente, como qua cc 1016, ano de indagar con sus propios ojos pogrote para él mismo. Tan cierto es que goa secuencia necesaria de los importantes sacerosa verdaders situacion de las cosas en el teatro mala senda, ada vez emprendida, conduce fa que acatan de tener efecto, entre les cuales das mismo de la guerra. Las impresionas que ha de talmente à la perdición. Así sucederà al roso coelia la toma de \n\nSebastopol por los afadas, y bido recibir en aquellas plazas y cula de fidesea con esta absurda é injustificablo guerra. despues de ella, la sangrienta batalia de Ears, 00 800 \n\nno son ain duda ganada por los Turcos, y el bombardeo y acu-pales telegraficos recibidos eu faris en estos y otra por el guneral GANONY, ayudacte de muy gratas; y al decir de Una visita hecha por et almirante DUNDAS cual se signió inmediatamente la destruccion de son. Las fruitcaciones auovamente construidas cia, hace presucit: que las polencias cedidonta- pacion de Kinbura por las \n\nforzas \n\nà lo dias, el joven Crat se hallaba enfermo eu Ker campo por el emperador, al rey Oscik de Sue- aliadas, a Otchskaff por na misure \n\ntusos. Todas estas an Niera fueron objeto de una vigoros re-es pretenden que al menos una buena parte de trinofos de las armas occidentales en el Oriense probeciva anmetienda à los ingepieras sus au-la luta del Baltice pueda invernar en los pner- \n\nordenando la le- guerra, \n\nea de aquella nazino, con el objeto de ballarse \n\nD, Jorge Viliorla, Juez de Resellas é Inspro-colocas à aquellos en una situacion cada vez loras à en cousejo das \n\ntor del Fiat contraste. \n\npública. \n\nD. Lorenzo Calvo, Id. dei Cementerio. \n\nmayordemia. \n\nCo Constantinopla ha aberiado estos dias on \n\nD. José L. Negrao, Inspector de la Escuelas critica y comprometida. Las comunicaciones molicion de las obras, y confiaudo su recous-en a primavara prossima en disposicion de es- la Crimea con el fitoral immediato del contruccion al famoso general TOTLEDEX, el orgatabeer el blogsco desde is época ea que em- tinente rose se hallan yu criadas por par en nizador de la defensa de Sebastopol, à quien pezare el deshielo. D. Patricio Gonzales y Oliequi, Id. de la horn, que mañana se llamara tal vez la espedirasucitar los despachos teleg aficos, como que coull-cto, gracias à la tabilidad y prudencia del el panto mas importante. La espedicion de Kintautas veces ban supuesto muerta y vuelta à D. Ignacio da Icaza, Id. de las casas coosis.quién sabe hasta donde levarán su arrojo trino-que los aliados han eanontrado en la Crimea. aistro francés. La mala ptaligencia que existe \n\nciu de Kursus, de Nicolaieff, dos Perecop...es al adversario mas inteligenta D. Francisen de Paula Cembrano. Dipulado dueños dei Orionle?... esta expediciou, decimos, tel general á los entendidos generates BENKEx en la manore de intervenir en la distribueica fel los que al cabo de un são se han besho ya. El Emperador ALEJANDRO ba llamado al cuar-Puerta, bizo que aquel empleara cierto proceder entre el ministre inglés y el gobierno de la que forma ana pendiento digos y cimétrica coulcoRFT & STACK ALBERO, agregades militares à la de fondos procedentes del empréstilo turco, gas \n\ntoriales. \n\nde fiestas y sermonero. \n\n-178- \n\ncuatro en Jogar de des, porgné me hallaba metido es monto barta los ojas; en ignal, parece que os quieren mucho à 000 \n\ny 3 stro: sen das buenos viejos, altos y respetables; na bábitos \n\npardos les sientas come si facaen de intciupeles denen nrgallo de cato come cardenales, \n\n-Eu efecto, son ellos, dijo Enrique. Respondedare, masse Baru, ¿haheis oido hablar de que han sido puestas en libertad \n\nlas damas de la reina Margarita? \n\nIlan salido de carcel, aper ancho, bujla salvaguardia \n\nde sus allezas las duques de Clarence y de Clocestar. \n\nDe Clarence y de Glocester, repitieron los dos cautivos. Si, ais caballeros. \n\nsahéis lo que dicen de ellas? \n\n-Nada, absolutamente pada. Os deja... Dientre, be olvidado mi asunto principal. Dentro de una hora, vuestro defansur, quien jamás ba salvado á nadie, vendrà à veros y media hora des- purs, a conducirán à la Camara akta pare recibires vuestras declaraciones... Adios, caballeros, up bay que desanimarsa; el viejo llora se achispo ayer y su vino of Leerà la teha. \n\nAngel Enrique nada respondieron; embotilos en las tristes reflecaiones que provenian de Westminster, no ayeron taa si- quiera e! rulo de la puerta de calabozo cuando se cerró. \n\nperseverause! \n\n170 \n\nLA SENTENCIA, \n\nLa noche acababa de cubrir á la antigua fortaleza (con su manto Icockroau, su lagabre silencio reinaba en todas las ba- bitaciones de la Torre. El eucierro en doude orique de Korven y el paga esperaban liepos da zezobra Ja garila, wa! alumbrado con la vacilante luz de la lámpara que respuesta de Mar- el burno de Kilderkin les habia erado, hubiese acorndo & apimos menos atorgicos que los ensos, los priates, las picotas \n\ny sus cadeass describias grandes sombras en las paredes y el ruido meantone de las \n\nagua que \n\nde \n\npausadamente \n\ndai embobolado zobre el chatdorado, andeuteha el bartor de aqusi sitio maldito. La débil luz de leer \n\nvarias revolverfa \n\nla lampara los servi \n\npara \n\nveces la carta del peregrino, para opatentarla, paru en an imaginacions par ludas les medios y scutidos \n\neu alvance. Aquila carta llegaba al caballero de espanto Y \n\nsin abrigar odiosas sospechas en su generoso corazon. Je hacia, \n\nuo obstante, coachir Judas y presentimientos fanestos, de los \n\nque Angel menos alarmado que su amigo, trataba de dis tranrie. \n\nEmplú al electu teda el geois de sa hermosa alwa para re- \n\n3 \n\nrantido por la laglaterra, bajo la condicion de [rox de bombas y gabiouas rotes, comhatian, caso á su freate al generalį Liprandi que ocupa les cendiendo de la garganta por donde corre el usar ésta del ¿derecha de vigilar fiscalizer son al lado de site, y en muchos casos uus alturas de Aitedur á San Teodoro. Las van- Chelau, se maltan las colluse de Teodore acu- inversion, que no pede manes de harir el amor sobre otro, y es cuerpos cubrien el suelo bosta guardias enfrente de Isa plautonteres dominan padas por el general Lipranili. La distanca en- propio y la susceptibilidad de los ministrax sto fol proto de na veris Para aumentar of borror un camino que, parande hacia la montaña, va tre las dos posisiocos es de 5 muilas, & sea anz manus. Salido es que alguous de estos y si del momento las bombas del Redan y de los á desembocar cerea de Bilbok, sobre el camino Jegua. Ilacia atras y mas al norte, el centru fard Repemfrs non aveau bien y esta pre-vapores invian sobre la parte de la obia a pot Balaeva à Batchi-Sera Makansie. \n\nPur \n\nruso esta situado sobre la alta colina jereno disposicion no podia dejar de lluir desgra-seio de los franceses y aumentaton sus pér- El ejército ruso esta por consiguients cujida de Cuangap-Kale que camonica con el valle del entre des fuegos, por el general de Allenville Balbeck por el camino de Albat. Ayi los alia. de una parte, y fur les generalna Pelissier y dos desurinen un semi-circulo que parle del monts Simpran de la otra. \n\nSapone al oeste, sigue el rio del Teheran \n\nciada pente es tan delicadas relacionar, Par for dudas. \n\nΠά \n\nder \n\nria de spaña ai reducio por medio de un recque diceo los partes tolegráficos et de Bidar, tivan su desire on Back Meekoraia \n\ntuge, M. Je THUVENIL esteba ali para evitar, Pero los rusos eran innapanas de recobrar como evité, un coudrets que no ha sabido and Malakoff. Conte los franceses recibiau à cada prevenir el gobierno inglés, y que pudo haber momento trupas do refresos y llevaban la astrie teade graves consecuencias. \n\nLa pressa alemana diote la teoría de las puente improvisade, lus cusa iban cediendo poco mavera próxima. Úpa uotisia telegrafica relativa pronto e convirió en derrota. La escena pasaba \n\ndornats estos diez dias de Octubre. \n\n4431 general \n\nSetiembre: \n\nProbabilidades da paz ú de gueria para la pri paca y principiabas apa relirala que bien focha 35 principa Guetschakofi eseciho commutatas dende estan autopades los cuan2.. \n\n1 \n\ny termiba en Karla, fuvolviendo el grupo de \n\nDet stro indo el general do Allonville é le El enemigo ha trasportado à Eupetaría como kender-Baja establecidos cerca de Aibar silnadə à proyectos du reforma so el conseja federal, hajan el camino que và dei arsenal í Malakoff, gons 20,000 hombres, de este modu bay ati cerca del \"camius real de Siaforopu! à Perscup, aido inmediatamente cbjeto de negativa absolutajna el interior de la segunda linea de defensa, concentrados cerca de 30,000 hombres da tropa, amenszau sériamente la retirada y las comuni ase parts del gebirge ausurizes, ei euat dice con la que contaban los aos para reparar sus Ri enemigo alaca lodos los dias por el Dabcoraciones ruses. El príncipe Gorischiakoff, loquisto que seria esta la casino menos oportuna para perdidas, ilsbian levantado una larga série de izquierdo de nuestras posiciones. El 2 ha tede ese movimienu, ha destacado una division pensar siquie a eu el menor cambio á reforma baterias dende al pie de Malakoff, hasta at hos-nido os encastro con nuestra infanteria, des-da su ejurello contra el gauerat de Albaville. Constitucional. \n\npital de la Marina, lan unas dirigidas contra el pues se ha retirado haera el camino que pasa Tal es en ese momento a situacion; la cust La cuestion de Napoles a baila en vias de Redan y las otras contra Malakoff. En la base cerca de Urkousti per la montaña. Ei 23, el nos parece peligrosa al enemigo, acogee no se raqufucion, habiendo pasado à aquella corte, de hente meridional del hospital se habia arenemigo ha vuelto à bajar de las montañas y se trasluce nada de los proyectul de los grmorales divese que como mediador crasejero ofimuse, mada de una bateria de 08 cañones, y la venha abierto paso. el arabidaque Aro, gobernador civil y uitanas del pisu hajo en habian convertido del marisca! Pelissier al ministro de la Guerra. las trincheras en qua tautos valientes han muerto; En Sebastopol los aliados principian & cegar Hilar de Hungria. \n\nlado dei Este en treneras desde deude las car- \n\nLa de Gracia sigun agriándose cada vez mas, renadas de los buques bacian fuego sobre M \n\nE \n\n* \n\nESTRANGERO. \n\nCRIMBA. \n\nBiados. \n\nEl 25 de Setiembre so ha dado es Kung-hacen cabines airededor de la ciudad y en la \n\nSetiembre \n\nOne que no se was duit que el rey FER lakoff. La rapidez del movimiento de los fran-bi, à cinco leguas notusta de Eupatoria, un llanura de Baidar y foxrutan baracas ea los NAAND, conserva al fracto de ins negauio aucases, cuando los ingleses emprendiereu ai pris brillants combata de caballería en qua la caba-arranales entre tax fortificaciones y la ciudad. ministerio caso fiu, corregide auceulsd, à cipio en retirada, wo permitió à estos últims teria rusa del general Kef ha sido derrotada El cuerpo de ingenieros trabaja activamente despecho de las protestas y de la actitud vera servizo da su segunda lines do defensa. Mi por la del general de Allenville. \n\nen la destruccion de los diques, que son stʊln, de las ministre de Frausa y de laglaterraonmhete conrpo a cuerpo que tuvo lugar durante \n\nHan quedado un nuestro poder esfiones, alimentados por el Tuberusia, Da Sebastopul se Batretanto, tus bundidos de la Grecia, autos la bajada no les permine matar à un encasiga 13 faguer, 1 fragua de campaña, con sus lanzau diariamente hasta el campo ruas cohetes des piratas, costiosad infestando el pais y sin baie al mismo tiempo aurig, y deteros, 460 prisioneros, ao de estos oficial, y de sueva invencion que causau all un grande ejerciendo toda especia du desafastos, \n\ndesorden. ese mado los franceses dessendieron de itakull 250 caballos de ablanoz. \n\nciudad hasta el pic de la custaša. \n\nenemigo ha dejado 50 muertos sobre el Bl Faudlido ruso del 2 de Octubre ba publi Batonces se relitaru dirigiéndose bacia la erano de bataila, y entre ellos al coronel an-cado o parte dal príncipe Gortschakuff sobre la tema de Sebastopol, y de que recibimos por sophs 7 arrollando & fos rusos por las callestras porditas son mínimas: 0 muertes correspondencia el éxtracto siguiente: del arrabal de Ka-abcluais. Durasi algun tiempo la artilleria da españa y algunos calones de \n\n27 berdas \n\nSAN PERE \n\nPETERSTEEG 3 de Octubre 20 de en Malek If so volvia contra la segunda Otro parte del principe Gorichakoff del 93 \n\nNos promelizu relaciones circonstanciadas de la \n\nA gunes minutos antes da mediodin, el bom-10, 4 favor de las tinieblas, se retirarca de las diver \n\npareerdo es ei avalido ruso eв esta relacion: bardau era terribir; was verdadera lovia de obras de Karabolasiz, del pequeño Redan y de El enemigo, despues de haber rechazado las «Ei 17-5 de Agosto, dier ef jale, enemigo fuego caia sobre los rusos de las troneras que, \n\nla bateria Negra. \n\nvanguardias cosacas de la cresia de la moutaña ba roto del lade de Karabeloaia un frago vi- A habiani mantenido firmaos hasta ese moments, Al mismo tiempo se habiau dado casi simulque separa el valle de Baidar del flanco izquierdo visime y may morifero qun ba durado veiste Diez minutos despues de mediodia, se dió la tineameals otros dos ataques cova in rusos, os camins de esa lado de la vertiente. At mis-ba consistido: el primer dia, en 4,500 embri \n\nde nuestras posiciones, trabaja en la costruction dias. Nuestra pérdida en ese periode de tiempo zeñal de \n\ndek asalto pur la esplosion de dos minas pero con resultados mucho casus satisfactorios. cerca de la costra-escarpa, y en medio del tu. El geuera! Codriagico, oysada la señal del ata-o tiempo establece alojamientas y reductos de los dias siguientes en 1,080 umbres, y desde mullo y la cuafusion cansada por ei humo, 040 de Malakoff, despues de una corla paasa la montaña. \n\nel dia 2440 de Agoslo hasta el 5 de Selium- Y los cazadores se arrojaron al avattu, babia dado la idea de alacar Redon, Las Ba desembarcada como anos 30,000 bumbre 24 de Agosto, de 500 à 000 hombres cada \n\nveiniicontre borns. avaczacdo sobre La torreos trabajado por las compañías del 5° y del 97. que devaban la bros en Eupatoria.> balas sembrado de escavaciones a cada paso, erren \n\n1830, escalas, se \n\nse lanzarou al punto \n\nSAN PETERSAFRan 8 de Octubre. *El 5 de Setiembre (23 de Agosto) al fasai- favorecidas por pero su carrera apenas se detents, y sailarou \n\ntaufe ba redoblado el boutarden hasta tai punîù El general Gortschakuff aceba da enviar 10 terrible, que nuestras fortificaciones aban \n\nLa siguiente carta nos da detalles interesan linea de defensa que enfiabau con buen exit,da Setiembre parece udicar que la izquierda tes sobre la 10a de Majah ( por 400 zuavesera bien pronte sobrevino a nuche, y lus de sus tropas està ténamente amenazada, presjornada dei 8 4 Stinmbre, y usla mañana s \n\ny 450 enzadores de Vinseuses. \n\ndel foso ohra el costado de la sbra sia serabɛtaculo sonsil et terrapien que no era un \n\n7 plantaron sus escalas con- parts on fecha 6 de Octubre por la tarde, que conmovidae en leda la linea. Ese furgo infernal, \n\n108 \n\nó muertos, y dejaron á los franceses doeños abla dificu tad de salir de la paraleja por una faliados, que se mueven on varias directes desmontar el enemigo se esforzala \n\nmarlones, probaba \n\nBucs- \n\ntros \n\nBA des- \n\n亨 \n\nel ný. \n\nLas troneras y las platali Das estaban elava-centrado del enemigo, cuyas reservas de was! parle del príncipe Gortschakoff de fecha 7. Ei10) Sasta 8 de Setiembre (27 de gest) \n\non \n\nhemos tenido fuera de combate: oficiales supe \n\nمان \n\nvirae de cacalas. Los rusca completaments co-tra el ángulo sairents de la obra. Les colum est concebida eu estos términos: jidos de sorpresa, fueron arrojados del reductos de ataque, nos activas ó embarazadas por Reina sua grande actividad en los bugans dirigido especialmente contra las traperas solates se la obra. La corta distancia de 25 estrecha abertura, nu legraron alcanzar la esténero de las lanchas cañoneras dei suamige \n\nbuestros cañones y destrair yardas que separs et foso de Malakoff de carpa da Redan sino cuando los hombres pro- se ha aumentado, \n\npara venir à parapetos \n\nLomat la ciudad. paralela, no hau contribuido paso at four éxito vistos de escalas habran subida ya alaalt. \n\n*No era ya posible reparar nuestros parape- «K! efectiva de los campos aliados entre el del assito. \n\nDifica es formarse de esta obra una pintura \n\nSigaleronless 2-3 tantos sabiando por cada Tchernaia y Balaclava parere menos considera, hubo que imitars à cobrir de tierra os \n\nvorigen y del angulo saliente, y se metieron en eible que les dias precedentes. \n\nblindagos. Los parapetos que pueda dar una idea aproximada de sus Redan onstaron a los rusos que defaudian ja El encargo ha descondido al vallo de Daidar, mero de artilleros que calan era lau grande qua \n\noronaban y cagabão las barrancaz. proporciones y su aspecto para quizás hasta primera travesia, pero eu sa premara por ade- despues se ha retirade. rio sigunas palabras para hacer compreader solantare de a otros, los hombres que llegabau \n\nBERLIN, Inc 8, \n\nspenas se podian instalar otros en so lugar. importancia. El fuso tenia cerca de quince pide por la derecha, apresurandose por respire à \n\n¡Nuestra pérdida en ess putiođa de sitio ha sido \"Acabamos da recibir policias de San Pe-extraordinaris: dende el de Setiembre (21 de do profundidad y la escarpa veinte de altura los de is inquierda, cayeron bajo el fuego con- tersburgo de buy. habia recibido allí un das sobre o nivel de la obra, que eslaba dide des mit hombres degabau rápidamente. vidida en muchas partes por travesen de forma \n\nprincipe anunciaba que nueve savion, veintiochoriore Sigailee combate desasperado cuerpu vapores y otros heques habian dejado el 7 pur 3,917, sia contar los artilleres que perecieran. \n\nriores, butales subalterav, 47: y solfade irregular, en que su habian dejado pequena cuerpo. Los rusos iuchabae per conservar ta aberturas para \n\npaso de los hombres. Beus posicion con la temeridad de los osos y se ha fuoroeste. \n\nmañana \n\na Kamiasca, dirigidodose hacia ell Cargo no uso desde la noche del 7 al 8 traveses erau ordinariamente obras de piedra cian armas de todo: piedras, armas despedars- \n\netembre: & in och de in uses el con- do cayas galerías estaban soportadas por dobles das, y toda especia de proyectiles erau lan-boos. Por otra parte, se guarda tan bien ef late da bastion Korloff, tres els car- lahi basta este momento todo lo que sigo lanzó de sus proches mas cercanos, de bileras de gigsaludas vigas de pino de la ados por masas desde lo alle sore nuestros secreto, qua cadie puede decir lo que se hará. \n\ngustia encantó el Notege. 1 la capa da lazra que formaba el hombres cuyas maciciones principieban & faliar. Los generales has tourde zodus ins dias dosde el aspeto y los meronsa del d techo las hacia a prueba de bomba. Los tra-Los ingleses, a su vez, agaria on piedras y 18 at 23 da Setiembre consejos de guerra que unsalo tiempo las columnas del nuemigo, eu la dogulo satioule. At veses en geceral eran de 42 13 pies de al las lanzaron a los sitiadue que, alentados por has excitado vivamento la curiosidad, pero direccion de la bateria inglesa de 22 cañones, tara, como era muy irregulares, era muy la llegada de refuerzas y la disminucion de tus en vano. dified \n\nspoderarse de eltes coupletamente. En assoles, acabaron por empeñar con ellos una el baterior, \n\nRadan estaba dispuesto del mismo facha de hombre a hombre. Ealances hubo os mode, \n\nbernador de Karabainais; el general Bacains sigunda paralela, bien pronto eras tropas Ile- esa particularidad de construccion esfuerzas desesperados: rusos é ingleses se agar-gon de gobernador de Sebastopol. pica como se babia podido creer que les rasos raron cuerpo a cuerpo, y si combate terminaha permanecian ociosos durante el ú tima hombar-machas veces por la mortal agonis de los dos ponia, El número de cañones hallados asciende asalto. y de la los da Malakoff, y luego abade: Ki bulia es mas considerable da lo que so su– Aqui al parto bace na inaeusa dos ripcion del deo; los soldados estaban ocultos en sus casas adversarios. Es al fin iba siçado demasiado tera à 6,000, y pareus qua ana no se han des matas mientras babia durado el fuegs. No pa-fuerzus los asaltantes se salirasea. Los salones echados à pique con los toques, lus Lysenko han salids ueridos, las das duffe rible. Bra preciso que vuestros gosareles envia-cubierta todos. Si à este número se añades fos may cara. Los generales Carull, Marino rece que la guardia de esas obras haya sido relevada mas de una \n\npor was, porque | refuerzos no llegaron, cada parte de esa cuartel Lavabo ta prueba de ouestros bombres tavuren que buir en desorden has unilade, en vera que esa inuenta fortaleza roff, las corances Mesenzaff, Arschoninfliki, \n\ny los que quedaban de du los fuertes del Norte, y les que aun no gravemente. Los gouere Vou Bonssau, una coupacion permisucuts. La calda del code los parapelos y de las frontes de qus an estaba defendida por mas de 8,000 cañones, Naidardi, toradante estaba lleua de siliucas, praturas y \n\nsa tabia apoderato. Es ere aecos que casi paraen incrible. bizaramente \n\nde clase Kotzebue objetos de \n\nel essaoul Scherbatschef! bas muerto. El general lujo, mientras las carpinteros y afmento habia en las habiles tepian verdaderos talleres. La seguridad muchos regidien paralelas 5 y PARTS #2 de Octubre-Con esta fecha reci Zuroff, los corouelas Nuschek, of gofe de la \n\nque no estuvieron bastante bines los parios y las usticias que sigue da tos soldados en las fortalezas debe haber prontos y uo llegarou tiempo para sa ver los \n\ndrustria de Opolichosin núm. 49 da Kourah, aumentada as probabilidades de sorpresa, yastos de las columnas de alaque. Asi fué como tantinopla al mismo tiempo, sabemos que una dinikiff Freigang, el edecas del omperador Wais- Por Viena, por San Petersborgo y por Cousal const Techorem.sstil, fos cocoonles Alen- una prueba ը: մը raplez de la ocu of Redan fue tomado y perdido. \n\nvision de la fala aliada compuesta de 9 cavics ikoff, ai napitan de estade mayor Meyendorff \n\ndestruccion \n\nen ou corto tiempo. \n\nда \n\n5. \n\ny da la trocera detras de la media luua Katts- \n\nEl general Wendam ha sido nombrado go-faturke, priccipiaban à concentraree e la go- \n\nnaros lae riccheras was próximas \n\nLa defensa de Sebagronat ons ha costado Martica y \n\nde defons y tambien la \n\ndo lines, 28 vapores y 0 auchas caâoneras con han sida beridos, y las dos últimos hau su- PARIS 10 de Octubre. A consecuencia de las tres baterias, ban anclado en la mañans det 8 cumbido Sin embargo, les 2010s no hau querido dejar medidan tomadas por los generales alados esda Outubro deiante de Odessa, y su esperaba hallan of guaral Nasoff y si carous! Swiewieff. A sus berida. Eutre los contuses sa à su enemigo gozar tranquilamente de su pore-fanos casi sin noticias de las operaciones de a boubardeo. \n\nno bien fueron arrojados cuando atacaron los ejércitos ea Crimea. Sin embargo, sabemos \n\nπίου; \n\ncion, \n\nà las franceses cun ta energia \n\nda \n\nKL \n\nLa pérdida general de a \n\naguarbicion { ફ તક \n\ndiersies inferiores y 2,625 solda. \n\n1,759 soldados. \n\n* \n\nl ejército francés ha ocupado, delante de Bai-Stembro corista en muertos; ofientes su la desespera que ejecutao algunas importantes qas aos pro-dar, importantes pasiniones. Los rusos y dos alia- y los 208vos y los caxaduras se hallaron metes day proxidamente acontecimientos de dos encargada de la ocupacion de Sebastopol dari haridus: 25 oficialis superiores, 206 olicia- \n\npen defensores de Malakoff en lugar de sur asaltan trascendencia. Ast, par una parte la guarnicion redoblan sa fuego y aumentau has fortificacio-les inferiores y 5,826 soldados; contuses: 9 les. Hau combatido con toda la energía del ory el campo da Eapato-ia has recibida uga di- es defamnas utiles de corto y sud de la babi. aftciales superiores, 38 calea inferiores y gullo y del tranfo, durante ug Licospu can vision francesa, un siderable han sostenido una lucha \n\nregimiento inglés uca bate \n\nI \n\nEl contingent anglo-otoman se ha embarcado 1,438 saldades; desaparecidus: 24 oficiales tra fuerzas muy superint. ca desigual co-cia de artilleria bajo las úrdenes del general et 1. du Octubre para Kerteh. \n\nrusos abando Allonvide. Un parts del principe Gurtechakoff Elzar la pasado los dias 25, 26 y 27 de naban sus fusilos para batires con piedras, coura-cula estos refuerzos ea 30,000 hombres, aú- Setembro cu Nicolaieff, de donde ba bido à induu dada por el principe Gortachakelf de eva- Esta parto termica con la mencion de la ór- maderos, con coauto podian baber \n\n200, meru sin duda exagarado; pero de todos modos peccionar las furtificaciones entre el Baung fouar Sebastopol y pasar al lado morte por est y los franceser, escasos de mauisianes, responel genera: de Altanville manda un ejército que Yargout. dian con las mismas armas y de vos on enando parece destinado à marchas subes Siformpal variaban la resistencia con cargas à la bayoneta, a cartar la retirada al sueigo, y como se verá Sin embargo cedian ante los rusos que se avan \n\nsa adelante, ha zaban, desanimados por la soucia de la caida tri á la caballería es una distancia de mue \n\nla hatila dei Hedan y de las obras Negras, pero en esto chat leguas de la ciudad momento critico, marcbaren los sostenes de la Por otra parte, o ejerita principal parece ejércitos aliados y rase as como sigue: \n\nde Expatoria. Ba cuanto la situacion de los sin contar la artilleria, que parecia en largrande division yeutra on tes. La guardia imparral, granatercs zuavos, las órdenss del mustiseal Pelissier comprendera dar por el camino de Baga à Kaivlax y han y el 9 han podido efectuar eu retirada al úmero que apenas habia tiempo de recuplazar por todas par-haberse divididojen dos cuerpos, al primero bajo! Los abades ban tragado las cantañas de Bat-á les art lleros que clan. Y si es cierto que el 60 extendió por Ma'akoff y prinsipi on lu- 80.000 hombres y recorrerà la Canura de Baidar; ahiertn us camino sobre Adin Chekak y Karla, norte mas de 50,000 hombres, a deduce qua cha desesperada. Hloubce contra hombre, el segundo de usos 50,009 bsubres su esma-Aldeas à la bajada de haber. Adia-Chikala guarnicion de Sebastopol sa comperia de aa medio del laberinto del roducto, de los aguje- louaría desde el Tchernaya harta Baidar, teniendo ocupa un punto sobre la ciara de Chalten. Des saula mit hombres la vispera de romper el fuego. \n\nไม่ \n\nla obra \n\nya en un primer edouan- \n\ny del campo. \n\nVIENA 10 de Octubre. \n\nLa futa aliada amenaza & Ozchakoff. \n\npunate constraido por el general Bushmayer y con la ayuda de los \n\nlos vapores. De manera que por confesion del mismo pric sus partes del combate de caballeria corsa combate en 5 dias cerca de 29,000 bombros El princips Grortsetakoil an dien uus palabra cipe Gartuchakaft los rusos han tenido fuera de",
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        "id": 242558,
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        "series_title": "CO129 Colonial Office Hong Kong Records 理藩院香港檔案",
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        "document_key": "CO129-064 - Sir Bowring - 1857 [8-10]",
        "page_number": 444,
        "title": "CO129-064 - Sir Bowring - 1857 [8-10]",
        "content_text": "## Correspondence regarding the Office of Colonial Surgeon\n\nWith reforms to the \nConstitutional status \n\nSubject of the abolition of the Office of Colonial \nSurgeon, Sir Hony Harry, Jam dentist by des\nignation to \n\nI have the honour to submit to \nyou for the consideration of the \nGovernor in Council, for transmission to \nthe Secretary of State for the Colonies, \ndespatch from the Governor of the Colony \nregarding the restoration of the Offic...\n\n442 \n\nIt appears that the original text was severely garbled by OCR errors. Here's a reconstructed version with corrected text flow and formatting.\n\n\nR. Entered \n\nH. Ch. Seevelyann \nAPAUTE 21 \nR.C. Fortescue \nSuldbrusher 23 \n1029 \n21bet J8752 \n187 her \n-166 \n11475 G. H. Hory. \n594 \n29th Dany 55 \n\n... \n1618154 \n3 \n\n1 \nSuberechere to \nhaumet to \nt to you for \nthe consideration of the \nGovernor in Council, for transmission to \nthe Secretary of State for the Colonies, \ndespatch from the Governor of the Colony \nregarding the restoration of the Offic... \n442",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/2diw2n4r2/CO129-064 - Sir Bowring - 1857 [8-10].txt",
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    {
        "id": 255586,
        "series_id": 27,
        "series_slug": "histsyn-co129-engine",
        "series_title": "CO129 Colonial Office Hong Kong Records 理藩院香港檔案",
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        "document_key": "CO129-090 - Public Offices & Others - 1862",
        "page_number": 298,
        "title": "CO129-090 - Public Offices & Others - 1862",
        "content_text": "# Address of the House of Assembly\n\nTo **His Excellency HERCULES GEORGE ROBERT ROBINSON**, Esquire, Lieutenant Governor of the Islands of Antigua, Saint Christopher, and Anguilla, Administering the Government of the Islands of Saint Christopher and Anguilla, Chancellor, Vice Admiral, and Ordinary of the same, &c.&c.&c.\n\nMay it please Your Excellency,\n\nWe, the Members of the House of Assembly, beg to thank Your Excellency for the intimation which you have been pleased to make to us of the temporary changes which are about to take place in the Government of these islands; and we avail ourselves of the opportunity to express our acknowledgments of the unvarying courtesy which has characterized Your Excellency's intercourse with us.\n\nWe are happy to know that the changes to which we have referred, although they involve Your Excellency's removal, will not sever the bonds of your official relations to us, but will enable you to give greater effect to the enlightened views which you entertain.\n\nThe manifest improvement which has taken place in the public affairs of the Colony during the last four years affords ample proof of the zeal and ability with which those affairs have been conducted, and testifies most effectually to the good understanding which has existed between Your Excellency and the other branches of the Legislature. During that period, many important measures have been accomplished; and in taking leave of Your Excellency for a season, we revert with grateful satisfaction to the following instances, evidencing as they do, the success of your Administration:\n\n| Measure | Description |\n| --- | --- |\n| Finances | The finances of the Colony, which were embarrassed at the commencement of 1855 due to heavy expenses incurred during the existence of Cholera, have been restored to a sound and satisfactory condition; a surplus exists, bearing interest; a revenue sufficient to meet our ordinary requirements has been provided for the next six years, and means adopted to secure an economical and efficient administration of this department of the public service. |\n| Public Works | Many public works have been executed, such as the supply of water from the mountains to the Town of Basseterre; and in connection therewith, the adornment of the Square with a handsome Fountain and Garden; the Pier; the Treasury Buildings, and Light House; and the new Church of Saint George's. |\n| Public Health | The laws relating to the Public Health have been revised, and the Sanitary Regulations of the island placed under responsible supervision; an extra-urban Cemetery in the parish of Saint George's has been provided; and a Registry of Births and Deaths throughout the island established. |\n| Military and Police | A Volunteer Protective Force and a Militia have been enrolled; and a law making provision for a larger and better organized Police Force, to come into operation in July next, has been enacted. |\n| Legal Reforms | The Criminal Code has been amended in accordance with the improved state of the law in England; the Statutes of the island have been revised, compiled, and printed in a compendious form; and finally, a law has been enacted which has established a system of Government more in accordance with the constitutional principles and forms of the Mother Country than that which previously existed. |\n\nTo Your Excellency's judicious guidance and oversight, we are largely indebted for these important measures, many of which cannot fail to exercise a lasting influence on the social and political condition of the Colony.\n\nWe beg to assure Your Excellency of our best wishes for your future welfare, and trust that in the extended sphere which you are about to enter, you may enjoy in no less degree than here, the respect and esteem of the communities committed to your Government.\n\n**C. MCMAHON**, Deputy Speaker.\n\nAssembly Rooms, March 30th, 1859\n\n## The Lieutenant Governor's Reply\n\n**Mr. Speaker and Gentlemen of the House of Assembly**,\n\nI thank you most sincerely for your kind Address, expressing approbation of my public conduct, and assuring me of your best wishes for my future welfare.\n\nIt was, as you remark, my fortune to come amongst you at a time of financial embarrassment, caused by the ravages of cholera. The period of depression was, however, mercifully followed by several successive years in which, owing to good crops and an increasing commerce, the material prosperity of the Island was considerably in advance of its ordinary position. The opportunities thereby afforded were effectually improved by the loyalty, liberality, and public spirit by which you were animated, of which the measures alluded to by you are substantial proofs; and more especially by the good understanding which existed between the different branches of the Legislature—a feeling which it has been the object of my unvarying solicitude to maintain, and without which all other elements of good government are rendered comparatively nugatory.\n\nAlthough for a season removed from personal intercourse with you, I shall continue to watch over your progress with unabated anxiety, fervently praying that your deliberations may be guided from above, and thus you may be enabled to promote the end and object of all government and all legislation—the true welfare and happiness of the people.\n\nPRINTED AT THE \"ADVERTISER\" OFFICE, MARCH 31st, 1859.\n\nPage 296",
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    {
        "id": 319751,
        "series_id": 27,
        "series_slug": "histsyn-co129-engine",
        "series_title": "CO129 Colonial Office Hong Kong Records 理藩院香港檔案",
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        "document_key": "CO129-205 - Public Offices - 1882",
        "page_number": 306,
        "title": "CO129-205 - Public Offices - 1882",
        "content_text": "156 \n157 \n302 \n\ndecidedly for the joint collection, but names a higher rate of li-kin than I am disposed to recommend. As I have argued in my first note to His Highness, I consider a li-kin of 60 taels remarkably liberal, but would recommend, as a maximum, 70 taels, providing that the satisfaction of Treaty provisions affecting foreign trade inland were assured.\n\nThe Yamên's last-named estimate is 80 taels, but I received a verbal assurance that 70 taels would be agreed to.\n\nWhile the debate on these rates still continued, in March last, Mr. Samuel reappeared with a scheme differing from that propounded by him last year, but regarding the details of which he has shown himself as reticent as last year he was outspoken. Disclaiming all official character, he has presented himself as a commercialist, pure and simple. His extreme reserve, even towards the Chinese, who, in answer to my questions, assured me that they did not understand what he contemplated, has lost him time, but his scheme has been at last brought to the notice of the Chinese Government by Chinese intermediaries, and I have every reason to believe that it has the support of Sir Robert Hart, the Inspector-General of Customs. It is certain that it is at this moment being attentively, indeed favourably, considered by the Chinese Government. From what I have learned of it, I think it calculated to secure the revenue to both Governments alike. But it would be premature to say more.\n\nI have omitted to mention that during my absence at Shanghae, in November, another scheme of monopoly, of which Hong-Kong was to be the centre, was laid before the Grand Secretary Li by Mr. John Pitman, formerly, I believe, an officer of the Royal Navy, but of late years engaged in trade and otherwise in China and Japan. Whether the Grand Secretary received Mr. Pitman or not I am unable to say. He went on, I understand, to Peking, and with the aid of a native banker, succeeded in submitting his scheme to the Tsung-li Yamên, but he was not received by the Ministers of the Yamên, and no more has been heard of his project. Of its details I know nothing.\n\nThe foregoing, I hope, will suffice as a historical résumé of the last five years' negotiations concerning opium taxation.\n\nI have, &c.\n\n(Signed) THOMAS FRANCIS WADE.\n\nP.S.-It will be observed that in the sketch just completed no reference is made to the Prince of Kung's proposal to put the Chefoo Agreement's arrangement on trial at Shanghae for a term of years. In my note to the Prince (Inclosure No. 2 in this despatch) I have recorded my reasons for not supporting this proposal. I could obtain no satisfactory assurance as to the degree of exemption from farther taxation the first payment would secure imported opium. But, in truth, the practical result of the experiment would have been the transfer of the Shanghae opium trade to any other port at which surveillance was less strict. Thence it would have been smuggled into Shanghae.\n\nT. F. W.\n\n## Inclosure 1 in No. 76\n\n### Memorial from Grand Secretary Tso Tsung-tang, advocating the increase of Duty and Li-kin upon foreign and native Opium, as a means towards checking consumption.\n\n(Translation.)\n\n**MEMORIALIST** would humbly premise that opium is produced in India, and is imported thence by British merchants; the poison thus disseminated through China being known as `yang yao`, or the foreign drug. The evil effects are first felt in centres of trade and in public offices. The idle and dissipated youth amongst the well-to-do of the middle class who congregate together for purposes of amusement, make use of it to while away the time.\n\nThe taste thus acquired gradually developes into a craving, and when the craving becomes intense, health and spirits suffer, ruin follows, and death finishes the picture.\n\nThe labouring classes in the interior of China abandon the cultivation of the different kinds of grain on the rich land eminently fitted for the growth of cereals, and plant the poppy instead. They make incisions in the poppy heads and extract the juice, which they call `t'u yao`, or native drug. The evil effects of this form of the drug first attack the market-towns, hamlets, and villages. The labouring poor and the idle and vagrant have in time come to consider it as a daily necessary of life, and ignore the nature of the prohibition against it. Hence the number of consumers is very great, the mischief becomes more and more confirmed, and reform becomes an almost hopeless task; consumption of foreign opium by Chinese has increased, and the sale of foreign opium has extended in a corresponding degree. Formerly the annual import used to be something over 30,000 chests, but it gradually increased till it exceeded 50,000 chests per annum, and the memorialist has recently heard that it has now mounted to over 70,000 chests. The price of foreign opium used to be over 700 taels a chest of 100 catties, but has now, so he understands, dropped to some 500 taels or so, showing that the area of consumption has been extended by the diminution of price, a fact which also exemplifies the astuteness of the foreigner.\n\nUnder the present condition of things, therefore, were severe prohibitions devised, they would, if enforced with laxity, be easily violated, and, if enforced with severity, they would be found not to work; while more harm than good would be done if incompetent agents were employed to carry them out.\n\nAll\n\nWhen memorialist was made Governor-General of Shensi and Kansuh, he made the prohibition of poppy cultivation his first business, directing his subordinates to pluck up the plant wherever they met with it, that the evil might be cleansed at its source. Foreign opium imported into his jurisdiction was labelled and deposited in storehouses, the importers being compelled to take it away again, and forbidden to sell it in either province. All opium sold in defiance of this prohibition was publicly burned in an open thoroughfare. This system, though it met with partial success in a given area, would not work if applied universally, because opium could not then be sent back by the way it came, neither could it, if no sale were found in one market, seek another.\n\nA careful consideration of the whole question convinces the memorialist that increase of duty and li-kin upon opium, native and foreign, is the only possible solution of the problem. Increase of duty and li-kin will certainly raise the price of foreign and native opium. When prices are high, those whose craving is not intense will give up the habit, and those whose craving is intense will reduce their consumption; and it may reasonably be expected that diminution of consumption will lead eventually to abandonment of the vice. If the issue of merely nominal prohibitions be the only course pursued, this will only lead to exactions on the part of soldiers and official underlings, with fraud and concealment on the part of the authorities. A mass of correspondence will be the result, and endless litigation will be caused, with the probability that confusion will be created in urban districts from the improper execution of constitutional enactments. Thus, the evil effects arising from the improper enforcement of prohibitions against opium will be felt before any good results manifest themselves. Constitutional reforms have ever been dependent upon laws, with penalties for neglect of those laws; and when this method failed, it had perforce to be supplemented by a system of fines. History furnishes a clear illustration of this principle. In the Chou dynasty fines were exacted from idlers who would not till the ground, and in the Han dynasty the prohibition against the use of wine was so strict that those whose \"wine money\" was not correct were punished with the loss of their title of Duke.*\n\nNative produce exported from countries beyond the sea now pays a duty cent. per cent. ad valorem, and the English go farther than this, for they put a duty equal to twice the value upon articles for which there is a depraved taste, something after the manner of a money commutation for the commission of what used to be a punishable crime, but is now no longer so regarded. How much more justifiable, then, is the increase of duty and li-kin upon opium, native and foreign, when the object is the diminution of the craving, in the hope of keeping the appetites of the people within bounds, ordering their morals, and bringing them back to their pristine condition. Under these circumstances, much may be taken without being oppressive.\n\nMoreover, the proposed increase is to be imposed on the price paid by the Chinese consumer, not at the place of production, nor from the knavish foreign trader who imports it. The power is in our hands, and no one can gainsay the exercise of a right which is supported by law and canon, as a reference to either will show. When the proper method has once been laid hold of it should be given effect to, without troubling to think of other means.\n\nYour servant having been honoured by the command of your Majesty to take cognizance of foreign affairs was, of course, not free to decline the responsibility, and when (in discharge of it) he received the British Minister, Wei T'o-ma (Thomas Wade),\n\nHe\n\nBy the ceremonial laws of the Han dynasty, the sons of Princes had the title of \"Hou.\" Each Hou was compelled to provide a certain contribution in money to the ancestral sacrifices of the Emperor, according to the number of families in his fief. This money was presented in person to the Emperor by the Hou once a-year. He received it in the ancestral temple, and, in return, supplied the contributors with wine, the only occasion on which they were allowed to drink it. If their offerings fell short of the proper amount, or were deficient in touch, their fathers, the Princes, were deprived of a portion of their fief, and the sons lost their title and the whole of their fief.\n\nPage 302 \n[1703]",
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        "series_title": "CO129 Colonial Office Hong Kong Records 理藩院香港檔案",
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        "document_key": "CO129-209 - Governor Sir Bowen - 1883 [5]",
        "page_number": 483,
        "title": "CO129-209 - Governor Sir Bowen - 1883 [5]",
        "content_text": "HONGKONG LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL.\n\nA meeting of the Legislative Council was held on Saturday afternoon. There were present-- His Excellency the GOVERNOR, Sir GEORGE BOWEN, G.C.M.G.\n\nHon. Sir GEORGE PHILLIPPO, Chief Justice. Hon. W. H. MARSH, C.M.G., Colonial Secretary.\n\nHon. E. L. O'MALLEY, Attorney-General. Hon. A. LISTER, Colonial Treasurer. Hon. P. RYRIE.\n\nHon. J. M. PRICE (Surveyor-General). Hon. F. B. JOHNSON.\n\nHon. F. STEWART (Registrar-General).\n\nTHE GOVERNOR'S ADDRESS.\n\nHIS EXCELLENCY said--Honourable Gentlemen of the Legislative Council, On this first occasion on which it has devolved on me formally to inaugurate your deliberations since Her Majesty was pleased to entrust to me the Government of this Colony, I desire to express my confidence that I shall at all times receive your loyal advice and cordial assistance in the labours and duties of legislation. I wish also to explain that, although I have not yet been two months here, I should have called you together at even an earlier period, had it not been for the absence of the only two unofficial members (properly so-called) who now form part of the Council, without whose constitutional co-operation and local knowledge, I was unwilling to enter upon the discussion of any measures of importance. Indeed, had there not been an urgent necessity for passing an Ordinance enabling the Government to carry out the sanitary reforms recommended by Mr. Chadwick (the able Civil Engineer recently sent out by the Imperial Government) I should have preferred to await the commencement of the regular Session which I intend to open in next November; when I hope to have the pleasure of addressing a reconstructed Legislature.\n\nFor, gentlemen, I will take this opportunity of informing you officially that, in accordance, as I know, with the opinion of this Council, and of the entire Colony, I firmly believe that the community at large will be better represented and satisfied, while the Government will be more fully informed, and, at the same time, strengthened by the weighty support of public opinion, if the Unofficial element is considerably increased. At the present moment (as I have already said) there are really only two unofficial members; and I have no power to add to their number. I have proposed to Her Majesty's Government that for the future there shall be six unofficial members; and that the system which has worked successfully in Ceylon shall be adopted also here. I mean that two of those six members should be, as a general rule, appointed on the recommendation of the Chamber of Commerce, and one, at least, on the recommendation of some other public body, such as the Bench of Justices of the Peace. One of the six unofficial members will, of course, be chosen from among our Chinese fellow subjects.\n\nIt will be remembered that representatives of the native communities have, for many years past, held seats in the Legislatures of British India, Ceylon, New Zealand, and the Straits Settlements. Without going further into details at present, I know that you, gentlemen, will agree with me in thinking that a system of the nature thus shadowed forth will confer on the Colony most of the advantages, without any of the drawbacks, of popular election; which, for obvious reasons, is impracticable in a heterogeneous community, circumstanced as is that of Hongkong.\n\nShould the Imperial Government sanction my proposals, I feel confident that the Colonial Government and Legislature will derive valuable assistance from the knowledge and ability of the gentlemen recommended by the Chamber of Commerce.\n\nBut the official and the unofficial members alike can have no object in view but the general welfare of the Colony; and I am sure that we shall work together cordially towards that common object.\n\nI spoke just now of my intention to open a regular session of the Colonial Legislature in November. I find that the practice here, entirely at variance with the practice of most other colonies, has been to summon the Legislative Council at rare and uncertain intervals. I have decided that, here as elsewhere, there shall, in future, be a regular annual session, beginning in November, at the commencement of the cool season; of course, without prejudice to the summoning of extraordinary meetings whenever they may be required by the exigencies of the public service.\n\nWhile I was Governor of Mauritius, I introduced in that Colony, with the sanction of the Imperial Government, and greatly to the public advantage, the system of an annual session and of an annual recess. I propose that during each recess, the business of the ensuing session shall be carefully prepared by the Governor and the Executive Council.\n\nEach annual session, here as elsewhere, will be opened by the Governor with a short address containing a programme of the legislative and other business to be taken in hand; explanations of the reasons for proposing every Ordinance and measure; and a general review of the material, financial, and social condition of the Colony.\n\nThe Legislature will thus be accurately informed of the requirements of the Public Service, and enabled to afford the Government effective aid in settling its financial and general policy.\n\nAgain, here as in other Colonies, each annual session will be closed by an address from the Governor summing up the proceedings of the year, and reviewing the general condition and prospects of the community.\n\nThere can be no sound reason why the Legislature and Public of Hongkong should not enjoy the same advantages of being officially made acquainted with the views and intentions of the Government as are enjoyed by the Legislature and public in other colonies.\n\nWith regard to the measures to which your attention will be directed this day, the most important is, of course, the \"Order and Health Amendment Ordinance,” of which the main object is to empower the Government to undertake those \"strong and complete measures of sanitation for the immediate benefit of the Public Health,\" which Mr. Chadwick has declared in his report to be of primary and urgent necessity, if we would not wait for that necessity to be demonstrated by the irresistible logic of a severe epidemic.\"\n\nIt was a wise and witty saying of the late Lord Beaconsfield, when Prime Minister of England, to the effect that a well-known text of Holy Scripture must have been mistranslated, and that, instead of \"Vanitas vanitatum, omnia vanitas,\" it should be \"Sanitas sanitatum, omnia sanitas\"; that is, that the health of the people should be a primary object of public care.\n\nThis question of sanitary reform is indeed grave and weighty, for you will recollect that it brings with it many consequences, intellectual and moral, as well as physical. It embraces almost everything that has to do with the daily life and dwellings of the people; it embraces their free and pure enjoyment of the chief elements of nature-- air, light, and water; it embraces almost everything that tends to give us and our families sound minds in sound bodies—the \"mens sana in corpore sano\" of the Roman poet.\n\nWith regard to the only other measure on the paper for this day, the Tramways' Ordinance, this is not a Government Bill, and its object and provisions will, I am sure, be ably explained by the experienced unofficial member who has brought it forward.\n\nIn conclusion, gentlemen, I desire to congratulate you on the great progress which Hongkong has already achieved. It is a very remarkable fact that the shipping which now annually enters this port is of nearly four millions tonnage; that is, it is nearly equal to the tonnage of the shipping which entered the Port of London in 1837, the year of the accession of the present sovereign, at a period six years previous to the first foundation of this Colony, when this island was little more than a desolate rock occasionally visited by a few Chinese pirates and ...",
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        "series_title": "CO129 Colonial Office Hong Kong Records 理藩院香港檔案",
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        "document_key": "CO129-215 - Governor Sir Bowen - 1884 [1-4]",
        "page_number": 331,
        "title": "CO129-215 - Governor Sir Bowen - 1884 [1-4]",
        "content_text": "Enclosure 3.\n\nHONGKONG LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL.\n\nThe session of the Legislative Council was opened yesterday afternoon. The Chief Justice took the chair and called upon the Clerk of Councils to read the proclamation summoning the meeting. This having been done, the Clerk of Councils was directed to inform the Governor, who shortly afterwards entered and read the speech given below. The opening ceremony was attended with more formality than has hitherto been the case on similar occasions in Hongkong. The road from Government House to the Public Office was lined with Sikh policemen, and a guard of honour and the Band of the Buffs was posted in the hall of the Public Office, and saluted the Governor on his arrival. In the Council Chamber there was a large attendance, including a considerable number of ladies, the Consuls and Military Officers in uniform, and a large number of the general public. His Excellency wore the uniform of his office and the scarf and order of the Grand Cross of St. Michael and St. George. The Colonial Secretary, the Attorney-General, and the Surveyor-General also wore the Civil Service Uniform. The Council was composed as follows:-\n\nHis Excellency the GOVERNOR, Sir GEORGE FERGUSON Bower, G.C.M.G.\n\nHon. Sir GEORGE PHILlIPPo, Chief Justice.\n\nHon. W. H. MARSH, C.M.G.\n\nHon. E. L. O'MALLEY, Attorney-General.\n\nHon. A. LISTER, Colonial Treasurer.\n\nHon. J. M. PRICE, Surveyor-General.\n\nHon. F. STEWART, Registrar-General.\n\nHon. P. RYrie.\n\nHon. F. B. JOHNSON,\n\nHon. T. JACKSON.\n\nHon. F. D. SAXTON.\n\nHon. WONG SHING.\n\nTHE GOVERNOR'S SPEECH.\n\nHonourable Gentlemen of the Legislative Council,\n\n1. It is with feelings of much pleasure and interest that I now open the first session of the re-constituted Legislature of Hongkong, and have recourse to your advice and assistance in the administration of the Government.\n\n2. It will always be one of the most satisfactory reminiscences of my long public career that I have been able to procure a more adequate representation in this Council of the community at large. I am confident that the Government will derive valuable aid from the local knowledge and experience of the unofficial members, and I also believe that you will all agree with me that there neither is, nor ought to be, any antagonism between the official and the unofficial element in this Legislature. All the members alike can have no other object but to secure the general welfare, and to advance the progress of the colony.\n\n3. For obvious reasons, it is in the highest degree important that this Council should adhere to the constitutional forms followed by the Legislatures of the other principal Crown Colonies. The address of the Governor at the opening of each annual session will contain, here as elsewhere, a general view of the financial and social condition of the Colony, and a statement of the Legislative and other measures, and of the public works proposed. So the address of the Council in reply will afford the Members of the Legislature the usual constitutional opportunity of expressing their opinion of the conduct and proposals of the Government.\n\n4. Further, in accordance with the practice elsewhere, I recommend you to appoint a Committee of Finance (which should be a Committee of the whole Council), a Committee of Laws, and a Committee of Public Works, which should respectively examine in the first instance the details of every proposed vote and measure.\n\n5. After this brief explanatory preface, I will proceed to state generally the principal subjects to which your attention will be directed during the present Session. Full details will be found in the papers which will be laid before you, and in the statements of the several Heads of Departments.\n\n6. In the first place, with regard to the paramount question of Finance, it is very gratifying to be able to inform you that our position is satisfactory. The Revenue of the year 1883 amounted to $1,294,500; and the Ordinary Expenditure to $1,165,700; leaving an excess of revenue over Ordinary Expenditure of $128,800. The Extraordinary Expenditure of 1883 was defrayed from the accumulated balance, and included the Tai-tam water works, Break-water, Causeway Bay reclamation, Purchase of houses and land for the New Central Market, and Sanitary works.\n\n7. The estimated balance to the credit of the colony on the 31st December, 1883, was $1,095,505. Hongkong is probably the only state or colony of importance which at the present day is not only without a public debt, but which possesses invested assets nearly equal to its annual revenue. However, the existing balances will not be sufficient to carry out several public works which are urgently required by this community, in addition to those \"strong and complete measures of sanitation\" which Mr. Chadwick (the Civil Engineer recently sent out from England) has reported to be absolutely necessary \"for the immediate benefit of the public health.\" Under these circumstances, I concur with the Executive Council in what appears to be the general opinion of the colony, viz., that the present generation of colonists ought not to be deprived of the advantages referred to, while it cannot of course be expected to defray the entire cost of works of a permanent and reproductive character; and that consequently, it will be expedient to raise, on the exhaustion of the existing assets, a moderate loan, not much exceeding the revenue of a single year. This question will not have to be decided in its details during the present Session; but I desire to elicit the opinion of the Council on the principle involved.\n\n8. The Estimates for 1884 have been already voted. The Estimates for 1885 will be laid before you in next November, which seems to be the most generally convenient period for the opening of the annual Session.\n\n9. With regard to Legislative measures, the following Ordinances, among others, have already become law since I assumed this Government in the spring of last year, viz.: Ordinances to provide for the better Regulation of Vehicles and Public Traffic; To organise the construction of certain lines of Tramways; To constitute a Sanitary Board; To amend Merchant Shipping Law and provide for the enforcement of Quarantine; To continue the operation of the French Mail Steamers Ordinance; To authorise the construction of certain Piers and Wharves. The principal Bills which will be laid before you during the present session will be the following:-\n\n(1.) To regulate Weights and Measures.\n\n(2.) To consolidate and amend the Ordinance relating to Opium.\n\n(3.) To establish a Savings Bank.\n\n(4.) To consolidate and amend the laws relating to Stamp Duties.\n\n(5.) To provide for the Registration of Medical Practitioners.\n\n(6.) To regulate Prisons and Prison Discipline.\n\n(7.) To amend the Dangerous Goods' Ordinance, 1873.\n\n(8.) To amend the Preservation of Birds' Ordinance, 1870.\n\n(9.) To amend certain Ordinances relating to Criminal Procedure.\n\n(10.) To amend the law relating to the punishment of criminals.\n\n(11.) To amend the Bankruptcy Ordinance of 1864.\n\n(12.) To regulate the Post Office and Postal Service.\n\n(13.) To Amend Ordinance No. 10 of 1867.\n\n(14.) To provide for the more effectual protection of Chinese female children.\n\n10. The report of the Commission on Smuggling, and an able and exhaustive memorandum by Mr. Justice Russell on the so-called Blockade of Hongkong by Chinese Revenue Cruisers, are recommended to your attention. I have discussed this important question with the present British Minister at Peking, who will, I am confident, lend his aid towards carrying out an equitable settlement.\n\n11. Turning to the vital subject of the Public Health, I am glad to inform you that the recent organisation of a Government Sanitary Board under Ordinance No. 7 of 1883, and the promulgation of new Rules and Regulations under that Ordinance, together with the introduction of improved contracts for the removal and disposal of waste products, have been followed by a marked improvement in the practical sanitation of the Colony. Much, however, remains to be done, both in respect of legislation and of structural sanitary work; but I am confident that the necessary reforms and improvements will in due course be effected by the zeal and ability of the officers to whom this branch of the Public Service has been entrusted, and by the cheerful acquiescence of all classes of our population in such measures and restrictions for the safety of the Public Health as may, with...",
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        "document_key": "CO129-215 - Governor Sir Bowen - 1884 [1-4]",
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        "title": "CO129-215 - Governor Sir Bowen - 1884 [1-4]",
        "content_text": "The Council then adjourned to five o'clock this afternoon to allow the Committee to consider the reply to His Excellency's speech.\n\nThe Council then adjourned.\n\nTHE ADDRESS IN REPLY. The Council reassembled at five o'clock. The COLONIAL SECRETARY-I have the honour, sir, to report to the Council that the committee appointed has met and considered the address in reply to the speech from the chair.\n\nThe address was as follows:\n\nMay it please Your Excellency,\n\nWe, the members of the Legislative Council of Hongkong, in Council assembled, beg to thank Your Excellency for the Speech with which you have opened this the first Session of the re-constituted Legislature of the Colony.\n\n2. We desire to offer to Your Excellency our cordial congratulations upon the wise and salutary reform in the constitution of the Council which has been granted by Her Majesty's Government, on your recommendation, and with which your name will for ever be associated. We heartily honour in Your Excellency's expectation that the Government cannot fail to profit by the advice and assistance of an increased number of Unofficial Members; and that the entire Legislature will be animated by a common desire to promote the general welfare and progress of the community.\n\n3. We concur in the advisability of assimilating the proceedings of this Legislature to the constitutional forms established in the other principal Crown Colonies.\n\n4. Your Excellency's recommendation concerning the appointment of Committees of Finance, Law, and Public Works will receive our immediate attention.\n\n5. We assure Your Excellency that we shall not fail to give our careful consideration to every question and measure which may be brought before us.\n\n6. We learn with much pleasure that the Financial position of the Colony, as shown by the Official Statistics, is satisfactory.\n\n7. We agree with Your Excellency in the opinion that, in justice to the present generation of tax-payers in Hongkong, a moderate loan should be raised, on the exhaustion of the existing assets, to defray a portion of the cost of those Sanitary and other Public Works, which are recognised as of permanent importance for the security of the general health and well-being of our population.\n\n8. The Estimates for 1885 will receive our careful attention, when they are laid before us.\n\n9. We shall examine the Legislative Measures proposed with the careful deliberation which their importance requires.\n\n10. We thank Your Excellency for the attention which you have given to the circumstances of the so-called Blockade of Hongkong; and we shall be glad to assist in bringing about an equitable settlement of this difficult question.\n\n11. We have received with gratification Your Excellency's statement in regard to the Sanitary Reforms which are now in progress; and we trust that the further measures necessary for the preservation of the Public Health will continue to occupy the earnest attention of the Government.\n\n12. The want of house accommodation for the labouring classes of this community is a growing evil which we have watched with some alarm; and we shall be glad to co-operate with the efforts of the Government to alleviate the pressure felt in that direction.\n\n13. We cordially approve the steps proposed to be taken to enforce the fulfilment of building covenants in leaseholds, and we trust that any additional security of tenure which may be granted to the smaller class of tenants will operate beneficially in diminishing the evils of overcrowding.\n\n14. The drainage of the marsh within the Race Course in the Wong-nei-chung Valley will confer a boon upon the community by providing a much-needed place of Recreation, and will in our opinion at the same time prove of great advantage to the Public Health.\n\n15. We learn with satisfaction the progress already made in such important and necessary Public Works as the Breakwater; the Tai-tam Water Works; the Government Hospital; the Lunatic Asylum; and the Meteorological Observatory, and that the New Central School will be commenced forthwith.\n\n16. We trust that the forcible representation made by Your Excellency to the proper Imperial Authorities of the sanitary and other advantages to be derived from the junction of the Eastern and Western Pryas, will be crowned with success.\n\n17. We have observed with interest the activity with which Your Excellency has, during the short period of your Government, acquired personal acquaintance with our chief public institutions. We shall gladly second your efforts to raise the standard of public education here, and to enable a certain number of our most promising youths to complete their professional studies in England. We regard, moreover, with satisfaction the continuance of the competitive system for entrance into the Civil Service of Hongkong, consonant as that system is alike with modern English and with ancient Chinese custom.\n\n18. We learn with pleasure the steady progress of the important work of afforestation, which, we hope, will, here as elsewhere, influence favourably the climate, and so benefit the public health.\n\n19. We entirely concur in the steps taken to promote the efficiency of the Police, a matter of the utmost importance in a community circumstanced as is that of Hongkong.\n\n20. We trust that the organisation and equipment given to the Volunteer Artillery will not only render that body efficient in any time of emergency, but will also tend to foster in our midst a patriotic spirit of national union and loyalty.\n\n21. We agree with Your Excellency as to the urgent importance of placing Hongkong in that condition of defence which is rendered necessary by the magnitude of the interests, here both Imperial and Colonial, which are at stake.\n\n22. We cannot bring this address to a close without repeating our grateful appreciation of the constant and enlightened attention devoted by Your Excellency to the requirements of all classes and races in this community, and to the initiation of measures calculated to promote the prosperity and advancement of this Colony. We trust that the loyal co-operation of the Governor and of the Legislative Council will, under the Divine Blessing, secure the general welfare and contentment of our population.\n\nThe Hon. P. RYLANDS—Honourable President and members of the Legislative Council, the duty has been assigned to me of moving the address to His Excellency the Governor in reply to the very eloquent speech which he favoured us with a short time ago. I think anyone who heard that address must feel convinced that in His Excellency Sir George Bowen we have a Governor who has the best interests of this colony at heart. (Applause). He seemed to give in his speech pledges that many useful works and reforms, which we in this colony have been longing for for years, are now to be pushed forward (Applause) and we accept those pledges of his as true and hearty, and for myself I am sure, and I believe everyone else will feel sure, that nothing will be spared on the part of the head of the Executive to render his aid towards their accomplishment. The proposal for the formation of committees, is one which has been suggested for years past, for dealing with public works, for laws, and for finance. For finance we have had a committee for some time, but the other two I am sure will be hailed with pleasure by all classes in this colony. The sanitary reforms I also think are what we all desire. The proposal for raising a loan in consequence of our present surplus funds coming nearly to an end is one entirely new to this colony. I confess myself that at first I was not in favour of placing a debt on this colony; but looking at the material progress it has made, the yearly increment to its revenue we have seen now for some years past, I think we may with safety enter upon such a loan as His Excellency mentioned in his speech. At the same time I hope it may never be necessary in this colony to exceed about the amount of, or at any rate but little over, its annual revenue. I think this colony is hardly capable of carrying a large loan, and I only hope that the works which are in progress will not make it necessary to raise more than this amount. With regard to the re-construction of the Council, perhaps I should have referred to it earlier, but I did not do so because it has already been referred to many times in this colony; but that the re-construction of the Council is also a step in the right direction, is a statement which I think no one will deny. (Applause). Of course the keeping up of the Police to a high state of efficiency is a measure which must always commend itself to us, who are greatly dependent, from the peculiar situation of this colony, on the efficiency of our Police Force. As regards the Volunteers, I think His Excellency has done very well for them.\n\nPage 331",
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        "id": 329367,
        "series_id": 27,
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        "series_title": "CO129 Colonial Office Hong Kong Records 理藩院香港檔案",
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        "document_key": "CO129-223 - Governor Sir Bowen Acting Governor Marsh & Others - 1885 [11-12]",
        "page_number": 146,
        "title": "CO129-223 - Governor Sir Bowen Acting Governor Marsh & Others - 1885 [11-12]",
        "content_text": "# Enclosure S.\n\n**ADDRESS OF GOVERNOR SIR G. F. BOWEN, G.C.M.G. TO THE LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL OF HONGKONG, DECEMBER 9TH, 1885, WITH THE ADDRESS OF THE COUNCIL IN REPLY:**\n\n## (1.)\n\nPage 1409\n\n`ALUY 26 JÁN 86` \n`RECR`\n\nHONOURABLE GENTLEMEN OF THE LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL,\n\nI desire to announce officially to you that I intend to proceed from this Colony to India, on my way to England, on the 19th of this month. As you are already aware, I had obtained leave of absence on medical certificate at the beginning of year, but I then felt that it was my duty to remain at my post during the protracted crisis of the Franco-Chinese hostilities, and of the threatened war with Russia. Her Majesty's Government have expressed \"their high appreciation of the public spirit which led me to this decision.\" Now that peace has been restored, the permission to return to England has been renewed. After twenty-six years' continuous service as the Representative of the Queen in five Colonies successively, it will be agreed that I have fully earned a period of rest.\n\n2. One of the most eminent of the Governors of Crown Colonies, in bidding farewell to his Council, remarked: \"I think it very useful that the last Address of a Governor should be exhaustive; that it should touch on all subjects of public interest; that it should be a standard of comparison by which the progress of the Colony may be measured at different epochs.\" Accordingly, in pursuance of the custom established elsewhere, I will take advantage of this opportunity to place on record a brief review of the principal acts of my administration here, which has lasted for nearly three years. These years have been very critical and eventful both as regards this Colony, the centre of British power, influence, and commerce in the Far East, and also as regards European interests generally in this quarter of the globe, which contains one-fourth of the human race, and which must yet fill a great place in the history of the world.\n\n3. Soon after my assumption of this Government in the early part of the year 1883, I satisfied myself, after careful study of the position of your affairs, that there were three subjects of pressing importance to which I should first direct my special attention. These were:-\n\n| Item | Description |\n| --- | --- |\n| (a.) | The reconstitution of the Legislative Council. |\n| (b.) | The commencement of the much-needed Works of Water-supply and Sanitation. |\n| (c.) | The Defence of the Colony. |\n\n4. To the reconstitution of this Council, so as to make it representative of the Colony generally, I attached primary importance; for when an energetic English community like that of Hongkong has acquired an adequate voice and control in the management of its own local and municipal affairs, all necessary and well-considered internal reforms should follow. Accordingly, I procured the assent of the Imperial Government to a large increase in the number of the un-official members, while I gave the privilege of freely nominating their own representatives to the two principal Public Bodies, viz. the Bench of Magistrates and the Chamber of Commerce, which comprise the chief residents of every nationality. Thus the property, intelligence, and education of the Colony are now directly represented in this Council. I observed in a previous address: \"it will always be one of the most satisfactory reminiscences of my long public career that I have been able to procure a more adequate representation in this Council of the community at large.\"\n\n5. Again, when I found that under the former law of this Colony, the power assessing the Municipal taxation was vested solely in the Governor, I procured the consent of Her Majesty's Government to the removal of this anomaly, which was probably without precedent in any other part of the British Empire. Thus, here as elsewhere, the entire taxation of the Colony will henceforth be under the control of the Colonial Legislature.\n\n6. Moreover, in opening the Session for 1884, I addressed you as follows: \"For obvious reasons, it is in the highest degree important that this Council should adhere to the constitutional forms followed by the Legislatures of the other \n\nPage 145",
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        "document_key": "CO129-223 - Governor Sir Bowen Acting Governor Marsh & Others - 1885 [11-12]",
        "page_number": 151,
        "title": "CO129-223 - Governor Sir Bowen Acting Governor Marsh & Others - 1885 [11-12]",
        "content_text": "# neutral ground \n\nIt is indeed gratifying \n\n*tente cordiale*, and whom have always been delighted to welcome to the time of Government House. \n\n(Applause). I see around me also the chief officers of the Civil Service and of the Garrison and Squadron; the Judges of the Supreme Court; the Members of the Executive Council and of the Colonial Legislature; the Foreign Consuls; and the foremost representatives of the mercantile community, and of every race, creed, and class in this cosmopolitan community. (Applause). During my long career of twenty-six years in which I have had the honour of serving Her Majesty as Governor in five important colonies, I need scarcely say that I have been the honoured guest of very many public demonstrations of this kind, probably some hundreds, but I can say most sincerely that I recollect none better arranged or more admirably conducted or more hearty than the present one. (Applause). As some of those present will remember, some years ago, on my return from Australia, as the Chief Justice has said, after having presided, as the representative of the Queen, during twenty years over three of the greatest provinces of the Empire - Queensland, New Zealand, and Victoria - I was welcomed at a grand banquet in London, at which the Duke of Edinburgh filled the chair, and which was attended by many leading statesmen of both political parties. The next morning *The Times*, in a leading article very complimentary to me, declared that “after such an hour of supreme honour and felicity, Sir G. Bowen should tempt Fortune no longer, but should die at once.\" (Laughter). However, gentlemen, you see that I preferred to live, and to become Governor of Hongkong - (loud cheers) - when it was proposed to me in very flattering terms - as the Chief Justice said just now in his very exhaustive speech - to undertake this Government, on the eve of a very difficult crisis, not only for this colony, the centre of British power, influence, and trade in the Far East, but also for this entire quarter of the globe, which contains one-fourth of the human race, and which must yet fill a great place in the history of the world. (Applause). So, perhaps, it may be thought by some here that after the gratifying reception which you have given me this evening, I should hesitate no longer, but should finally resolve to perform what our Japanese friends call the *hara-kiri* or \"happy despatch.\" (Laughter). I see sitting at this table my excellent friend the Japanese Consul, who will be able to give you full instruction as to that. (Renewed laughter). But, gentlemen, no; after your great kindness to me I should indeed be ungrateful if I did not prefer to live for your sakes, to become, in England, as I have been here, the earnest and successful champion of the honour and of the interests of this Colony - (cheers) - and to return hither, if another emergency should arise, and if Her Majesty's Government should again deem what my friend the Chairman has been pleased to term my unequalled experience in Colonial administration likely to be useful to the public service. (Applause). Otherwise, if no emergency should arise, it will be generally agreed that, after the hard and trying work of above a quarter of a century, I have earned, at my age, a period of rest before the evening of life finally closes in upon me, as it must close in, sooner or later, on us all, and brings with it the dim watches of that tranquil night which heralds the dawning of the eternal day. (Applause)\n\nGentlemen, in my first speech to the Council on the day of my arrival here, I said that I hoped I and my family should leave Hongkong when the time came, as I have left the other colonies over which I have presided, without the consciousness of one duty wilfully neglected, or of one enmity wilfully provoked. (Hear, hear, and cheers.) The Chief Justice was kind enough to speak just now of the absence of Lady Bowen: I have bitterly regretted that her illness forced her away from here with my family. My family and I have received from the society of this Colony much respect and courtesy; and if there is any unkindness in any single quarter we pray that it may be washed away in the first wave that bears us from these shores. (Loud and continued applause.) I know that we leave behind us hosts of warm friends and well-wishers, and few, if any, enemies. I cannot indeed say with the famous Spanish Governor, who, when he was on his deathbed, and was asked by his confessor, \"Does your Excellency forgive your enemies?\" faltered out, \"I have already shot them all.\" (Laughter). A thought has just struck me; would this Spanish Governor, if like me, he had had the good fortune to be Governor of Hongkong, have thought his few critics here worth powder and shot? (Loud laughter and great cheering). As for myself, if reciprocity be essential to enmity, I certainly can have no enemies, for, as the Irishman said \"the reciprocity would be all on one side.\" (Renewed laughter). A former Prime Minister of England, in my younger days, the able and large-hearted Lord Melbourne, was wont to say that \"the worst thing in public life is that politicians hate each other so damnably.\" Now I love them all. This is also my feeling; like Lord Melbourne \"I love them all.\" (Loud applause).\n\nI must not detain you too long for I know that there is to be a dance this evening in honour of my daughter, which is another proof of your kindness and courtesy, which she and I fully recognise - my daughter who has done her best to fill the place of her mother in assisting to dispense the hospitalities of Government House. (Loud applause). But I feel that on an occasion like the present I am expected to give a brief account of my stewardship, some review of my administration. And as this may perhaps be my last \"dying speech and confession,\" such review is sure to be candid and accurate. However, I cannot do better than, as the Chief Justice has done, refer to my Farewell Address to the Colonial Legislature, which best knows the large amount of practical work we have done together; larger, probably, than was ever done by any other Colonial Government in so short a period - some two and a half years - and to which address that body returned so gratifying a reply. I may say generally that I desire to be remembered here above all things as a constitutional Governor, whose heart was in the work of giving to this community an adequate voice and control in the management of its own local and municipal affairs, so that it might no longer be dependent on the personal rule of one man.\n\nI recollect three or four years ago a great French statesman, the late M. Gambetta, said to me in Paris, \"You Governors of English Crown Colonies are almost the only despots left in the world, and you are not even, as Voltaire said of Russia, tempered by regicide.\" (Laughter). Now I confess, gentlemen, that I adhere to the good old English principle that despotism is a very bad thing for the despot himself as well as for the people whom he rules despotically. So in my farewell address to the Council, which the Chief Justice has quoted just now, and I do not think I can follow a higher example, I spoke to the following effect: \n\nSoon after my assumption of this Government in the early part of the year 1883, I satisfied myself, after careful study of the position of your affairs, that there were three subjects of pressing importance to which I should first direct my special attention. These were:-\n\n| Subject |\n| --- |\n| (a) The reconstitution of the Legislative Council. |\n| (b) The commencement of the much-needed works of water-supply and sanitation. |\n| (c) The defence of the colony. |\n\nTo the reconstitution of this Council, so as to make it representative of the colony generally, I attached primary importance; for when an energetic English community like that of Hongkong has acquired an adequate voice and control in the management of its own local and municipal affairs, all necessary and well-considered internal reforms should follow. Accordingly, I procured the assent of the Imperial Government to a large increase in the number of the unofficial members, while I gave the privilege of freely nominating their own representatives to the two principal Public Bodies, viz., the Bench of Magistrates and the Chamber of Commerce, which comprise the chief residents of every nationality. Thus the proportion...",
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        "series_title": "CO129 Colonial Office Hong Kong Records 理藩院香港檔案",
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        "document_key": "CO129-234 - Acting Governor Cameron Governor Des Voeus - 1887 [9-12]",
        "page_number": 533,
        "title": "CO129-234 - Acting Governor Cameron Governor Des Voeus - 1887 [9-12]",
        "content_text": "# THE QUEEN'S JUBILEE. PROGRESS OF HONGKONG.\n\nHer Majesty's Jubilee is one of those events that not only appeal to popular feeling but compel those reflectively inclined to study the changes during the past fifty years. It is not a time merely of state processions, of the pomp and circumstance of a Royal thanksgiving, of official odes of Jubilate ! and Io! Triumphe, but it is also a time of sober exlculation and comparison, so as to estimate what progress has been made.\n\nTo the August Lady herself the occasion, though not standing alone in the annals of her house, is of course, one of the highest moment and of liveliest satisfaction, and may be deemed by her as the crowning event of her long and well-spent life. And there is not the slightest doubt that this is also a feeling in which many of her subjects share, hence the desire to see the occasion worthily celebrated and permanently commemorated.\n\nOf the long list of English Queens, some of them may strike us with a sense of greater grandeur and dignity, a result due perhaps more to tradition and false historical perspective than to literal accuracy; some may have possessed stronger qualities of will and intellect, of wider culture, of more learning; others may have had greater personal attractions, or may be surrounded by a halo of chivalry and romance with which their misfortunes, merited or unmerited, and unrivalled beauty may have invested them, but there is no Queen in that long roll who has so entirely absorbed the enthusiastic and respectful affection of all her subjects as VICTORIA—and that only by the simple charm of true womanliness and pure goodness of heart.\n\nIn the Greater England over the sea, she is equally honoured by the descendants of the Cavaliers that founded Virginia, by the sons of the men of the old faith that founded Maryland, by the posterity of the Puritans that planted the tree of Democracy on Plymouth Rock, or by the pushing frontiersman of the West. In all her relations she has been eminently English; a loving wife, an affectionate mother, a typical English matron; and in times of trial, a self-possessed, courageous English woman—in brief, a model Queen of England!\n\nAmong contemporary Queens, our Queen stands on a pedestal apart. The late Pope, Pius IX., no mean judge of human nature, and in this respect not likely to be a biased judge, considered that she was incomparably the best of them all. \"She stood,\" he said, \"on a pedestal apart.\" In her political life, amidst the ever-changing vicissitudes of English party Government, her conduct has been above suspicion. She would not be a woman if she had not preferences towards this statesman or towards that, but, in her constitutional relationship towards all parties she has maintained the dignified attitude of An English constitutional sovereign.\n\nThe popularity and sympathy she won by her youth and natural grace of manner fifty years ago, she still retains, and that by her clear insight into the needs and aims of her people. Her reign has been an eventful one; it has been marked by many political struggles, and in these, no one has taken greater interest than the Queen herself, who has recognized throughout them all that special characteristic of Englishmen—\"to win reforms by Agitation, what others attempt by Revolution.\"\n\nTempting as the subject is to review the progress, material and scientific, commercial and political, of the Empire during the half century, we consider it more to our purpose to indicate what has been accomplished in the Far East during that time than to review the reign generally. Great as have been the strides of advancement in the West, we have not been lagging so very far behind in the East, retarded though we have been by the inertness of an old and partially fossilised civilization.\n\nChina fifty years ago was a very different country from the China of to-day. So different indeed, that unless a special study is made of the period in question, it is simply a sheer impossibility for the great majority of the residents here to realize the deplorable state in which affairs were then, to understand the helpless and hopeless position with regard to comfort, safety, and personal rights, in which the Jardine, Mathesons, the Dents, the Gibbs, Livingstons, the Turners, the Russells then carried on business in Canton.\n\nAs a description, however curtailed, of things as they were, these will bring into greater relief the points of differences and make a more effective contrast, and we shall, instead of going into long rows of figures and tables, adopt this method.\n\nIt is a mistake to think that Hongkong fifty years ago, was not thought of. The anxieties and annoyances of life at Canton had become so great that the conviction had entered the minds of the merchants, that nothing short of the possession of an island off the Coast of China, independent of the Chinese Government, could give the necessary security to life and property. Formosa, Chusan, Namoa, the Bonin Islands, and Hongkong were all suggested as more or less suitable.\n\nSurveys were made among the Ladrones, of which Hongkong is one, and we find so far back as the time of the Queen's Accession, an anonymous writer, supposed to be the then head of a firm now intimately connected with the history and prosperity of this Colony, suggesting that Hongkong should be the island selected.\n\nAfter describing the physical features and advantages as they are known to all of us, its beautiful, deep, landlocked harbour and clear springs of water, he becomes prophetic or is it the utterance of an oft-repeated prayer while writhing under a sense of official injustice? And says: \"If the lion's paw is to be put down in any part of China, let it be on Hongkong. Let the lion, under his guarantee, declare it a free port, and in ten years it will be the most considerable mart East of the Cape.\"\n\nIt is worth while, in passing, to note what this Canton merchant of half a century ago thought were the conditions of the success of Hongkong and to remind our local Conscript Fathers of the duty of handing them down intact and unimpaired to our successors.\n\nLife in the Old Factories had very little in common with the comparatively pleasant life that foreigners now enjoy in China. Home life was conspicuous by its absence. Foreigners in Canton were a community of mercantile monks, for the Government officials, ignorant of the refining influences of ladies' society, rigidly proscribed them and sternly banished them to Macao.\n\nThe site itself was insalubrious, and at low water, when the foreshore and neighbouring creeks were dry, smelled most abominably. The vilest rowdies inhabited the houses surrounding the factories, and the factory-site itself, if we mistake not, was not greater than the area of the base of the Great Pyramid. These were only minor evils. The residents, cooped up within their factories, were treated like so many denizens of a zoological garden. There they might amuse themselves as much as they liked so long as they made no uproar, as the officials...\n\nPage 527",
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        "document_key": "CO129-345 - Public Offices & Foreign Office - 1907",
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        "title": "CO129-345 - Public Offices & Foreign Office - 1907",
        "content_text": "**This Document is the Property of His Britannic Majesty's Government.)** \n\n2 \n\n\"Sainam\" affair, no fewer than eight cases of piracy of British-owned launches in the vicinity of Wuchow alone. \n\nIt is a notorious fact, which has not been disputed by the responsible Ministers of the Central Government, that the so-called guard-boats on the river lay inactive for days, with their crews gambling or smoking opium, while piracy went on unchecked in their immediate neighbourhood. \n\nIt is impossible, therefore, to admit that China's obligation ends with the recovery of the stolen property, as represented by two rifles and the execution of a few criminals, any more than it has done in the numerous other cases in which foreigners have lost their lives in this country, and in which China has atoned for the failure of her officials to afford adequate protection by paying suitable compensation. \n\nThe policing of its waters is an elementary duty which every State owes to the subjects of other Powers frequenting its territory in the pursuit of their lawful vocations, and that its fulfilment in the present case calls for no unusual exertion is proved by the statement of a Minister of your Highness' Board who, speaking with a knowledge of the locality, expressed the opinion that if the local authorities did their duty piracy at Canton could be stamped out in a month. \n\nThe case has been carefully considered by His Majesty's Government, under whose directions a claim for adequate compensation to the sufferers has been presented to the Viceroy at Canton, and I have therefore the honour to request your Highness to issue telegraphic instructions to his Excellency for an early settlement. \n\nI avail, &c. \n\n(Signed) **J. N. JORDAN**, \nC.O. \n\n[B] \n32445 \n51 \n\n## AFFAIRS OF CHINA. \n\n**REC** \n[August 26.] \nof 10 SEP 07 \n**CONFIDENTIAL**. \n**SECTION 2**. \n[28452] \n\n### No. 1. \n\nSir J. Jordan to Sir Edward Grey.-(Received August 26.) \n\n(No. 336.) Sir, \n\nPeking, July 11, 1907. After a lapse of some months without further mention in official circles in Peking of the projected constitutional reforms, the \"Gazette\" of the 7th July published an Imperial Edict, translation of which I have the honour to inclose, ordering certain changes in the provincial administration of Manchuria, Chihli and Kiangsu, and their gradual adoption in the other provinces within the maximum period of fifteen years. \n\nThese changes, already partially adopted in Manchuria, consist in the substitution of Provincial Commissioners of Justice in place of the high officials hitherto known by the title of Provincial Judges, and the formation of certain new Courts of Justice. \n\nThe effect of these alterations is not obvious, but they appear to tend towards a separation of the administrative and judicial sides of Government service, both of which have hitherto been combined in the duties of District Magistrates. \n\nThe Edict also abolishes all territorial Intendants of Circuit (Taotais) who have not concomitant military functions, and creates in their place Intendants of Police and of Public Industry. \n\nThis change does not affect the Customs Taotais in the Treaty ports, who are either specially appointed as Intendants of Customs or hold concurrently a military command. The expression in the Edict of a hope that these changes will be acceptable to public opinion, seems to indicate that the Court is only prepared to proceed with reforms in the most tentative manner; while an Edict of the 8th July, of which a translation in abstract is also inclosed, calls for expression of public opinion as to what steps should next be taken, in spite of the fact that an Imperial Commission has been formulating recommendations for the past year. \n\n(Translation.) \n\nI have, &c. (Signed) \n**J. N. JORDAN** \n\n### Inclosure 1 in No. 1. \n\n**Imperial Edict, dated July 7, 1907.** \n\nWE are informed by Her Imperial Majesty the Empress Dowager, with reference to the former Edict commanding a Committee of Princes and Ministers to deliberate on the reform of the official organization of the provinces and to memorialize the Throne on arriving at a satisfactory conclusion, that Prince Ching and others have now submitted a Memorial proposing the substitution in each province of a Commissioner of Justice for the Judicial Commissioner, the addition of Police Taotais and Industrial Taotais, the abolition of the classes of Taotai known as \"Fen Shou\" and \"Fen Hsün,\" retaining the military Taotais when thought necessary, the creation of Judicial Courts, and alterations in the subordinate ranks of officials. \n\nThese proposals should be put into effect in due order. It is commanded that they be tried provisionally in the Manchurian provinces, and, if the situation in those provinces differs from that in others, the Viceroy and Governors are at liberty to consult together regarding modifications of the proposals, and to memorialize the Throne asking for instructions. Apart from these, the provinces of Chihli and Kiangsu, which are more advanced, should also choose places to make preliminary experiments, to be gradually extended when it is clear that they are successful. As for the other provinces, the Viceroys and Governors are to consider the situation in their provinces, and the most suitable times and places, and to ask for instruction how to act. Within fifteen years the present proposals are to be universally adopted. \n\nAs regards detailed regulations defining powers, &c., which require to be considered by the Boards and Yamêns, the latter are respectively commended to propose a...",
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        "content_text": "# 5 The Situation in Szechuan\n\nThe recent outbreak in the K'ai Hsien and Wan Hsien districts, where popular discontent with the new opium taxes was fanned into open rebellion by the agents of secret societies, should be a warning to the Provincial Government of what may happen this summer in other parts of the province.\n\nThe gradual increase of direct and indirect taxation during the last few years, firstly for educational and latterly for railway purposes, culminating in the imposition in many places of prohibitive taxes on native opium and the threatened closing of opium divans and shops throughout the province, has roused feelings of resentment and suspicion among the people. Being in this frame of mind, the ubiquitous agents of the Red Lantern (\"Hung Teng Chiao\") and other secret societies find it an easy task to persuade the lower classes, especially the country people, that the foreigner and his religion are responsible for these schemes for education, railways, and the suppression of the opium habit, schemes which manifestly tend to transfer the hard-won earnings of the poor into the pockets of the officials. It is not, therefore, surprising that at K'ai Hsien the rioters made their rallying cry \"Down with foreign schools and gospel halls!\" and it is certain that wherever popular risings against the enforcement of the new Opium Regulations take place schools and mission stations will be the first to suffer. The agitators who lead these insurrectionary movements know by experience that the destruction of foreign property or the houses of native Christians is the surest means of embarrassing the officials and securing compliance with their demands. The Szechuanese, at ordinary times well disposed towards foreigners and foreign missions, blindly follow their lead and attack missionaries and converts, with whom they may have been living for years on friendly terms. The political outlook at the close of the quarter is not promising. Much will depend on the amount of pressure the Acting Viceroy is able to bring to bear on the local officials.\n\n## 5. Ningpo\n\nHis Majesty's Consul reports that on the 21st June a secret telegram was received by the Taotai from the Governor stating, on information supplied by the Viceroy at Nanking, that the revolutionaries in that district had dispatched agents to Shantung and to the neighbourhood of Ningpo to enlist followers with a view to the capture of certain cities, and that they had succeeded in getting together some 8,000 men among the fishermen and tinfoil workers. Strict orders were given for the capture of two leaders. In spite of the importance of keeping these orders from the men whose arrest was wanted, the telegram appeared in one of the Chinese papers a few days after its receipt.\n\nRice Troubles. During the quarter ended the 30th June there were slight risings at two places, in which some rice shops were looted, but the accounts of these which appeared in the foreign press were much exaggerated.\n\n## 6. Peking\n\n**Roman Catholic Church**. On the 14th June an Imperial clansman is stated by a native newspaper to have presented to Na Tung a Petition written in blood, asking that China should herself establish a Roman Catholic Association, should send a representative to the Pope, ask the Pope to appoint a representative to Peking, and also appoint a Chinese as Head of the Church; the object being to avoid foreign interference in cases where converts are concerned. Na sympathized, and sent the Petition to the Wai-wu Pu for their consideration.\n\nOn the 26th June another newspaper published a statement to the effect that, France having abandoned the Protectorate over Roman Catholics in the Far East, the Pope had sent to the Missions in China to make a careful choice of a Chinese to be Archbishop in China.\n\n**Japanese Buddhists in Fukien**. The Viceroy is said to have telegraphed to the Wai-wu Pu in June to the effect that over ten Japanese Buddhists had arrived in Foochow, where they were desirous of building a temple and propagating Buddhism, and that they claimed to be treated on the same footing as Christian missionaries.\n\n**Dalai Lama**. A native paper stated on the 14th June that a man from Hsining said that the Dalai Lama was still there, and would probably not start for Thibet before the end of the autumn.\n\n**Constitutional Reform**. It is evident that the discussion of this question is taking up a great deal of the Court's time, judging from the following extracts from the native newspapers, a few of the many which appear on the subject:\n\n- June 27. \"The question of constitutional government was discussed the other day in the Palace. Most of the high officials present were of opinion that Yuan Shih-kai and Chang Chih-tung should come to Peking to give their advice. Only Prince Ching was against this, holding that all the Viceroys and Governors should be consulted by telegraph, and in the end his opposition was successful.\"\n- June 29. \"After repeated discussion at the Grand Secretariat on the subject of actual preparation for a constitutional form of government, it has been decided to make a beginning with Chihli. A Memorial may be sent up within a month.\"\n- July 9. \"The Reform Edict of the 7th is said to be due to Viceroys Yuan Shih-kai and Tuan Fang, who wished to begin reforms in Chihli and Kiangsu, having got Prince Ching to see the Empress Dowager on the matter. The term of fifteen years was fixed on account of the large number of provincial officials and the difficulty of weeding them out.\"\n- July 18. \"On the 16th, at an audience of the Grand Council, their Majesties directed the Council to call upon the Princes, Dukes, and high military and civil officials to make an immediate study of the means of preparing for constitutional government and to memorialize the Throne.\"\n- August 2. \"A Memorial has been received from Yuan Shih-kai, in which he holds up Corea as an awful example, and which has had a great effect on highly-placed persons at Court. These persons met a few days ago to discuss the formation of a Council of Constitutional Reform and the early establishment of a Constitution. Duke Tse was especially outspoken.\"\n\nJuly 11. Prince Ch'ing has taken the opportunity afforded by the alarm which the assassination of En Ming created to press again upon the attention of their Majesties the advisability of the early adoption of constitutional government, represented that such a course would deprive the anti-dynastic societies of their only device for gaining adherents, which is to make out that the Chinese Government is despotic and tyrannous.\n\n**Assassination of Governor of Anhui and Yang-tsze unrest**\n\n- July 18. \"The Grand Council was in such a panic over the assassination of En Ming that they held a meeting and decided that Hsu should be severely tortured and his entire kindred exterminated, as a warning to future rebels. Prince Su, when he heard of this, stood alone in disapproving, saying that the extermination of a family was not a civilized punishment, and that revolutionaries and anti-Manchus could not be restrained in that way; and he advocated the execution of Hsu without involving his family. But it was not until he had obtained the support of Prince Chun and Hsün Peitzu that Prince Ching and Lu Chung-tang could be persuaded to agree to a more temperate action.\"\n\nOn the 1st of the 6th month (30th June) an anonymous telegram was sent to Chang Chih-tung from Shanghae, enumerating the revolutionaries whom he has killed in the last few years, and saying that in the course of the 6th or 7th month he will be killed with a bomb. The Viceroy was much alarmed, and gave orders for the utmost vigilance to be used in watching for smuggled arms. Quite recently a police raid in Wuchang resulted in the seizure of 2,000 guns and a large quantity of cartridges and powder and the arrest of four men, one of whom said he was the nephew of Sun Wen. He said that the arms had been brought in the day before, but declined to say by what means they were got past the Customs, even when examined with the bamboo. He was then executed within the gate of the Viceroy's yamên.\n\nOn the 3rd August a native paper stated that \"Lien K'uei, Governor of Kansu (so the paper; he is, in fact, Governor of Hsin Chiang, the New Territory), has been stabbed by a certain District Magistrate, and fears are entertained for his life. No official news has been received, but the family of Tuan Fang have had a telegram.\" This proved to be an entirely unfounded rumour.\n\nThe same paper stated, also on the 3rd August, that \"for the last week the Grand Council have been having repeated secret meetings, once in the Imperial presence. One...",
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        "id": 415894,
        "series_id": 27,
        "series_slug": "histsyn-co129-engine",
        "series_title": "CO129 Colonial Office Hong Kong Records 理藩院香港檔案",
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        "document_key": "CO129-351 - Public Offices - 1908",
        "page_number": 59,
        "title": "CO129-351 - Public Offices - 1908",
        "content_text": "6 \n\nwith popular wish; but this is going too far. What puzzle me are the two subjects at the head of this article.\n\n\"As regards the first, the Agreement is cancelled, funds subscribed, work begun, and there is no call for additional foreign money.\n\nYet a loan is forced on the officials and gentry, whose distress is pitiful. As to the rice the Japanese refused in Hunan, turn to the Nanking Viceroyalty. The Viceroy's and Governor's telegrams prove the wrong policy of rescuing a man from a well (referring to a Tso Chuan story of a warrior who hauled his foe out of a well only to be captured by him.-E. H. F.), yet the Government, unheeding, insists on compelling them to satisfy outsiders' boundless wants. Mencius' warning to take notice of general objection is disregarded by this violent adoption of a policy of robbing Peter to pay Paul. Does the Government wish to alienate the people, whose attachment it is hard enough to secure in these times of crisis? Does it want to please outsiders, who need no encouragement in their schemes against us? These things puzzle me.\n\n\"Foreign loans are admissible enough when home funds are short and the people unenlightened; when projected reforms, general or particular, are blocked by want of money, then it may be worth risking the fate of Egypt and India by undertaking monetary burdens in hope of future good to State and people. And such action in face of popular objection may be pardoned if there is no other motive.\n\nBut do any of these considerations apply to the forced railway loan?\n\n\"Relief of distress, charity to neighbours, is indeed a way to cement friendly relations, but we must really have surplus before we help outsiders. Now, the Kiang-huai has year after year been starving, and this year the unfed people died of hunger in the ditches in untold numbers. Does the Government forget, or does it purposely shut its eyes? Moreover, its action is styled charity, but is it charity to let one's own stomach go empty in order to supply the rich? Does the duty of mutual exchange justify forcing what is non-existent into being?\n\nIt is called keeping its word. But does the duty... Ab me! To-day society men pervade capital and provinces, evil folk stupidly plot rebellion, daily spying of blunders by Government to give excuse for stirring general disorder, men of purpose constantly lament that the danger of disunion and debacle is not far off. If the Government schemed for a happy future of peaceful constitutional Government it would base its external and internal policy on popular feeling as ascertained by inquiry. But if its policy is repression, does it want to see how much the people will stand, or does it look on them as mere pawns to be given as presents? If so, Yang's words unhappily apply to it.\"\n\nThe \"Nan Fang Pao\" of the 9th November, under \"Railways and Mining,\" has the following:-\n\n\"Censor Hsu Ting-ch'ao has presented a sealed Memorial regarding the forced loan. He points out that though the Soo-Hang-Ning Preliminary Agreement was made by the British Envoy, Sheng notified by letter its abrogation for delay in starting work, and Governor Chang announced its non-recognition. The other side also recognized that they could not build in time, and acknowledged its abrogation. It is by no means good policy now to lose faith with the people in order to acquiesce in a neighbour State's request, and it is impossible to turn forcibly a commercial into a Government railway. Of late the people have been enthusiastic and shares subscribed reached 30,000,600, but the sudden news that the English money is going to be borrowed to build it has greatly incensed people's feelings, and trouble may be apprehended. But if the Wai-wu Pu are in an utter quandary and cannot retrieve the position, we must treat this loan as a State loan independent of railways, though the two provinces will still have to repay its principal and interest out of railway funds. Thus railway rights will not pass into foreign control. This question is a very serious matter for China, since any compromise over it will probably have a great bearing on the cancelled Hankow-Canton Railway question and on the diplomatic difficulties as to Yunnan and Tonquin,\n\n\"The Wai-wu P'u is, by rescript, bidden to take note of the above.\"\n\nThe \"Universal Gazette\" of the 8th November reports that certain shareholders in the Hunan Railway Company have presented a joint application to the Viceroy to withdraw their subscriptions, on the score of there being no definite date for starting and of the managers having thrown up their responsibilities. The Viceroy, Chao, bade them wait quietly and not set an example which might shake the whole business.\n\nThe same paper says that the Hankow Electric Light and Waterworks Company has applied to be paid the 300,000 dollars promised by his Excellency Chang as Government share in the enterprise, now that all the private capital has been paid in and all arrangements made.\n\nGrand Councillor\n\nThe \"Nan Pao\" of the 10th November: \"Important news. Yuan's maintenance of mistaken views as to borrowing funds.\n\n\"His Excellency Yuan vigorously fathers the loan for the Soochow-Hangchow-Ningpo Railway and is quite unmoved by the telegraphic protests from all over China. A very trusted secretary took an opportunity to ask privately his reasons, whereupon his Excellency recounted his views to the following effect: The development of mines and railways is China's most urgent task and admits of no delay. Unluckily it requires a dozen millions, which the utterly impoverished provincials cannot supply. The inevitable delay in Chinese development will not only make outsiders' interference inevitable, but is also bad for China. Moreover, lots of European States attained to wealth and strength only by borrowing for important works as their own funds were insufficient for. Everything depends upon clear limitation of the Concession granted when making agreements, but if sovereign rights are not let slip it does not follow that the mere raising of foreign loans is to be considered a boundless calamity. So I feel bound to support borrowing to develop mines and railways in every province, the Soo-Hang-Ning Railway being only one instance. Now the final scheme in controlling the State must be to have a single object. However much provincial officials and gentry oppose, I'd rather use absolute force than let popular opinion sway me for hope that the overcoming of this obstacle, by preventing any one daring to stand forth in opposition to future loans for similar ends in other provinces, will enable me to answer to myself without shame. Five per cent. discount, which went into the agent's pocket, has been the rule in arranging loans; but my firm determination is not to take a cent, turning the discount into the principal. My sole aim is by saving the people a fraction of State debt to accomplish a fraction more of my duty. As to public right and public wrong, they take a long time to prove; could the animadversions of the present overthrow my fixed policy? From this his entourage perceived that his mind was made up and did not venture to offer any more advice on this subject.\"\n\n0 \n\nو دوران ایران اسلام \n\n56",
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    {
        "id": 417774,
        "series_id": 27,
        "series_slug": "histsyn-co129-engine",
        "series_title": "CO129 Colonial Office Hong Kong Records 理藩院香港檔案",
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        "document_key": "CO129-353 - Public Offices - 1908",
        "page_number": 486,
        "title": "CO129-353 - Public Offices - 1908",
        "content_text": "[This Document is the Property of His Britannic Majesty's Government.]\n\nC.0\n\n46270 Rec? 482 RES 17 DEC 08,\n\nroubles shall be paid in full 8. The amount of the rent in the sum of upon the signing of this Agreement for the whole term of the lease of the land, or more particularly until the 1st January, 1983, which will be indorsed on this Agreement.\n\n9. The transfer of this present Agreement to another party can only be done with the permission of the person authorized by the Administration of the Railway, and certified to be the indorsement on this Agreement; otherwise the transfer shall be considered ineffective. The buildings on this land shall be given in lease to Russian subjects having the right to reside in Manchuria, and to Chinese subjects only.\n\n10. In case the lessee should fail to comply with the conditions stated in paragraph 3 of this Agreement, this Agreement shall become void, and the leased land shall be taken away from the lessee, and shall pass into the possession of the Chinese Eastern Railway Company; and the rent paid under this Agreement shall not be returned, nor shall the lessee have the right to set up any pretension or claim for damages in the matter; and all the buildings on the land must be surrendered within a certain term appointed by the Administration.\n\n11. After the expiration of the term of the lease, as stated in paragraph 2 of this Agreement, the lessee shall have the right to remove all buildings and other improvements that have been constructed on the land.\n\n12. All notarial expenses on account of this lease, and also the stamp duty in case this Agreement is brought into a Russian Court, shall be paid by the lessee.\n\n13. All misunderstandings that might arise between the parties to this Agreement regarding its execution shall be liable to litigation in accordance with the statutes of justice in the Pogranitchnaiya District Court.\n\n14. This Agreement shall be kept sacred and inviolable. The original shall be kept by the lessee, and a copy by the Administration of the Railway Company.\n\nAFFAIRS OF CHINA.\n\nCONFIDENTIAL.\n\n[40913]\n\nNo. 1.\n\n[November 23.]\n\nSECTION 2.\n\nSir J. Jordan to Sir Edward Grey.-(Received November 23.) (No. 478.) Sir,\n\nPeking, October 26, 1908. THE Reform Decree of the 27th August, which was the subject of my despatches Nos. 390 and 408 of the 2nd and 14th ultimo, was followed on the 23rd instant by another Decree of the Empress-Dowager, commanding all public departments, besides those directly concerned in the preparation for Parliamentary Government, to furnish within six months a statement of the reforms which they propose to introduce within the next nine years, and also to present periodical reports on the work accomplished. I have the honour to inclose a translation of this Decree herewith.\n\nI have, &c. (Signed)\n\nInclosure in No. 1,\n\nJ. N. JORDAN.\n\nDecree issued by the Empress Dowager on the 23rd October respecting Constitutional Reform in China,\n\n(Translation.)\n\nAN Imperial Decree has already been issued directing various departments of the Administration to carry out various measures in preparation for the inauguration of a Parliament in accordance with the Memorial submitted by the Constitutional Reform Commission and the Senate. These Imperial instructions were addressed to those departments most directly concerned in the establishment of a Parliament, but it is also the duty of other departments to introduce reforms which will assist in securing the success of the scheme. Thus the Wai-wu Pu should pay special attention to the conduct of international relations, the Board of Civil Office should improve the system of selecting officers for employment, the Board of Rites, the Board of Agriculture, and the other departments should introduce reforms in the various matters coming within their jurisdiction, and should do all in their power to further the attainment of constitutional reform. Even in the case of the Government offices directly referred to in the Memorial-the Boards of the Interior, of Finance, of Education, and of Law- there are many steps to be taken which have not been definitely specified. All the Public Departments are now directed to furnish within six months a statement of the reforms which they propose to introduce during the next nine years, and they must also furnish periodical reports on the measures taken by them, and these reports will be referred to the Constitutional Reform Commission and submitted to the Throne.\n\n[2029 -2\n\n-2]",
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    {
        "id": 418011,
        "series_id": 27,
        "series_slug": "histsyn-co129-engine",
        "series_title": "CO129 Colonial Office Hong Kong Records 理藩院香港檔案",
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        "document_key": "CO129-353 - Public Offices - 1908",
        "page_number": 723,
        "title": "CO129-353 - Public Offices - 1908",
        "content_text": "# \nفي \n718 \n2 \n\n## \nThe selection has not, as was to be expected, given complete satisfaction, and considerable anxiety is still felt as to the attitude of a strong faction of Manchus, headed by his Excellency Tieh-liang, who, as President of the Army Board, has naturally to be reckoned with, but the Viceroys at Tien-tsin and Mukden, and the Commander-in-chief of the Metropolitan province, all of whom have large bodies of troops at their disposal, are understood to be strong supporters of the new régime.\n\nThere is no irregularity, from a Chinese standpoint, in the choice of the successor, as there was in the case of the last Emperor, but the arrangement, although probably the best that could be made in the circumstances, is open to obvious criticism.\n\nFor a period of nearly fifty years the Manchu dynasty, whose early Emperors were men of strong character, has produced no Sovereign fitted to exercise personal rule, and ever since 1860, when China entered into regular diplomatic relations with foreign Powers, the control of affairs has been almost uninterruptedly vested in the hands of the Empress-Dowager.\n\nTwo long minorities or Regencies are now to be followed by a third, which will probably extend over another period of fifteen years. But the situation is not without its compensating advantages. For the first time in history, the supreme direction of Chinese affairs will be in the hands of a man who has seen something of foreign countries, who has come freely into contact with the outer world and will presumably remain in close touch with the life of the Empire.\n\nPrince Ch'un, who is now a man of about 26, went to Germany as a boy of 18 in 1901 on the mission of apology for the murder of Baron von Ketteler, and his experiences on that occasion must have impressed him with the power of the West and given him some insight into foreign customs.\n\nAfter his return, he took little part in public affairs until 1906, when he was appointed President of a Special Committee to examine the proposals made by the Imperial Commissioners who had been sent abroad in that year to study and report on the administrative systems of foreign countries.\n\nIn June 1907, he was created a member of the Grand Council, the Cabinet which meets daily in the presence of the Emperor, and the body on whose advice he will as Regent doubtless be guided in the conduct of State affairs.\n\nIt is evident that a Regent who assumes power in such circumstances is likely to be more amenable to enlightened influence than an autocratic lady whose life had been passed in the seclusion of the Palace, and as the Empress herself foreshadowed in her valedictory address to the Empire, the change of Government gives scope for the introduction of reforms.\n\nThe Prince is favourably known to the foreign Legations and has, since his assumption of office, comported himself with a dignity and sagacity which have made a favourable impression in official circles.\n\nThe training of the young Emperor, who now enters the Palace as a healthy boy of 3, is exciting some attention, and there is among the better class of officials a fairly general feeling that he should not be exposed to the influences to which his two predecessors have in turn succumbed.\n\nBut Palace reform is a large question, all the changes which have taken place in recent years having left the power of the eunuchs untouched.\n\n## \nI have the honour to inclose copies of a series of Decrees which have been issued in connection with the demise of the Emperor and Empress-Dowager and the inauguration of the new reign, together with copies of my replies to Prince Ching's notes announcing the Imperial deaths.\n\nHis other communications have all received the usual formal acknowledgment.\n\nThese papers are naturally couched for the most part in the stereotyped phraseology of centuries, but there are one or two passages which strike a different note and make an appeal to the `nation` on modern lines.\n\nIn their valedictory addresses, both the Emperor and Empress-Dowager lay special stress upon the establishment of a Constitutional Government; the Emperor takes credit to himself for having effected a reconciliation between the Christian and non-Christian elements in the population, for having promoted education and encouraged trade, and for having placed the army on a better footing; while the Empress, as before noted, takes a hopeful view of the future and of the prospect which a long minority affords of pushing forward the cause of reform.\n\nIt may not be out of place, on the threshold of a new era, to place on record as briefly as possible a few of the leading events in the reign which has just closed.\n\nThe last Emperor, T'ung Chih, died on the 17th January, 1875, at the early age of 18. His wife was pregnant at the time, but died without giving birth to her child.\n\nHis mother, the Empress-Dowager, had practically been Regent during the whole of his reign, and determined, in order to give herself a further lease of power, to adopt the infant son of Prince Ch'un as the future Emperor.\n\nPrince Ch'un was the younger brother of her husband, the late Emperor Hsien Feng, and his wife was her sister. The youthful Emperor, therefore, was closely related to her both on the father and mother's side, and to make the tie still closer, she acquired the authority of a mother over him by making him the posthumous heir, not of the last Emperor, but of her own husband, Hsien Feng - an arrangement which gave grave dissatisfaction, and was always regarded as a flaw in his title to the succession.\n\nThe Emperor came of age in 1887, and on the 26th February, 1889, married his cousin, the daughter of the Empress-Dowager's brother, by whom, for reasons well understood, he had no issue.\n\nA Decree of the 11th July, 1886, had announced that he would assume personal direction of the Government early in the following year, but a little later the Empress-Dowager made it publicly known that she would, \"in deference to the desires of the whole nation,\" continue to supervise the young Monarch's acts.\n\nIn March 1891, Kuang Hsü gave his first audience to the foreign Representatives. A fragile, delicate youth with a melancholy face, he gave the impression of having little intelligence or strength of character, and his appearance changed but little in after-years.\n\nAt the audiences of 1891 and 1892, which he conducted himself, he seemed to take some interest in the proceedings, but in recent years, when he occupied a position markedly below that of the Empress-Dowager, he remained an absolutely passive spectator of what was going on.\n\nThe war with Japan in 1894, and the various acts of foreign aggression which followed it, produced a movement in favour of reform which soon began to make itself felt throughout the Empire.\n\nIn 1898, the Emperor came under the influence of a band of young officials and scholars, whose leader, Kang Yu-wei, was generally regarded as a worthless visionary.\n\nA series of startling Decrees appeared in June and July of that year, by which the system of examination was to be radically changed in favour of Western learning; the Government was to be completely reorganized; colleges and schools for the advancement of scientific knowledge were to be established, and the right to memorialize the Throne direct was to be conferred upon all officials without regard to rank.\n\nThese innovations, some of which have since been introduced, were viewed at the time with consternation by the Empress-Dowager and the more conservative of the governing class.\n\nRumours of a plot to remove the Dowager Empress to a place of confinement, where she would be powerless to hamper the new régime, called for immediate action.\n\nThe reformers were executed or fled the country, and all their work was undone by a Decree which purported to be issued by the Emperor himself, and which terminated his brief assertion of authority.\n\nIn a Decree dated the 31st January, 1900, the Emperor was made to recall the arrangement come to at the time of his accession, by which, on an heir being born to him, the child was to become the heir of the late Emperor.\n\nHis Majesty regretted the failure of this arrangement owing to his own ill-health, and announced that the Empress-Dowager had, at his own request, selected Pu Ch'un, the son of Prince Tuan, to be the Heir-Apparent.\n\nOn the outbreak of the Boxer troubles a few months later, and the advance of the foreign troops on Peking, the Imperial family fled to Hsi-an Fu, and only returned to the capital in January 1902.\n\nPu Ch'un, whose father had been the main instigator of the Boxer movement, was disinherited, and the old relations were resumed between the Empress-Dowager and the Emperor.\n\nAlthough Kuang Hsü was almost a nonentity as any Emperor, his reign will mark the parting of the ways in Chinese history as the period which witnessed the national awakening of the Empire.\n\nThe figment of almost universal supremacy, to which China had so long clung, received a rude shock in her exclusion from Corea, Tongking, and Burma, and the loss of Formosa was a still severer blow.\n\nWar and internal troubles have saddled her with a heavy foreign debt, and the navy, which was built up at such expense in the early years of the reign, disappeared with the battle of the Yalu.\n\nForeign Powers have become lessees of important strategic points on the coast and have pushed lines of railway far into the interior as instruments of further encroachment.\n\nHer capital and its approaches are still occupied by foreign troops, and Manchuria, the home of her rulers, has been twice practically lost and is still only partially recovered.\n\nThese are some of the losses on the debit side of the account. The items of the credit side are perhaps less tangible, but not the less real.\n\nIn the first year of Kuang Hsü's reign, the short line of railway from Shanghae to Woosung was torn up, and for years afterwards railways were tabooed by the Chinese.\n\nNow there are some 6,000 miles constructed or under construction, mostly built by foreign enterprise and with foreign capital.",
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        "id": 421221,
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        "series_title": "CO129 Colonial Office Hong Kong Records 理藩院香港檔案",
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        "document_key": "CO129-360 - Public Offices - 1909",
        "page_number": 10,
        "title": "CO129-360 - Public Offices - 1909",
        "content_text": "## Decrees issued on November 15, 1908\n\nremains. Now that His late Majesty has departed this life, we decree that all Tartar-Generals, Governors-General, Governors, Manchu Lieutenant-Generals and Deputy Lieutenant-Generals, Commanders-in-chief, Brigade-Generals, and Military Commandants, the Military Governors of the Western and Northern Provinces, Provincial Treasurers, Directors of Education, Salt Commissioners, Superintendents of Customs and of Imperial Manufactories, and other officers shall not apply for permission to come to the capital for the purpose of paying their respects to the Imperial remains, as their posts would thereby be left vacant. It is incumbent on these officers to show the utmost zeal in the performance of their duties, and thereby, rather than by empty phrases, prove themselves worthy of the responsibilities intrusted to them.\n\nLet general instructions to this effect be issued.\n\n## Appointments for Mourning Rites\n\nNovember 15, 1908.\n\nPrinces Su and No-lo-ho, Duke Po-ti-su, Military Lieutenant-Governor of the Khor-ch'in tribe, the Assistant Grand Secretaries Jung-ching and Lu-ch'uan-lin, Lu Jun-hsiang, President of the Board of Civil Office, the Comptroller of the Household, Kuei-chun, the Senior Vice-President of the Board of Rites, and Ching-hou are directed to make all arrangements in connection with the mourning rites of Her late Majesty the August Empress Dowager.\n\n## Decrees issued on November 16, 1908\n\nIn addition to the Princes and officers already nominated, Prince Kung and P'u-t'ing, President of the Board of Agriculture, Industry, and Commerce, are directed to assist in carrying out the mourning rites for Her late Majesty the August Empress Dowager.\n\nOn the occasion of the death of Her late Majesty the August Empress Dowager, the Governors-General, Governors, and other high provincial officers, having all their respective duties to attend to, should not apply for permission to come to the capital for the purpose of paying their respects to the Imperial remains, but should display their zeal by exerting themselves to the utmost in the transaction of the affairs of the State rather than by means of mere ceremonies and phrases.\n\nIt is fitting that the gates of the Forbidden City should be guarded with the utmost care and reverence, and repeated instructions have been issued to the high officer responsible to prohibit the entrance of unauthorized persons, and to have a close watch kept on all entering or leaving the forbidden precincts. In spite, however, of these reiterated commands there has recently been some laxity in the enforcement of the prohibition, and it is therefore necessary to issue a further injunction on the subject. The Commandants of the Vanguard, the Captain-General of the Guards, and the Comptroller of the Household are directed to instruct the troops on duty that they must display the utmost vigilance and prevent the entrance or exit of unauthorized persons falsely claiming to be on official business. Should there continue to be any remissness after the issue of the present Decree, the high officer responsible will be severely punished.\n\n## Decree of the Empress Dowager\n\nOfficers on daily duty in the Imperial Palace are directed, in accordance with precedent, to reside and sleep within the Palace; no other officers of any description are permitted to do so.\n\n## Decree of the Emperor\n\nMembers of Her late Majesty the August Empress Dowager's own family are directed to wear full mourning during a period of 100 days.\n\n## Decrees of the Emperor, November 17, 1908\n\nEulogizes His late Majesty, and commands that a suitable posthumous title for his reign shall be composed, in accordance with custom.\n\nThe chief points noted in regard to the deceased Emperor and his reign are that throughout thirty-four years His late Majesty devoted all his care and attention to State affairs, under the guidance of the late Empress Dowager; that he kept a check over the officials, from whom he exacted conscientious labour; that he always showed solicitude for the welfare of the people; and that he inaugurated many reforms in education, the army, finance, currency, the pacification of frontier tribes, the cultivation of waste lands, the encouragement of trade and industry, the introduction of new weights and measures, the development of posts, shipping, railways, mines, &c. By honouring the memory of Confucius His Majesty paid respect for the past. By making Commercial Treaties foreign relations were cemented. With due regard for national customs and beliefs the Penal Code was revised. The differences between Manchus and Chinese were composed. All these steps led towards the establishment of constitutional government after nine years.\n\n## Decree\n\nHis late Majesty having selected no place of burial, let P'an Lun and Ch'en Pi proceed with diviners to the Eastern and Western Tombs and reverently investigate the location of a site.\n\nLet them prepare plans and a Report for submission to the Throne.\n\n## Decree\n\nCh'en Pin Chun and other physicians to His late Majesty are degraded two steps in rank.\n\n## Decree\n\nChang Chung Yuan and others, officials of the Imperial College of Physicians, are degraded but allowed to remain in office.\n\n## Decree received by the Grand Secretariat, November 18, 1908\n\nThe Princes and Ministers have represented to us the difficulties involved in three years' mourning, and have begged that the old rule may be followed.\n\nIn perusing the Memorial our grief has been increased. We have inherited His late Majesty's high estate, and even if we bore mourning throughout our whole life it would still be an insufficient recognition of the favour which has been bestowed upon us. How can it be said that three years' mourning suffices to demonstrate our affliction or to discharge the ceremonial observance of our loss? Moreover, three years' mourning is the right of every parent, from the lowliest to the Son of Heaven. It is so written in the Book of Rites, and how should we dare to disobey? If we dispensed with mourning after twenty-seven days our conscience would verily rebel!\n\nLet officials and people mourn in accordance with the old rule (i.e., twenty-seven days). We will verily follow the ancient rule and mourn for three years.\n\n[Note. The significance of this Decree is shaken by the discovery that it is textually the same as one issued in 1875 by the late Emperor under similar circumstances. TRANSLATOR.]\n\n## Decree\n\nPromotes various concubines of the late Emperor, and grants them each an allowance of 500 taels per mensem.\n\n## Decree\n\nTang Shao Yi memorializes by telegraph, asking whether his Imperial letter for the American President should be changed, and suggesting the alteration of the last character in his name. [“Yi,\" which is the same as the last character in the new Emperor's name, “P'u-Yi.”—TRANSLATOR.]\n\nLet the Board take note.\n\n## Decree handed to the Grand Secretariat, November 18, 1908\n\nTo-day the Grand Council received the mark of the Vermilion Pencil selecting the two characters \"Hsun-Tung\" [the Proclaimed Succession] as the title of the new reign.",
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        "series_title": "CO129 Colonial Office Hong Kong Records 理藩院香港檔案",
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        "page_number": 39,
        "title": "CO129-361 - Public Offices - 1909",
        "content_text": "## \n\nOn the afternoon of the 29th ultimo, the Viceroy refused me an interview on the plea of ill-health, and at the same time, I received a confidential note from Mr. T. Y. Key, the Sub-Director of the Foreign Office, informing me that the true reason for this refusal was that his Excellency had sent in his resignation. His Excellency, I have since heard, had refused all visitors for some days.\n\nI telegraphed this information to you immediately, and on the 31st, I sent a further telegram, in which I stated that the general impression here was that his Excellency's action was connected with the removal of Yuan Shih-k'ai, and that his resignation would sooner or later be followed by the dismissal of the leading members of the Administration.\n\nYesterday, I again saw Mr. M. T. Liang, who informed me that the Viceroy had received a very complimentary Edict from Peking, and had been told that it was quite out of the question that his services could be dispensed with. Mr. Liang, though not committing himself definitely, gave me the impression that his Excellency was unlikely to continue in office. The attacks made upon him by the Censorate had, Mr. Liang said, annoyed his Excellency considerably, and, in the absence of strong backing in Peking, he seems to fear that he will be exposed to a constant repetition of similar persecution.\n\nThe opinion of Yuan Shih-k'ai's protégés here, men such as Mr. Liang, Mr. Chou, the Newchiwang Taotai, and Mr. Key, though they express themselves very cautiously, seems to be that his Excellency's downfall is largely due to Japanese intrigue, and that Hsu Shih-chang and Tang Shao-yi are to be got rid of for the same reason. As to how far this is true, I am of course unable to form an opinion, but there can be no doubt but that the policy of the present Manchurian Government has been marked by a determined opposition to Japan. To quote a favourite expression of his Excellency Tang: \"Japan may do wrong in Manchuria, but she shall never do it with our consent.\" I gather that Yuan was the principal supporter of such views in the Grand Council.\n\nI am unable to learn locally exactly what charges are formulated against the Viceroy, but I presume that a great deal is made of his extravagance in financial matters.\n\nThere can be no doubt but that their Excellencies Hsu and Tang put a great stress on the provincial finances by their expenditure during the first few months of their tenure of office.\n\nThe Viceroy's new yamên, generally described as Government House, is a pretentious building. On the ground floor, more than 100 clerks work daily in the central hall; there are excellent reception rooms, and a banqueting hall which will seat from 300 to 400 guests, whilst the Viceroy's private residence occupies the whole of the first floor. The building, which was designed by Mr. Tang Shao-yi personally, has been furnished in European style, the total cost of building and furniture being upwards of 250,000 taels.\n\nThere has further been a large amount of unproductive capital expenditure on schools, hospitals, and prisons, whilst no results can be expected for some years from the newly established Agricultural and Forestry Departments.\n\nAn attempt has also been made to deal with the proverbial dishonesty of the Chinese official by placing him on a fixed salary, and then requiring him to produce correct accounts. The emoluments and allowances have been calculated on what seems to me a very liberal scale, and Mr. Liang assures me that the scheme is already producing the desired effect.\n\nIn consequence of these schemes, the expenditure has exceeded the revenue, which at present amounts to 6,000,000 taels approximately, during the past year, but Mr. Liang is confident that in normal years the revenue is sufficient for the present needs of the province.\n\nThe Viceroy is a man of considerable personal dignity and charm of manner. He has by this time a sound knowledge of the Manchurian situation, a correct appreciation of the needs of the country, broad views, and tact in dealing with the difficult diplomatic questions that beset him. He is readily accessible to the foreign Representatives and to any foreign visitor of distinction, and is beloved and trusted by his subordinates, whilst his reputation for personal integrity is untarnished.\n\nThe Government has undoubtedly been weakened by the absence of his Excellency Tang Shao-yi, who supplied the initiative and energy in which the Viceroy is to some extent lacking.\n\nThey worked to all appearance in complete harmony - in fact, they shared the same public office, and together formed a combination that I think it will be very difficult, if not impossible, for China at the present moment to replace satisfactorily.\n\nOne can only say that they were working along progressive lines, and they both understood the necessity of not rushing matters; under a change of Administration, it is to be feared that the germs of reform initiated by them will be allowed to perish. My American colleague tells me that he has already noticed a marked lack of interest in the agricultural enterprises since Yuan's dismissal.\n\nIt is too early as yet to judge of their various reform schemes. I hope later to write a detailed report on their reforms. Meantime, as a pendant to this despatch, the following list of the enterprises undertaken by the Government during the past fifteen months may be of interest:-\n\n1. The building of Government House, which has incidentally led to an improved method of official intercourse which now takes place under civilized conditions. The foreign Consular Representatives are also on friendly social terms with the leading members of the Administration.\n\n2. The establishment of primary schools throughout Fengtien Province and secondary schools at the more important centres. At Mukden, a law school has been established under Japanese professors, who lecture on Chinese law, constitutional law, and international law. The intention is to use the graduates of this college in the provincial magistracies, and also to employ them as lecturers with the view of interesting the people in public questions.\n\n3. A civil hospital has been built and placed under the charge of a German doctor. The Government have also subscribed liberally to Dr. Christie's hospital (Scotch Presbyterian), and have promised him an annual grant of 4,000 dollars to assist him in establishing a medical school.\n\n4. Two agricultural experts have been engaged from the United States, and land has been given them for starting experimental farms at Harbin, Mukden, and Antung.\n\n5. Mr. von Platen, the German expert on forestry, has informed me that he has more than 2,000,000 saplings (acacia) in his experimental nursery at Mukden.\n\n6. New Courts have been built and new judicial Regulations issued.\n\n7. Two new prisons on modern lines have been erected in Mukden, and prisoners are forced to industrial employment.\n\n8. A civil engineer (Mr. Hughes) has been engaged as adviser, and under his direction, surveys have been made, firstly, with the view of opening a new ice-free port, and, secondly, for the conservancy of the Liao River. These are the Viceroy's favourite projects.\n\n9. The Viceroy has repeatedly expressed his desire to introduce permanent colonists from Chihli and Shantung into Northern Manchuria, but I fear that owing to lack of funds, no move has as yet been made in this direction.\n\n10. The principal streets in Mukden have been metalled; there has been some attempt at drainage and lighting, and a tolerably efficient police force has been enrolled.\n\n11. The Province of Fengtien has been cleared of bandits, though the \"Hun Hu-tzus\" still range freely over the two northern provinces.\n\nI have, &c.  \n(Signed)  \nR. WILLIS.\n\n## Page 37",
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        "series_title": "CO129 Colonial Office Hong Kong Records 理藩院香港檔案",
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        "page_number": 137,
        "title": "CO129-361 - Public Offices - 1909",
        "content_text": "# C.O. 13950\n**[This Document is the Property of His Britannic Majesty's Government.]**\n## AFFAIRS OF CHINA.\n**CONFIDENTIAL,**\n\n(No. 83.) Sir,\n\n### No. 1.\nRECO Rcc 24 APR 09\n\n[March 18.]\n\n#### SECTION 3.\n135\n\nSir J. Jordan to Sir Edward Grey.-(Received March 18.)\n\nPeking, February 19, 1909.\n\nI HAVE the honour to transmit herewith, for your information, copy of an interesting Report, which has been prepared at His Majesty's Consulate-General, Canton, on the reform movement as affecting modern conditions in that city.\n\nI have, &c.  \n(Signed) J. N. JORDAN.\n\n### Inclosure 1 in No. 1.\n\n(No. 7.) Sir,\n\nActing Consul-General Fox to Sir J. Jordan.\n\nCanton, January 28, 1909. WITH reference to your Circular dated the 6th October last, I have the honour to forward a short Report, prepared by Mr. Vice-Consul Porter and myself, on modern conditions in Canton.\n\nI am transmitting this Report under flying seal to the Governor of Hong Kong.\n\nI have, &c.  \n(Signed) HARRY H. FOX.\n\n### Inclosure 2 in No. 1.\n\n#### Report respecting the Reform Movement in Canton.\n\n##### Introduction.\n\nTHE prominent part played by the Cantonese in the Empire's affairs, both political and commercial, during recent years, and the considerable share they have always taken by means of their well-organized guilds and charitable institutions in the Government of the Canton Province, might reasonably lead one to expect that in this province, more than in any other, the awakening of political activity and the inauguration of administrative and social reforms, would form real and potent factors in the political situation in South China at the present time.\n\nThis expectation has not, as far as our experience goes, been realized, and the measure of reform that has been introduced in this great city is, compared with what has been effected in other parts of China, relatively inconsiderable and most disappointing.\n\n##### The Self-Government Society.\n\nPolitical activity, of a kind, is certainly not wanting in Canton, while the Provincial Government have, until quite recently, done nothing to prepare for the Constitutional Government promised in the Edict of 1906, the Cantonese formed some two years ago a popular Association, which has since become notorious under the name of Self-Government Society (\"Tzu Chih Hui\").\n\nThe raison d'être of this Society was ostensibly to promote the study of Constitutional problems, and thus enable its members to fit themselves for their future parliamentary duties. The real meaning of the name chosen for the Society is \"Self-Discipline Society,\" but the transition from the government of self to the government by self as the guiding principle of the Society was not long in taking place, and the Society to-day stands avowedly for government by the people.",
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        "title": "CO129-371 - Public Offices - 1910",
        "content_text": "# Local Self-Government.---How should it be inaugurated? How are the funds to be provided?\n\nEducation. How general education is to be provided and paid for? On what lines are industrial schools to be introduced?\n\nPolice. The present police force is insufficient. What steps should be taken to provide a proper force, and how are the funds to be provided?\n\nTrade and Industry.--How should methods of agriculture be improved, with special reference to the use of chemical fertilisers and modern systems of irrigation? How is trade to be encouraged? What new industries to be developed, new markets opened up? How are banking methods to be reorganised, and reforms introduced into the salt monopoly? Should the statutory interest charged by pawnbrokers be revised? How are the instructions of the central Government in regard to the issue of paper money to be carried out?\n\nLand Tax-An improved scheme is put before the members for the collection of the land tax and a discussion of its merits requested.\n\nWeights and Measures.-How to introduce a uniform system?\n\nThe assembly in November was engaged in digesting this wide programme, but no report of the debates had appeared in the papers, although accommodation was provided for newspaper reporters.\n\n## MANCHURIA\n\n### Feng-tien (Mukden) Province\n\nElectorate. There is little detailed information. The province was divided into forty-five electoral districts for the first election of delegates, and eight centres for the second election of the members of the assembly.\n\nFirst Election.--The election of delegates took place on the 7th May, 1909, and it is stated that 52,679 qualified voters registered their votes. Assuming the population of the province to be about 8,000,000, there was approximately one qualified voter to every 150 inhabitants, or double the proportion in Shantung.\n\nSecond Election. Composition of Assembly.--The election of members occurred on the 1st June. Of the 50 elected, 26 have official rank, 42 have literary degrees, and 4 have studied in Japan. They vary in age from 30 to 74.\n\nOpening Ceremony.-The opening of the assembly took place on the fixed date, the 14th October, in the presence of the Viceroy and governor, a special building costing 60,000 taels (£7,000) having been erected for the purpose.\n\nBusiness.---According to the press reports, the following questions have been placed before the Mukden assembly for discussion:\n\n1. Funds for local government purposes.\n\n2. Prohibition of opium.\n\n3. Organisation of police.\n\n4. Funds for education.\n\n5. Organisation of agricultural associations.\n\n6. Extension of wheat and bean crops.\n\n7. Improvement of sericulture and wool.\n\n8. Currency, trade, waterways, mines, and fisheries questions.\n\n9. Reorganisation of the land and other taxes.\n\n### KIRIN PROVINCE\n\nOpposition to Governor.-No information except a general statement that the assembly has manifested a strong opposition to the policy of the governor, who is reported to have written to the Viceroy stating that the province is not yet ripe for the adoption of parliamentary institutions. (These reports have since been denied in the press).\n\n### HEILUNGCHIANG PROVINCE\n\nOpening-Beyond a bare announcement that the assembly was opened at Tsitsihar at the due date by the governor, there is little information in the press.\n\n## CHIHLI\n\nOpening Ceremony. The provincial assembly of Chihli held its opening meeting on the 14th October in Li Hung-chang's Memorial Temple at Hopei, Tien-tsin.\n\nSpecial assembly buildings are at present being erected on an extensive scale, but will not be completed before May next.\n\nViceroy's Speech-His Excellency Tuan Fang, Viceroy of Chihli, opened the proceedings, in the presence of a full attendance of members, by reading the Imperial edict of the 13th October. In the subsequent speech, the Viceroy dwelt particularly on two points:\n\n1. In considering local interests, the assembly should always keep steadily in mind the larger national interests.\n\n2. The assembly must beware of overstepping the limited rights conferred upon it.\n\nA president and two vice-presidents were then elected. Salaries are fixed as follows: president, 150 taels per month; vice-president, 120 taels; and members, 70 taels per month, with travelling expenses.\n\nGovernment Programme of Business.--The subjects submitted by Viceroy Tuan and discussed by the assembly were:-\n\n1. A proposal to substitute cash for grain tribute from certain districts.\n\n2. Institution of a census.\n\n3. The development of instruction in easy writing.\n\n4. The reform of the police regulations.\n\n5. Enquiry into the system of official runners.\n\nTo these has to be added-\n\n6. Plan for carrying out local autonomy in Chihli, a subject suggested by the Constitutional Government Committee.\n\nDebates. Owing to the number and variety of subjects for discussion, the original session of forty days was extended ten days. The debates were open to the public, but it appears that few took advantage of this privilege. They were not reported in the native press, which is apparently waiting for the presentation of the assembly's reports and the Viceroy's comments thereon before dealing with the subject. The session was concluded on the 3rd December, when nine members were elected to represent the assembly in the Senate.\n\nRelations of Assembly to Senate and Central Government.-The regulations which govern the constitution of the assembly provide that the opinions it forms should be submitted direct to the Senate in Peking. In the meantime, as the Senate is not yet in being, the assembly reports to the Viceroy, who, at the conclusion of the session, explains the official attitude on the subjects of the reports. It has been suggested by a censor that this viceregal superintendence detracts to a great extent from the usefulness of the assembly, the object of whose existence is the discussion of public affairs by persons independent of the Government. That the central Government is exceedingly anxious as to the behaviour of the newly-constituted body is evidenced by the fact that they have several times by telegram urged the Viceroy to keep a strict watch that the assembly does not exceed its rights, and that this nervousness is to some extent justified may be realised from the reports that twelve representatives of the assembly requested the Wai-wu Pu in a memorial to cancel the agreement lately concluded between China and Japan concerning the Manchurian question. Interference of this sort in matters which lie between the central Government and foreign States was of course frowned upon, and the memorial promptly pigeon-holed. The incident serves to draw one's attention to what will be a certain source of trouble in the future.\n\nThe above is taken from a memorandum by Mr. G. A. Combe, of His Britannic Majesty's consulate-general at Tien-tsin.\n\n## HONAN\n\nPreliminary Steps,-We learn from a published memorial of the Governor of Honan that in November 1908, an organisation office was established, and preliminary steps after the Shantung model were taken.\n\nVoting Lists-Voting lists were completed by March 1909, and the elections commenced in June.\n\nOpening. The opening of the assembly at K'ai-feng-fu at 10 A.M. on the 14th October was mentioned in the native press. The day was kept as a holiday by\n\nPage 9\n\n[2605 7-21]\n\nD\n\n147\n\n1",
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        "title": "CO129-371 - Public Offices - 1910",
        "content_text": "· 16 \n\nabout 42; the oldest member is 70 years of age, and there are several who are barely 30. \n\nOpening.\"The opening of the council took place on the 1st day of the 9th month (14th October), the Viceroy performing the ceremony. \n\nViceroy's Speech.\" In his opening speech his Excellency pointed out the necessity of co-operation between the gentry and the officials, and cautioned the representatives against trying to proceed at too rapid a rate, saying that as the Government regulations provided for the gradual introduction of parliamentary institutions spreading over a period of ten years, they must not try to anticipate the reforms so provided for. 'This, with the election of the president and vice-president, completed the proceedings for the first day. The president, named P'u Tien Chun, appears to have been elected on his literary reputation. He is a well-known member of the local gentry, was first of his year in the examination for provincial graduates, and is a third-class secretary of one of the metropolitan boards (chu shih '). \n\n\"The council was then closed for thirteen days, reopening on the 15th day of the 9th month (28th October). When the council first met, the subjects for discussion had not all been prepared, so an adjournment was necessary for their completion. On account of this adjournment, the period of sitting has been extended five days, and the session will not close until the 16th day of the 10th month (28th November). \n\nProgramme of Business.\" On the opening day, the Viceroy handed over to the president a list of subjects for discussion that he himself had drawn up. The council does not confine its deliberations to these subjects, but also proposes questions for itself; moreover, the various high provincial officials frequently request the council to give them the benefit of their deliberation on matters of reorganisation and administration. As an indication of the scope of the council's discussions, a list of the subjects dealt with up to the present date, together with those named in the Viceroy's list, is included as an Appendix (Appendix A), \n\nProceedings of Assembly.\"The council sits every day (except Sundays, when there is no sitting) from 1 P.M. to about 5 P.M., with an interval of about twenty minutes in the middle. As there are usually three or four subjects to be dealt with each day, this time does not seem to admit of very thorough discussion. Examination of the published reports of the debates shows that the discussion is largely monopolised by a very few of the deputies, the greater number taking no part in the debates. Every day a certain number of the provincial officials are appointed by the Viceroy to be in attendance at the Chamber, and when matters touching on their administration are raised, these officials themselves take part in the debates. \n\nCriticism of Provincial Government; Altercation between Assembly and Provincial Government.\" Reports go to show that the council is very free in its discussion of the merits--or more frequently, the demerits--of the officials of the province. This independent attitude of theirs has already led to a mild constitutional struggle, that Accounts vary as seems to have done a little to raise the prestige of the council, \n\nto how the breach arose, but all agree that an attempt was made, either by the Viceroy or by his secretary in his name, to restrict the freedom of debate. The council were discussing, with great freedom, the conduct of certain officials, and the Viceroy's principal secretary, who is an expectant intendant of circuit and also the director of the official newspaper office, was sent to instruct the council that this was ultra vires. The president objecting to this ruling, the secretary went on to say that he was there as the representative of the Viceroy and that he therefore had full power to instruct the council as to what subjects were admissible and what were obnoxious—in other words, to point out to the council what subjects they might discuss. The council would not agree to this position, and the president told the secretary that the powers of the council were conferred by the Emperor and were therefore not to be diminished by the Viceroy, adding that a continuation of this attempted interference would compel him to telegraph a full account of the incident to the Constitutional Investigation Office in Peking. The secretary was thus compelled to withdraw, but on the next day the president apologized to the Viceroy, admitting that the discussion was out of order on the ground of irrelevance. In spite, however, of this admission, the general opinion seems to be that the incident has strengthened the position of the council. \n\nLittle Notice taken by the People.\" It might be thought that an assembly that has adopted so independent an attitude towards the officials and is dealing with subjects of such direct interest to the people would awaken a certain amount of excitement and enthusiasm among them; but it is no exaggeration to say that, so far as the preponderating majority are concerned, the people regard this revolutionary \n\n17 \n\nbody with an even milder interest than a parish council excites in England. This is no doubt explained in part by the absence of full newspaper reports of the debates, with free comments thereon. There are only two daily papers circulating in Chengtu: one of these is an official paper and the other is privately established. The reports of the debates appear only in the official paper, and then only in the form of a very brief précis, as will be seen from the typical specimen appended to this report (Appendix (B)). These reports are, I believe, substantially accurate, but are too brief to excite much interest, besides which the paper is not allowed to make any comments on the debates. The official paper at first appended its own opinions in the form of a parenthesis, but the president of the council informed the director of the newspaper office that this was not satisfactory to the council, and since then all comments in the papers have ceased. No report at all, but only a list of subjects, \n\nin the unofficial paper. appears \n\nI am given to understand that the management of this paper prepares reports of the council's proceedings for insertion in the paper, but that these are always disallowed by the police. \n\n\"It is probable, too, that the lack of interest on the part of the public is partly occasioned by the powerlessness of the council to carry any of its recommendations into effect. \n\nArrangements for Admission of the Public.--\"Arrangements have been made for the admission of the public to the galleries of the chamber, and also for the admission of newspaper reporters. The public are admitted by ticket. These tickets are procured, in the case of officials of the province, by writing direct to the president of the council; foreigners may obtain tickets by applying to the most convenient public office (this is explained as meaning the foreign bureau); and other people are admitted on the introduction of a member of the council, each member being allowed to \n\nintroduce two guests. Rules are drawn up providing for orderly and decorous conduct on the part of those so admitted. The people avail themselves of this privilege in good numbers, but from the general attitude of the public it would seem that in the majority of cases they attend rather from curiosity than from a genuine interest. \n\n\"Appendix (A). \n\n\"List of Subjects discussed by the Szechuan Provincial Council. \n\n\"1. Viceroy's original list:- \n\n\"Eradication of superstition. \n\n\"Institution of an experimental department for industrial machinery and \n\nimplements. \n\n\"Dispersion of illegal societies. \n\n\"Reform of the train-bands. \n\n\"Establishment of trade banks (Chin yeh yin hang '). \n\n\"Means of curing the opium habit. \n\n\"Establishment of 'schools for easy reading.\" \n\nC \n\nExpenses of police. \n\nExpenses of river police. \n\nDiscouragement of foot-binding. \n\nExpenses of the education department. \n\n\"Establishment of irrigation societies in district cities. \n\n\"Protection of woods and forests. \n\nPrevention of disputes between converts and other natives. \n\nEstablishment of textile societies. \n\n\"Establishment of a provincial society for the investigation of natural \n\nresources. \n\n\"Collection of fees in primary schools. \n\nFC \n\n** \n\nRaising of funds for the Szechuan Province Mining Supervisory \n\nCompany. \n\nImprovement of rapids on the river, \n\n\"Acceleration of the raising of capital for the Chuan-Han Railway. \n\n\"2. Other subjects dealt with up to the 17th November:- \n\n\"Collection of share capital by the Szechuan Province Mining Supervisory \n\nCompany. \n\n[2605 (-2) \n\n151",
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        "title": "CO129-371 - Public Offices - 1910",
        "content_text": "30\n\n# Chapter X-Expenditure\n\nArt. 53. The Viceroy or governor shall provide funds for the expenditure of the assembly as follows:---\n\n(1.) Travelling expenses of members.\n\n(2.) Public expenses of the president, vice-presidents, and standing committee.\n\n(3.) Salaries of the secretariat.\n\n(4.) Miscellaneous expenses,\n\n(5.) Advances on account of expenditure.\n\nArt. 54. The amounts of (2) and (3) of article 53 shall be fixed by the Viceroy or governor. Estimates of the other items shall be prepared by the assembly, and submitted for decision to the Viceroy or governor.\n\nArt. 55. The accounts shall be examined by the president and vice-presidents monthly, and a report laid before the assembly at the opening of each ordinary session.\n\n# Chapter XI-Disciplinary Punishments\n\nArt. 56. There are two disciplinary punishments (1) suspension for not more than ten days, and (2) expulsion.\n\nArt. 57. Suspension may be inflicted by joint decision of the president and vice-presidents; expulsion by vote of the House.\n\nArt. 58. A member who frequently transgresses the rules of the assembly, or whose speech or conduct is objectionable, may be suspended, or, in a gross case, expelled.\n\nArt. 59. A member who absents himself from the sessions without due reason, or who absents himself from the sittings of the assembly for ten days or more without due reason, shall be expelled.\n\nArt. 60. A member making irregular use of his position in the assembly shall be suspended, or, in a gross case, expelled.\n\n# Chapter XII-Supplementary Rules\n\nArt. 61. The above rules shall come into force on the date of the Imperial decree authorising them.\n\nArt. 62. Deficiencies in these rules shall be met by the provisional assembly concerned submitting draft proposals through the Viceroy or governor for the joint consideration of the constitutional Government committee and the Senate.\n\n(To the above is appended an elaborate Election Law in seven chapters and 115 articles.)\n\n[1905]\n\nNo. 9.) Sir,\n\n## Annex 1\n\n**Consul Fox to Sir Edward Grey.~(Received January 17, 1910.)**\n\nWuhu, December 23, 1909.\n\nUNDER instructions from His Majesty's Minister in Peking I have the honour to forward, for your perusal, duplicate copies of a short report on the recent provincial assembly held at Anking.\n\n## Enclosure\n\nI have, &c.\n\nHARRY H. FOX.\n\n31\n\nThis province, with an estimated population of 23,500,000, nominated in April of this year 80,000 electors, from whose ranks the eighty-three delegates to the assembly were subsequently chosen by ballot.\n\nThe management of both elections appears to have been in the hands of the local officials, who distributed voting papers at their discretion among the principal landholders, shop-keepers, and literary graduates in their respective districts. The process was rather one of \"selection\" than \"election,\"\n\nThe majority of the delegates are, I am told, members of what are termed the \"gentry\" of the province, i.e., retired officials and land-owners.\n\nThe session of the assembly lasted forty days, meetings being held about once a week.\n\nA representative of the governor was invariably present at these meetings.\n\nOwing to the non-existence of newspapers in this province the proceedings of the Anhui Assembly have not been given that publicity which similar assemblies have received in other parts of China, and I have in consequence been unable to obtain any precise information on the subject of the assembly's deliberations. Very little interest appears to be taken in the new institution by the people of Wuhu, the usual reply to my enquiries being that the delegates talked a great deal, but decided nothing. As regards the common people, their attitude towards the assembly is aptly summed up by one of my missionary correspondents, who writes to say that in his district, \"there is no popular enthusiasm for free institutions; the people resent any innovation that is likely to interfere with their daily struggle for existence.\" The words of another of my informants \"the people are quite content to have their representatives take a share in the government of the province as long as they are not asked to pay for the privilege.\"\n\nThere appears to be a growing feeling of uneasiness among the lower classes that the various projects of reform now in the air will entail additional taxation.\n\nThe following is a list of subjects which were, I understand, discussed at the assembly:-\n\n  \n    1.\n    Currency reform: to place the various silver dollars current in the province on a par, and to fix their value in relation to the copper coinage. To arrange that the land tax be paid in copper cents at their face value, i.e., 100 cents ≈ 1 dollar.\n  \n  \n    \n    [Note. There are six or seven different silver dollars current in this province: the Spanish \"Carolus,\" the Mexican, and the Chinese provincial dollars of Kiang Nan, Hupei, Anhui, &c., all of different and fluctuating values in relation to copper cents. For instance, the rates of exchange at the time of writing are: Carolus = 152 cents; Mexican = 126 cents; Chinese 123 cents.]\n  \n  \n    2.\n    To reform the administration of the salt gabelle, i.e., to effect a reduction in the retail price of salt by reducing the expenses of collection.\n  \n  \n    3.\n    The encouragement of local industries and manufactures.\n  \n  \n    4.\n    To raise funds for the purpose of introducing educational and administrative reforms, such as the establishment of schools and technical institutes, courts of law, municipal councils, &c.\n  \n  \n    5.\n    To suppress gambling, prostitution, and superstitious religious observances.\n  \n  \n    6.\n    To put an end to the practice of foot binding.\n  \n  \n    7.\n    To regulate theatrical performances and to prohibit idol processions.\n  \n  \n    8.\n    To exploit the province's coal mines.\n  \n\nIn reply to my enquiry as to why opium and railways were not included in this list, my informant, an intelligent scholar of the old school, said that, as the suppression of opium smoking had been definitely decided upon by the Government and people of China, the question required no further discussion, and that as regards railways, they involved complicated questions of finance which the delegates thought it prudent to leave the Government to deal with!\n\nHARRY H. FOX.\n\nWuhu, December 22, 1909.\n\n**Report by Consul Fox on First Provincial Assembly of Anhui.**\n\nTHE first provincial assembly of the elected representatives of the people of Anhui met at Anking, the provincial capital, on the 14th October last, the assembly being opened by the governor, his Excellency Chu Chia Pao, in person.\n\n[2605 7-2]\n\nK\n\n158",
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        "series_title": "CO129 Colonial Office Hong Kong Records 理藩院香港檔案",
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        "document_key": "CO129-371 - Public Offices - 1910",
        "page_number": 310,
        "title": "CO129-371 - Public Offices - 1910",
        "content_text": "This Document is the Property of His Britannic Majesty's Government\n\n308\n\n(2.)\n\nConstitutional Government Committee to Governor of Hunan.\n\n(Telegraphic.) (Translation.)\n\nYOUR telegram of 18th December.\n\nAny agreements contracted between viceroys or governors of provinces and foreigners must be approved by the board concerned, and such agreements cannot be described as issuing rules and regulations of merely provincial interest. Again, as regards the detailed rules affecting agreements of this nature, the board will depute the viceroy or governor to draw them up. These detailed rules are quite different from rules and regulations affecting purely provincial matters. It is for the board concerned to decide which of such agreements should be conducted by the board itself and which by the province. Pending the issue of regulations governing this question, it may be laid down that the provincial assembly may pass resolutions only on subjects where the rights of the province are at issue, and in accordance with the rules governing these assemblies. Questions which need reference to a board for their decision cannot, it is evident, be submitted for discussion to the provincial assembly.\n\nAFFAIRS OF CHINA.\n\nCONFIDENTIAL.\n\n[4638]\n\nNo. 1.\n\n5654\n\nRECO [February 24 FEB IC\n\nSECTION 1.\n\nActing Consul Smith to Sir Edward Grey.-(Received February 9, 1910.) (No. 9.) Sir,\n\nWuchow, December 31, 1909.\n\nI HAVE the honour to transmit to you herewith a copy of a report which I have sent to His Majesty's Minister at Peking on the Provincial Assembly at Kueilin.\n\nI have, &c.\n\nC. D. SMITH.\n\nEnclosure in No. 1.\n\nReport on the Provincial Assembly at Kueilin.\n\nTHE Provincial Assembly at Kueilin consists of fifty-eight elected members, as well as the governor, provincial treasurer, provincial judge, education commissioner, police intendant, and the local prefect and district magistrate, who are members ex officio. The elected members are all persons of some academic distinction, and two of them have attained the Hanlin degree.\n\nThe elections did not arouse much public interest, and were barely mentioned in the local press. The Assembly met for the first time on the 14th October in a building specially erected for the purpose in the Imperial city at Kueilin.\n\nTheir relations with the governor have not been without friction, in consequence, as I am informed, of an attempt on the governor's part to restrict their deliberations in certain respects, but I have not been able to obtain details.\n\nThe local press has reported nothing of the debates, but the decisions and comments of the governor on the reports addressed to him by the Assembly are now appearing.\n\nThe recommendations which have been wholly or partially sanctioned by the governor are as follows: The establishment of additional schools, the contributions to be allotted to the support of schools, alterations in school regulations, the establishment of schools of agriculture and silk culture, an increase in the land tax to meet educational expenditure (sanctioned in respect of places where the land tax is now insufficient for the purpose), the suppression of the sale of opium in the second year of Hsuan Tung (which, in view of the financial difficulty of sudden suppression, is sanctioned only to the extent that localities desirous of abandoning the sale of opium before the appointed date may do so).\n\nThe Assembly further propose reforms in the abuses of the li-kin system in the province, and the transfer of the provincial capital to Nanning, but the governor declared the former question to be outside the functions of the Assembly, and rejected the latter proposal as offering more disadvantages than advantages.\n\nTwo excursions have been made by the Assembly into the region of foreign politics—a protest against the appointment by foreign Powers of advisers to the Chinese Government, and an invitation to other provincial assemblies to join in a protest against the Manchurian Convention between China and Japan.\n\n[2633 i-1]",
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        "id": 428419,
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        "series_title": "CO129 Colonial Office Hong Kong Records 理藩院香港檔案",
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        "document_key": "CO129-371 - Public Offices - 1910",
        "page_number": 344,
        "title": "CO129-371 - Public Offices - 1910",
        "content_text": "Constitutional Government Committee to Governor of Hunan,\n\n(Telegraphic.) (Translation.)\n\nYOUR telegram of 18th December.\n\nAny agreements contracted between viceroys or governors of provinces and foreigners must be approved by the board concerned, and such agreements cannot be described as issuing rules and regulations of merely provincial interest. Again, as regards the detailed rules affecting agreements of this nature, the board will depute the viceroy or governor to draw them up. Those detailed rules are quite different from rules and regulations affecting purely provincial matters. It is for the board concerned to decide which of such agreements should be conducted by the board itself and which by the province. Pending the issue of regulations governing this question, it may be laid down that the provincial assembly may pass resolutions only on subjects where the rights of the province are at issue, and in accordance with the rules governing these assemblies. Questions which need reference to a board for their decision cannot, it is evident, be submitted for discussion to the provincial assembly.\n\n342\n\nThis Document is the Property of His Britannic Majesty's Government).\n\n5654\n\nAFFAIRS OF CHINA.\n\nCONFIDENTIAL.\n\n[February 21, 1910]\n\nSECTION 1.\n\n[4638]\n\n(No. 9.) Sir,\n\nNo. 1.\n\nActing Consul Smith to Sir Edward Grey,~(Received February 9, 1910.)\n\nWuchow, December 31, 1909.\n\nI HAVE the honour to transmit to you herewith a copy of a report which I have sent to His Majesty's Minister at Peking on the Provincial Assembly at Kueilin.\n\nI have, &c.\n\nC. D. SMITH.\n\nEnclosure in No. 1.\n\nReport on the Provincial Assembly at Kueilin.\n\nTHE Provincial Assembly at Kueilin consists of fifty-eight elected members, as well as the governor, provincial treasurer, provincial judge, education commissioner, police intendant, and the local prefect and district magistrate, who are members ex officio. The elected members are all persons of some academic distinction, and two of them have attained the Hanlin degree.\n\nThe elections did not arouse much public interest, and were barely mentioned in the local press. The Assembly met for the first time on the 14th October in a building specially erected for the purpose in the Imperial city at Kueilin.\n\nTheir relations with the governor have not been without friction, in consequence, as I am informed, of an attempt on the governor's part to restrict their deliberations in certain respects, but I have not been able to obtain details.\n\nThe local press has reported nothing of the debates, but the decisions and comments of the governor on the reports addressed to him by the Assembly are now appearing.\n\nThe recommendations which have been wholly or partially sanctioned by the governor are as follows: The establishment of additional schools, the contributions to be allotted to the support of schools, alterations in school regulations, the establishment of schools of agriculture and silk culture, an increase in the land tax to meet educational expenditure (sanctioned in respect of places where the land tax is now insufficient for the purpose), the suppression of the sale of opium in the second year of Hsuan Tung (which, in view of the financial difficulty of sudden suppression, is sanctioned only to the extent that localities desirous of abandoning the sale of opium before the appointed date may do so).\n\nThe Assembly further propose reforms in the abuses of the li-kin system in the province, and the transfer of the provincial capital to Nanning, but the governor declared the former question to be outside the functions of the Assembly, and rejected the latter proposal as offering more disadvantages than advantages.\n\nTwo excursions have been made by the Assembly into the region of foreign politics—a protest against the appointment by foreign Powers of advisers to the Chinese Government, and an invitation to other provincial assemblies to join in a protest against the Manchurian Convention between China and Japan.\n\n[2633 i-1]",
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    {
        "id": 429012,
        "series_id": 27,
        "series_slug": "histsyn-co129-engine",
        "series_title": "CO129 Colonial Office Hong Kong Records 理藩院香港檔案",
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        "document_key": "CO129-372 - Public Offices - 1910",
        "page_number": 353,
        "title": "CO129-372 - Public Offices - 1910",
        "content_text": "KIANGSU,\n\nThe appropriations for the assembly are stated to be 120,000 taels (15,000l.) for the buildings at Nanking, and 69,000 taels (7,500l.) annually for salaries, allowances and current expenditure. The payments to members are:-\n\n  \n    President\n    Taels.\n    150 a-month.\n  \n  \n    Two vice-presidents, each\n    \n    120\n  \n  \n    Members of standing committee, each\n    \n    70\n  \n  \n    Chief secretary\n    \n    100\n  \n  \n    Other secretaries, each\n    \n    50\n  \n\nDuring the session a committee presided over by the Viceroy and composed of the principal provincial officials sat every fifth day at the Viceroy's yamên for the purpose of dealing with business submitted by the assembly, and a similar committee was organised at the governor's yamên at Soochou.\n\nA passage of arms occurred between the Viceroy and the assembly in connection with a resolution advocating the construction of a railway from Hai-chou to Ch'ung-chiang as a form of relief works to alleviate distress caused by floods. The Viceroy approved the scheme, but remitted the resolution back to the assembly because of the difficulty of raising the necessary funds. The standing committee, in reply, reminded the Viceroy that it was only in the event of a divergence of opinion between him and the assembly that a matter should be referred back for further consideration, and they urged that, as the railway scheme had his approbation, his proper course was to do his utmost to carry it into operation. They accordingly declined to consider the matter further.\n\nIn his decisions on the resolutions submitted to him the Viceroy vetoed some as being outside the assembly's functions, others he remitted for further consideration, and a few he approved. In his minute he dwelt on the clause in the regulations empowering him to close the assembly in the event of his admonitions being disregarded. In reply the assembly contested his reading of the regulations, and protested against a minute such as this being made the occasion for reminding the members of the penalties to be incurred for infringing the regulations. His Excellency's attention was called to the fact that the provincial assemblies are the first step towards constitutional government.\n\nAt the request of the standing committee an extraordinary session was called for the 18th April, when it sat for twenty days allotted by regulations. In the petition of the standing committee to the Viceroy it was pointed out that of the forty-six resolutions submitted to the executive only five had been given effect to. The relations between the assembly and the authorities during this session would appear to have been harmonious, though complaint was made that the Viceroy did not give immediate effect to the resolutions passed by the members, even when they were approved.\n\nThe principal matters dealt with of interest to foreigners referred to:—\n\nPayment of Land Tax by Foreigners.-The assembly complained that in spite of the Viceroy's approval of the principal, no effect had been given to their resolution, and the question had been simply referred to the Shanghai taotai. His Excellency replied that the report of the taotai was essential, and that he would direct that official to forward it as soon as possible.\n\nPao-Shan Title Deeds.--The assembly requested that no more official deeds should be issued to foreigners for land in this district. The Viceroy replied that the right to purchase land in Pao-Shan was accorded in 1900, and that he could not now withdraw it, but he undertook that the greatest care should be exercised in order to prevent abuses.\n\nThe assembly have now asked for papers on the subject to see whether this right cannot be recovered.\n\nLand outside Settlements. The assembly requested that official deeds for lands outside settlements should not be granted to foreigners. They also referred to foreigners establishing firms in the interior, especially the Japanese, and pointed out that the treaty of Shimonosiki only authorised the temporary renting of premises in the interior.\n\nShanghai Taotai.-The assembly preferred the following charges against the taotai Tsai Nai-hung, and requested the Viceroy to enquire into them :-\n\nThat he surrendered China's sovereign rights by allowing a consular representative to be present at inquests on Chinese in the settlement;\n\nThat he had, at the request of the consuls, released a headman who was arrested by the magistrate;\n\nThat he had given foreigners facilities to buy land in the settlement; and That he had permitted lotteries in his jurisdiction.\n\nKIANGSI.\n\nThe governor's report on the first session merely says that the deliberations of the assembly were conducted in strict accordance with the regulations. There was no transgression of powers, no disturbance or difficulty. No details of the discussions are given.\n\nThe payments to officers and members are the same as in the Nanking assembly, The estimate for yearly expenditure for salaries, &c., is 46,000 taels (5,700l.).\n\nSix members were elected to the Senate by ballot.\n\nHUPEI.\n\nIn its first session the Hupei assembly displayed a distinct bias against foreigners and an ignorant zeal to minimise treaty rights. Their schemes for reforms were as complicated and regardless of financial considerations as the stock proposals of officials. The native papers, which were supplied with lengthy reports on various topics, lamented the narrowness of the members' views, and pointed out that, being either gentry or officials, actual or expectant, they did not sympathise with the masses, whose burdens they were ready to increase.\n\nThe body of executive officials, from the Viceroy down, affect in conversation to think better of the assembly, but two of them have admitted to His Majesty's consul-general that it deals a serious blow at the Viceroy's power. It supplies the discontented with a means of ventilating grievances, but already its honesty is suspect. It also works with the Hunan assembly in opposing the foreigner over railways and the rice trade, and both show eagerness to combine with other assemblies in coercing the central Government.\n\nSince the close of the full session, the standing committee besides having a fierce dispute with the President which ended in his resignation, and joining in the campaign against foreign loans for the construction of railways, has submitted elaborate schemes for reform of district administration, educational arrangements, and famine relief.\n\nLocal self-government in Hupei has not advanced beyond attempts to draw up voters' lists and exhortations to the people not to suspect that the returns will be followed by extra taxation.\n\nHUNAN,\n\nHis Majesty's consul notes that the assembly is entirely composed of \"gentry\" whose reputation as private citizens is on the whole good. Of the eighty-two members, at most eight have any reputation for capacity, and the rest are mere followers. The people are generally led to regard the assembly with favour, as an appeal to it is encouraged, and many matters are now submitted to it which were formerly referred to the executive. A high official who has spent the best part of his life in Hunan has told His Majesty's consul that the power of the governor has been seriously undermined by the assembly, and that it is a serious menace to the peace of the province. The general opinion in Hunan is that the demands of the assembly to be recognised in all matters will increase, that the power of the executive will diminish correspondingly, and that serious trouble must result. The attitude of the assembly towards questions relating to foreigners has been actively hostile.\n\nThe business discussed during the first session referred to the following subject:-\n\n1. Extension of primary schools.\n\n2. Reform of mining affairs.\n\n3. Reform in method of sealing deeds for real property.\n\n4. Reform of prisons.\n\n5. Reform of abuses in official yamêns.\n\n6. Reform of law school.\n\n7. Enlargement of streets.\n\n8. House tax to be devoted to police service exclusively.\n\n9. Conservancy of the Tung-ting Lake.\n\n[2788 dd-2]\n\nB 2\n\n350",
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        "id": 432089,
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        "series_title": "CO129 Colonial Office Hong Kong Records 理藩院香港檔案",
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        "document_key": "CO129-378 - Governor Sir Lugard - 1911 [6-7]",
        "page_number": 297,
        "title": "CO129-378 - Governor Sir Lugard - 1911 [6-7]",
        "content_text": "## 291\n\n6. Taotai Wei Han acted as Interpreter, and it at once became apparent why His Excellency had desired that the interview should be between himself and myself alone (except for the interpreter), for after a very brief allusion to the subject he had spoken of at lunch, he said he would like to speak with me as man to man, forgetting for the moment our official positions and to ask my advice in certain matters in which he was in difficulty. This request arose as a natural sequence to a conversation he had held with me when my guest at Government House. He had then said with great frankness that though China was attempting to inaugurate Constitutional Government, she had only theory and books to guide her, and no practical experience. He had asked me whether I could recommend him any Chinese Gentlemen in whom I had confidence, and who had lived under British Administration and could on occasion assist him with advice. In reply, I had said that while I had great confidence in both the Chinese Members of Council, it was probable that I myself would be better informed than they as to Administrative problems, and if I could assist him, I should at any time be glad to place what experience I might have at his disposal. His present request was for a fulfilment of that promise, and to have insisted on the presence of the Consul-General would have been to have robbed it of its private nature, and would have been tantamount to a rebuff.\n\n7. He then spoke extremely frankly of China's financial difficulties and other Administrative questions wholly unconnected with Hongkong, and in reply, I spoke (inter alia) of possible reforms in Land Taxes and illustrated my meaning by reference to the system I had introduced in Northern Nigeria, a country not dissimilar in its conditions and area from this point of view to the Kwangtung Province, and I added that we raised a tax from the Leased Territories three times as great as that which accrued to China without the slightest friction in a period...",
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    {
        "id": 434132,
        "series_id": 27,
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        "series_title": "CO129 Colonial Office Hong Kong Records 理藩院香港檔案",
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        "document_key": "CO129-382 - Public Offices - 1911",
        "page_number": 133,
        "title": "CO129-382 - Public Offices - 1911",
        "content_text": "## Unrest in Tengyueh\n\ntaken under direct administrative control as soon as the provincial authorities feel strong enough to intervene. The Sawbwa of Kangai is in serious financial difficulties owing to the rapacity of his Japanese advisers. In Changta there are two claimants to the sawbwaship, and the internal unrest has been so marked that troops have been stationed both in Changia and Kangai. I urged the late taotai to endeavour to effect a settlement of the sawbwaship dispute early in the year, and I think that he would have taken some steps in the matter had he lived. It would not be difficult to appease both the young sawbwa Hung-sheng and his people by definitely installing him in office, whilst allowing the present ruler, Pi-fa, to act as regent until the rightful Prince comes of age. The present taotai has determined to enforce his own ideas on the people, and the old financial process of \"eating the sawbwas\" is going on with much vigour.\n\nIn consequence of Chinese oppression and the misrule and extortions of the sawbwas, unrest becomes more marked as time goes on, and numbers of Shans are constantly moving from all of the Chinese States to British territory, much to the indignation of the authorities, who unjustly accuse our frontier officers of enticing them from their allegiance.\n\n### Trans-frontier Cultivations\n\nAs a result of the steady migration of Shans to British territory, a question of some difficulty has arisen in regard to the rights of cultivation which these emigrants retain over their old fields. Settlers in Burmah who retain such rights in the Chinese Shan States (and vice versa) have in the past paid no land taxes or other dues to the sawbwas, and, with the extensive migrations of the past two or three years, the more incompetent sawbwas find that a large proportion of their income has lapsed. The Chinese officials, in their turn, are unable to collect as much as formerly from the impoverished sawbwas, and in consequence, they have started a vigorous campaign against this emigration. They base their crusade on patriotic grounds, and say that they cannot endure to see Burmah subjects holding lands in China whilst not recognising the suzerainty of Chinese sawbwas. They propose, therefore, to insist that future emigrants shall not be permitted to retain cultivation rights over Chinese lands when they have moved their homes to British territory; they desire at the same time to enforce the payment of all arrears of cultivation taxes since the date of the demarcation of the frontier, which would have the practical effect of cancelling the rights of all cultivators who have since removed to Burmah. The Government of Burmah suggests as a compromise that trans-frontier cultivators should pay taxes for the land which they cultivate in future, provided that the Chinese undertake that they shall not forfeit their lands by the mere fact of moving their homes to Burmah. I have drawn up a draft agreement for the settlement of these cases, which has been approved by the lieutenant-governor, but I do not feel that it will be wise to discuss the matter for the moment, as the taotai shows an attitude of persistent obstruction to all matters affecting our interests.\n\n### Cultivation Maps\n\nAt the request of the Chinese, the Government of Burmah sent a survey party along the frontier after the last Namkham meeting, and all trans-frontier cultivations were mapped and listed in English and in Chinese. The late taotai appointed deputies to accompany the party, and agreed that they should sign the maps, which would then serve as permanent records of cultivation rights. The Lung-ling sub-prefect, the taotai's deputy for one section, signed the maps, and was consequently dismissed from office. The assistant frontier deputy Wang, who was appointed for another section, not only refused to sign his maps but obstructed the party in every possible way. I have now asked the taotai whether he will accept the maps. He has had them for some time, comparing them with the reports received from his frontier officers, but he has not yet given me his decision. The cost of the survey to the Government of Burmah was 4,428 rupees; the Chinese were not asked to pay any share of this sum, and they bid fair to seriously diminish the value of the work by their obstructive attitude.\n\n### Unrest in the City and District\n\nThe substantial merchants and gentry of Tengyueh inform me that the unrest in the city is the most serious which they have ever known. The present taotai has inaugurated a series of new taxes, which bear heavily upon the people, and he uses the constitutional movement as a pretext for weekly harangues, in the course of which he impresses on the people the duties of holding back foreign aggression, of providing substantial backing for the new era, of unbinding the feet of their women, and of making radical reforms in feminine dress. Personal summonses to attend these lectures are issued to men of means and influence throughout the district, and intense feeling has been caused by the fines inflicted on defaulters. As a single instance, a well-known and respectable headman had been mulcted of 2,000 taels within the past few days for failure to attend, and he was requested to sign a paper stating that he desired to present this sum to the taotai as a contribution towards the constitutional propaganda; he refused to sign for some time, and became a popular hero, but a sojourn in the ting's yamên with a chain holding his neck in such a position that he was unable to sleep has brought him to reason, and his name now figures in the list of generous donors towards the new régime.\n\n### Anti-Official Placards\n\nIn these circumstances, it is not surprising that feeling runs high. No night passes now without the posting of anonymous placards on the walls and gates of the city, denouncing the taotai and his underlings in the most violent terms. The main charges are extortion and undue interference in private affairs. Feeling runs high, and it is not improbable that trouble will ensue.\n\n### Attitude of People towards Foreigners\n\nWarnings of riots are circulated, and the merchants constantly threaten to suspend business; at the same time, the people of Western Yünnan are law-abiding and peaceable by nature, and it is difficult to judge how long their patience will last. Tengyueh showed a steady resistance to the early appearance of foreigners. The first British consul was unable to appear in the streets without insult, and there was much excitement when the first missionary arrived two years ago. There can be no doubt, however, that there is no longer the least trace of anti-foreign feeling amongst the merchants or people. The late Mr. Litton interested himself on their behalf so constantly that his name will be a talisman for the protection of British lives and British property for many years to come. He fought the battles of the merchants and the people against official extortion and oppression, and, though the attitude which he adopted towards native affairs is impossible in these more advanced days, many of the fruits of his activity remain, and, now that their rights are known and have once been recognised officially, the people show their appreciation of the presence of a British consulate in many little ways. For this reason, I am convinced that any trouble which may ensue will be entirely anti-official and in no way anti-foreign, though, should riots actually break out, it is difficult to predict the course of an excited mob.\n\n### Missionaries\n\nMembers of the China Inland Mission are stationed both in Tali-fu and in Tengyueh. The members of the mission are now received on friendly terms by the people, but there are no converts in Tengyueh, and I believe that the many years of work in Tali-fu show little result. Nearer to Yunnan-fu, the aboriginal tribes, especially the Miaos, have proved enthusiastic supporters of the mission, and large numbers have been received into the Church. Nearer to the frontier, however, the work has been confined to the purely Chinese zone, where the people courteously but firmly reject the message of the preacher. It is difficult to find a reason for this lack of success. The missionaries are untiring in their labours, but the Yunnanese are intensely phlegmatic by nature, and I think that perhaps the Buddhism and animism which are real factors in the lives of their Burmese, Shau, and Siamese neighbours may have a more living influence here than in the more easterly provinces of China. They make lavish subscriptions to the gay processions and festivals which are organised by the priests, but their sluggish hearts are unmoved by the unostentatious greyness of the mission chapel.\n\n### Salt and Opium Cases\n\nThe only cases of broad interest which have been under discussion recently have been those in connection with the smuggling of salt across the frontier from Burmah into Yünnan, and of opium from Yunnan into Burmah. The traffic in these articles has been winked at for many years by the authorities, and has become a recognised feature of the trans-frontier trade, the united annual values of the two products reaching about 20,000*. The Chinese have suddenly decided to shut out foreign salt from the Shan States and to enforce the sale of the native article. I understand that His Majesty's Government is now willing to recognise the Chinese contention that they may enforce their local laws and penalties on salt smugglers, in addition to the confiscation of the illicit salt provided for in article 11 of the Burmah-China Convention of 1894. The outstanding cases will now be able to be dealt with at the next frontier meeting.\n\n### Imprisonment of Li San-pao\n\nLi San-pao, a man who accompanied me as guide and interpreter during my frontier tour into the unadministered territory during last spring, has been imprisoned for rendering these services. I have made constant efforts to secure his release, but up to the present without success.\n\n### Frontier Meetings\n\nA frontier meeting has been arranged for the Myitkyina district, and we shall assemble at Sima on the 15th December. It is hoped that a meeting will also be held for the southern districts; the Burmah officers are prepared.\n\n3  \n131",
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        "series_title": "CO129 Colonial Office Hong Kong Records 理藩院香港檔案",
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        "title": "CO129-382 - Public Offices - 1911",
        "content_text": "# AFFAIRS OF CHINA\n## CONFIDENTIAL\n[46845]\n[December 29.]\n\n### SECTION 2\n\n#### No. 1\n\nSir J. Jordan to Sir Edward Grey.-(Received December 29.)\n**(No. 442.)**\nPeking, December 9, 1910.\n\nSir,\n\nWITH reference to Mr. Max Müller's despatch No. 407 of the 11th ultimo, I have the honour to transmit to you herewith translation of an Imperial decree issued on the 6th instant, commanding the Constitutional Government Committee to draw up and submit to the Throne without delay a detailed list of the various measures of reform to be carried out progressively prior to the opening of the National Parliament, the date for which has now been fixed for 1913.\n\nThe Constitutional Government Committee is a committee of the Reform Council, to which was entrusted by Imperial decree of the 18th August, 1907, the charge of the various measures for the establishment of a constitution and representative government. The original scheme submitted by this committee gave a detailed list of the various reform measures, such as the institution of the provincial assemblies, the formation of local self-government societies and municipal councils, the encouragement of education, &c., which were to be carried out seriatim with a view to educating the masses of China's people up to a standard of national civilisation compatible with the inauguration of a Parliament, the date for the opening of which was then fixed for 1917.\n\nThe present decree commands the Constitutional Government Committee to draw up a fresh list of such reforms, presumably on the same lines as the original programme, but with the alterations necessitated by the recently sanctioned reduction of the preparatory period by four years.\n\nOn the 12th ultimo a decree, couched in somewhat similar terms, was issued by the Emperor, charging the various metropolitan Ministries to hasten on the necessary preliminaries to the opening of Parliament and specifying their several spheres of activity as follows:\n\n| Board | Responsibility |\n| --- | --- |\n| Board of the Interior | Census and police |\n| Board of Finance | Financial reform and regulation of taxation |\n| Board of Laws | Institution of assize courts |\n| Board of Education | Extension of education |\n\nOn the above lines the boards were ordered to draw up detailed programmes of the various measures of reform which they might deem it desirable to carry into effect.\n\nDocuments in response to the above decrees will, no doubt, be submitted to the Throne and published in due course.\n\nI have, &c.\nJ. N. JORDAN.\n\n### Enclosure in No. 1\n\n**Imperial Decree of December 6, 1910.**\n\nIN view of the reduction of the period for the inauguration of Parliament to the fifth year of Hsuan Tung, we have already pronounced our decree, laying the responsibility for the hastening on of the necessary preliminaries on the offices concerned with the settlement of such questions, and charging them with all speed to examine thoroughly and plan in detail the measures propounded, and to submit to us memorials on the various steps to be taken.\n\nThe procedure laid down in the list of preliminary measures to be carried out year by year by way of preparation for the constitutional Government was made the responsibility of the Constitutional Government Committee, whose duty it was to...",
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        "document_key": "CO129-383 - Public Offices - 1911",
        "page_number": 500,
        "title": "CO129-383 - Public Offices - 1911",
        "content_text": "## 2\n\nNormal conditions are reported to prevail at Nanking, though from time to time prominent persons receive letters threatening a rising with the object of exterminating the Manchus. The modern troops have all been rearmed and the city is no longer patrolled.\n\nA sign of the emancipation of women which is silently proceeding in China was manifested in a meeting of the \"Women's Association for Fostering National Resources\" which was held in October in the exhibition grounds at Nanking. It was attended by over 1,000 persons of both sexes, and several ladies made speeches advocating extended use of native-made articles and deprecating the partiality of Chinese women for foreign goods, especially jewellery, tobacco, and wines.\n\nAt Chinkiang a disturbance occurred in December owing to the municipality unwisely attempting to disturb ancient custom and oblige native water carriers to draw water at the municipal pump station instead of the river front. The motor pump broke down, and a hostile crowd invaded the concession. Serious consequences were, however, averted by timely reversion to the old system in agreement with the local authorities.\n\nIt was mentioned in the previous summary that parts of northern Kiangsu and Anhui had suffered greatly from floods. Large numbers of starving refugees have begged their way south to Chinkiang, Kiukiang, and Wuhu. The affected regions are that part of Anhui which lies north of the Huai River and the adjoining districts of Kiangsu. The Grand Canal on the east, the Huai and Ko Rivers on the south and on the west approximately mark the boundaries of the worst part of the famine area. In some 7,000 square miles the autumn crops were a total failure, and only about half the usual amount of wheat land could be sown for the spring crops. The population is entirely agricultural and is estimated at 3,000,000. Troops were moved to the distressed region to preserve order and suppress brigandage.\n\nShantung, generally considered a poor province, owing to its arid climate, also suffered from rains far in excess of the average, and all low-lying lands were swamped. In addition to this calamity, the Yellow River burst its banks in the Li Ching district, and caused more damage than has occurred there for the last six years.\n\nHis Majesty's consul at Hangchow reports that the native press has shown less animosity towards foreigners, but the attitude of the officials remains unfriendly. Piracies on junks carrying foreign goods along the coast have occurred repeatedly during the year, and their recurrence at short intervals in the same neighbourhood shows that very little energy is displayed by the officials to check them. In Amoy city robberies increased to such an extent that the question was discussed in the Provincial Assembly and special measures were taken. More police were engaged, and a proclamation was issued that shops were to close at midnight. A proposal to institute water police to be paid for by a tax on passengers on steam launches fell through, as the launch owners asserted that their passengers refused to pay the tax.\n\nThe Kwangtung Provincial Government have experienced difficulties in carrying out the census in outlying districts owing to the suspicions of the ignorant natives, who fear that it foreshadows increased taxation. Several small outbreaks occurred, the most serious being at Lien-Chou, where the mob attacked certain houses and subsequently demolished the schools and houses of foreign missionaries. No lives were lost and no British interests were involved.\n\nSome alarm was occasioned at Macao at the end of November by a trifling military disturbance. The affair was magnified by the Chinese of the adjoining district of Hsiang-shan with a view to inducing the Chinese Government to descend on the Portuguese colony with armed forces under the pretext of protecting Chinese lives and property. Six Chinese gun-boats were rumoured to have entered the harbour and large bodies of Chinese troops to have camped near the frontier, and two British gun-boats were actually dispatched to Macao to safeguard British interests. They found the Chinese gun-boats anchored outside the harbour limits and failed to verify the reported movements of Chinese troops. Nothing occurred, and His Majesty's ships were withdrawn a fortnight later.\n\nHis Majesty's consul at Kiungchow reports that the local Self-Government Society is showing signs of a growing spirit of independence and an increasing disregard of proper authority. A newly arrived and unpopular magistrate was mobbed in the streets of Kiungchow and his chair was broken to pieces. A report from Pakhoi states that the circuit of Ch'in Lien, on the Tonquin border, formerly noted for the depredations of robber bands, has been entirely pacified and the district is being regenerated by a patriotic, intelligent, and energetic official named Taotai Kuo Jen-chang. Draft regulations for the better preservation of order on the frontier, drawn up by the Viceroy of Liang Kuang, the Viceroy of Yunnan, and the Board of Foreign Affairs has been submitted to the French Minister, whose modifications have been sent to the above-mentioned taotai for annotation.\n\nHis Majesty's consul at Wuchow reports the occurrence of no less than ninety cases of robbery and piracy during the quarter. The worst case was the looting of the market, pawnshops, and forty-one houses at Yang-So, in Ping-lo-fu. There were several skirmishes between the soldiers and the robbers, but they eventually effected their escape. His Majesty's consul-general at Yunnan-fu reports the murder of a French missionary, the Rev. Father Mérigot, by Chinese at a place called Ching-yü, in Yung-pei Ting, north of the Yang-tsze. A dispute about land is supposed to have been the cause of the attack.\n\n## Provincial Assemblies and Self-government Societies\n\nThe organisation of local self-government societies was carried on during the quarter in Hupei, but the general public showed no signs of active interest in them. Even the regular sittings of the provincial assembly were rarely attended by more than half its members. The general impression seems to prevail that the assembly is too much concerned with questions of personal interest to its members and to similar bodies in other provinces. One successful motion, however, put an end to the custom of purchasing supplies for yamên use at official rates, a practice that was detrimental to petty market dealers. The assembly lacks a proper sense of the need for economy, and expensive schemes of development of communications, education, famine prevention, &c., are freely advocated.\n\nIn September elections were held for the Nanking Self-Government Society and much dissatisfaction was expressed at the manner in which they were conducted by the two responsible officials. According to the native press many self-government societies have been constituted in the Soochow district and the delegates have met and deliberated upon a variety of matters such as come within the sphere of municipal bodies in England. The Provincial Assembly commented on the progress made in this direction in the Soochow district as compared with the apathy displayed by the officials in the portion of the province administered from Nanking.\n\n## Reforms\n\n### Judicial\n\nThe intelligence reports from His Majesty's consuls indicate that active steps are being taken in several provinces to introduce the new judicial system advocated by the Committee of Constitutional Reform. In the revised programme published in January it is laid down that shenpantings of all grades shall be established in 1912. More or less complete steps towards the new system are reported by the provinces of Kiangsu, Honan, Hupei, Kuangsi, Shantung, Chekiang, Fukien, Szechuan, and Fengtien, and His Majesty's consuls state that courts are being built or new law officers appointed at Chengtu, Chungking, Ichang, Tsinan, Tsinan settlement, Chefoo, Hangchow settlement, Ningpo, Wenchow, and Wuchow.\n\nThe main feature of the new system is the complete separation of the judicial from the administrative and executive powers. It deprives the provincial officials of a great weapon of authority and fertile source of revenue, while it creates a new class of officials under the direct orders of the Board of Justice in Peking and independent of the provincial authorities. The change can only be distasteful to the latter who will be ready to criticise the parallel position of the new law officers as well as their work. The future alone can show whether the people will benefit and whether Chinese justice will be any less venal or more real than it was under the old system.\n\nThe prominent position given in the introduction of judicial reform to the opening of shenpantings in the open ports suggests that one of its main objects is to deal with international cases, and experience of the sheupanting at Tien-tsin shows that foreign interests are likely to be seriously affected. Every effort will probably be made to deny to foreign consular officials their treaty right effectually to watch proceedings in court, sitting as assessors and intervening on behalf of the foreign plaintiff when necessary. From this point of view the new system may be regarded as an attempt to... \n\nPage 495",
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        "page_number": 228,
        "title": "CO129-384 - Public Offices - 1911",
        "content_text": "# observed that too much importance cannot be attached to the preservation of that happy unanimity between the groups which constitutes the essence and foundation of the agreements just concluded, no less than the guarantee of their proper fulfilment.\n\nWith the present growth of constitutional reform in China it is idle to attempt to impose principles which presume an entirely different set of conditions. Insistence upon these principles was indeed largely responsible for the state of inertia and indifference into which the Chinese Government had steadily drifted. In order to remove this it was necessary to make some concessions, and it was felt that these could safely be made provided the Imperial Government was prepared to assume full responsibility for them. The unusual publicity given to the Hukuang Agreement and to the decrees referring to it, and the responsibility of the Cabinet to the National Assembly under the new constitution, are conditions which have been non-existent in the case of previous loan agreements, and these add materially to the value of the guarantees of the present ones. They, in fact, imply a new channel for the exercise of the Government's legitimate responsibilities, the right to which cannot reasonably be denied to it. In addition to this, we have the fact that the Chinese Government enters into its engagements jointly and simultaneously with four countries whose political friendship and financial assistance have now become matters of necessity for it. In a strict adherence to the principles here implied, in joint communications on all matters of routine, in joint action where action is necessary, coupled always with a consistent regard for the susceptibilities of China in questions where her self-respect is at stake, will lie the future strength of the international combination, which has it in its power to direct to a large degree the material progress on which China now shows her readiness to enter.\n\nIt should never be forgotten that the first impression likely to be created in the Chinese mind by the present international combination is one of suspicion, an impression which political rivals will take every opportunity to foster, and the efforts of the groups should therefore be consistently directed to remove all grounds for such suspicion by proofs of their friendly desire, dissociated from all political motives, to assist China in working out her economic salvation. China, in her present state of national evolution, is like a restive and nervous horse, who must be guided with a light hand rather than controlled by force; and any attempt to impose conditions which are irksome or derogatory to her aspirations for self-dependence, are likely to weaken rather than strengthen the position of the groups.\n\nThis policy has been pursued in the negotiations just concluded, and the commanding position which it has secured to the groups is recognised by far-seeing rivals like the Russians, who would seem in fact to have abandoned all attempts to form a competing group; and their friendly proposals for co-operation in regions where their political predominance cannot be challenged should be carefully weighed. It is better to have them as friends than as rivals or opponents, and their political co-operation, by presenting to China an acceptable solution of the problems by which she is now confronted in the regions referred to, would bring an immense accession of strength to the present international combination.\n\nThe deposit of loan funds with the Chinese Government banks under the guarantee of the Imperial Government is a step which merely anticipates the necessities of the currency reform programme, namely, the reorganisation of those banks on modern banking lines and the assumption by the Imperial Government of direct responsibility for their administration. The weak part of the currency scheme, in other respects a carefully thought out one, is that dealing with the issue of notes, for the issue and redemption of which the Ta Ching Bank is constituting the sole channel, but no provision is made for their guarantee beyond some very inadequate regulations with regard to a reserve in bullion and securities. It will be necessary, at any rate to begin with, that the notes be guaranteed by the Imperial Government and that a reserve of at least 70 or 80 per cent. be kept in coin of the national currency under the strictest Government control. Insistence on this point will no doubt find a place in the report of the groups to the Chinese Government, and the needs of the moment will thus, it is to be hoped, lead to the establishment of what has long been an urgent necessity, namely, a Government bank, organised in accordance with modern banking laws and forming part of the administrative machinery of the country.\n\nThe doubt is frequently expressed whether the Chinese Government is powerful enough to carry into effect any scheme of currency reform in the face of the strong opposition which is to be anticipated from the native banks and official classes, who make large profits by the present confusion of the currency. To this it may be replied that a Government which has shown itself capable of effectively suppressing such a widespread national evil as the opium habit may well be credited with the ability to enforce so beneficial a measure as currency reform. Currency reform upon a silver basis, with a subsidiary coinage of fixed value in relation to the standard, will benefit the people at large by cheapening the price of commodities and lightening the burden of taxation. Under the present system of revenue collection the local official fixes an arbitrary rate between copper and silver, and insists upon payment in the standard imposed by himself, thereby extorting from the people of the soil far more than is due from them, while at the same time he accounts to the Government for the minimum sum prescribed by custom as the average collection of his district. With the reform of the currency these abuses must come to an end; and, when once this is realised by the masses, the Government may, it is to be expected, count upon a popular support equally strong as that which has distinguished the movement for opium suppression.\n\nIn conclusion, the question may well be asked how China, with her visible resources now so seriously reduced by the exclusion of opium, and with financial stringency increasing in every province, is to meet her ever-growing load of foreign debt, and at the same time find fresh resources with which to carry out the schemes of material progress and expansion, of education and of constitutional reform, into which she is being irresistibly forced by the pressure of her external relations, and by the demands of her own national aspirations. Apart from the substantial economies to be realised by a reform of the existing administrative machinery, it is evident from what has been said above that the effective introduction of the new currency, by putting an end to extortion and lightening the burden of the people, will automatically create a new taxable margin which can be availed of by the Government without calling on the people to pay more than they actually do at present. It is probably well within the mark to say that, from these two sources alone, the present internal revenue of the country could be doubled. In addition, as the group representatives were informed during the recent negotiations, the Chinese Government has now decided to direct its immediate attention to the question of tariff revision, and it is to be hoped that the Powers, in considering the proposals of the Chinese Government on this subject, will unite in a policy similar to that followed by the British Government in respect to the exclusion of opium, and will ask from China, in return for the sacrifice they are called upon to make, adequate guarantees, not only for the total abolition of `li-kin`, but for the introduction of such administrative reforms as may prove the sincerity of her desire and the reality of her efforts to rehabilitate her financial position. The first essential is the employment of competent advisers in every department of the executive, and circumstances all point to the time now being ripe for pressing such a measure.\n\nThe first step has in fact already been taken in the appointment of Mr. Vissering to assist in the inauguration of the currency reform programme, and he has at the same time been invited by the Imperial Government to advise as to the reorganisation of the Ta Ching Government bank. In pressing China to extend the policy thus inaugurated by the appointment of other advisers in the financial departments of the administration care should be taken to avoid any appearance of attempting to impose an international control of her finances, such as might be implied by specific stipulations as to the number, character, and nationality of the advisers she selects. The selection should be left to China under her general guarantee to the Powers that such appointments will be made wherever obviously called for by the needs of reorganisation, and that competent persons of recognised high character only will be employed.\n\nS. S. Gneisenau, near Socotra,  \nJune 22, 1911.\n\nE. G. HILLIER.  \nH. CORDES.\n\nPage 225",
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        "content_text": "# \n6. I was concerned, that some one should be present who could corroborate me if any statement were later imputed to me which I had not made.\n\nTaotai Wei Han acted as interpreter, and it at once became apparent why His Excellency had desired that the interview should be between himself and myself alone (except for the interpreter), for after a very brief allusion to the subject he had spoken of at lunch, he said he would like to speak with me as man to man—forgetting for the moment our official positions—and to seek my advice in certain matters in which he was in difficulty.\n\n7. This request arose as a natural sequence to a conversation he had held with me when my guest at Government House. He had then said with great frankness that though China was attempting to inaugurate Constitutional Government, she had only theory and book to guide her, and no practical experience. He had asked me whether I could recommend him any Chinese Gentlemen in whom I had confidence, and who had lived under British Administration and could on occasion assist him with advice.\n\nIn reply, I had said that while I had great confidence in both the Chinese Members of Council, it was probable that I myself would be better informed than they as to Administrative problems, and if I could assist him, I should at any time be glad to place what experience I might have at his disposal. His present request was for a fulfilment of that promise, and to have insisted on the presence of the Consul would have been to have robbed it of its private nature, and would have been tantamount to a rebuff.\n\nHe then spoke extremely frankly of China's financial difficulties and other Administrative questions wholly unconnected with Hongkong, and in reply, I spoke (inter alia) of possible reforms in Land Taxes and illustrated my meaning by reference...",
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        "series_title": "CO129 Colonial Office Hong Kong Records 理藩院香港檔案",
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        "document_key": "CO129-426 - Public Offices - 1915",
        "page_number": 524,
        "title": "CO129-426 - Public Offices - 1915",
        "content_text": "517\n\nTHE CHINA ASSOCIATION.\n\nTRADING WITH THE GERMANS IN CHINA.\n\nSTRONGER ACTION URGED.\n\nThe annual meeting of the China Association was held at the offices of the P. and O. Steam Navigation Company, 122, Leadenhall-street, EC, on last inst. Mr. F. Anderson (Chairman of Committee) presided, and there were also present: Sir W. C. Hillier, K.C.M.G., C.B., Sir A. Dent, K.C.M.G., Messrs. F. J. Abbott, F. Allen, John C. Bois, Byron Brenan, C.M.G., E. J. Carrol, Ed. Cousins, Geo. B. Dodwell, A. J. Garfit, J. C. Hatson, Wm. Harwood, J. S. Haskell, Edgar J. Houle, R. H. Hill, G. Jamieson, C.M.G., H. D. C. Jones, H. H. Joseph, Leonard Kerr, Paul H. King, W. Thurlow Lay, Wm. D. Little, D. H. Mackintosh, J. R. Michael, C. Selby Moore, T. W. Richardson, H. W. Robertson, C. H. Ross, D. C. Rutherford, F. G. Sale, F. Salinger, Herbert Salinger, H. D. Stowart, J. Swire, T. H. Whitehead, W. H. Wickham, H. Wilcockson, R. Chatterton Wilcox, A. G. Wood, and the Secretary (Mr. H. C. Wilcox).\n\nThe Chairman said: The report has been circulated to members in advance. I need not therefore do more than refer to it in general terms. I would explain that our annual meeting is about a month later than usual this year, mainly owing to our secretary, Mr. Wilcox, having had to carry on the work of his office single-handed. We have given leave of absence for service in the Army to his assistant, Mr. Lambert. Notwithstanding the terrible struggle in which this country is engaged so close to our own doors, events in the Far East have by no means passed unnoticed. Whilst Western countries over an immense area are being shaken to their very foundations, China has had to deal with serious problems of her own, both internal and external. From time to time situations have arisen which might have resulted in disaster had weakness and irresolution been shown in dealing with them, but the discretion and ability with which her Government acted under trying conditions have enhanced its prestige, and have done much to inspire confidence in the present Chinese administration.\n\nIt should be borne in mind that only a year ago the Government had not suppressed the notorious White Wolf; disorder was widespread in many provinces—a kind of aftermath of the revolution; intrigue and conspiracy were rife in the capital, many of the Provincial Governments hampered the Central Authority by obstructive tactics and by withholding supplies, whilst foreign relations in certain quarters were becoming complicated. In weak hands the affairs of the country would in all probability have drifted into chaos. Now whether it is true or not in ordinary times that \"in the multitude of counsellors there is wisdom,\" experience has shown once more, and not only in China, that at a time of national crisis it is essential for the welfare of the State to concentrate power in the hands of one national central authority.\n\nThe great mass of the people of China quickly realised that patriotism and common sense alike demanded that they should support the government of Yuan Shih-kai if disaster were to be averted, and the course of events has justified the wisdom of their decision. Disorder has been suppressed, legislation on conservative lines has been enacted, the authority of Peking over the Provinces has been re-established, judicious fiscal reforms have been inaugurated, and the first step towards the establishment of a permanent constitution has been taken in the promulgation of what is known as \"The Constitutional Compact\"—a translation of which interesting and important document will be found in the report.\n\nEvidence of the confidence inspired by the Administration may be seen in the fact that two internal loans have been successfully floated in China at a time when the money markets of the Western world have been practically closed owing to the war. Concurrently with all this the foreign affairs of the country have been so handled that the danger of complications arising has been minimised, and, we hope, will be entirely averted.\n\nIn the past year statesmen all over the world have had to bear a heavy burden of responsibility. The President of the Chinese Republic has been no exception to the general rule—few men in the whole world have had a more difficult and onerous role to fill, or have shown greater sagacity in dealing with difficulties.\n\nTHE JAPANESE DEMANDS.\n\nWe have referred in the report to the Japanese claims on China, which at one time gave rise to some uneasiness in this country owing to circumstantial reports appearing in the Press of the far-reaching character of some of the demands. British subjects both here and in the East, being friends of both countries, learnt with great satisfaction of the conclusion of an agreement between the two Governments. It is true that certain points are reserved for future discussion, but there is good reason to believe that Japan is well aware of the importance of the principles laid down in her Treaties, and that in any future discussion she will not depart from the policy she has repeatedly declared it her intention to uphold.\n\nAt the siege of Kiao-chow Japan gave a much-needed lesson in chivalry and humanity to Germany when she gave ample time and opportunity for the women and children and non-combatants to leave the fortress before beginning the bombardment, and I think we may rely upon Japan maintaining the highest standard of honour in regard to any engagements to which she has attached her signature.\n\nMembers will have been glad to learn that the long outstanding question of Shanghai Settlement Extension has at last been satisfactorily dealt with. Every friend of China hopes that the arrangement will result in the total disappearance of the friction which has so often prevailed in the relations between the municipality and the local Chinese authorities. The Chinese are as deeply interested as foreigners in the prosperity of Shanghai, and they have now an opportunity of working together in friendly co-operation for the general welfare which may prove invaluable, if they will only take advantage of it in the right spirit.\n\nYou will notice in the Appendix a lengthy correspondence on the subject of trading with the enemy—a matter which is still under discussion. The Committee believe that in taking it up they have the support not only of all British subjects in China, but that an overwhelming majority in this country of those who have considered the question also agree with them.\n\nApart altogether from German hatred of England, apart from German fiendish brutality in war, from the fact that it has been necessary to expel Germans from Singapore and Hongkong, apart from the virulent and mischievous propaganda they have carried on against us in China, from the fact that German merchants at Shanghai have collectively resolved to do everything in their power to injure British interests in China, from pitiable incidents like their celebration in Tientsin of the sinking of the Lusitania carried on until 6 o'clock in the morning, and, apart from the natural repugnance to having any dealings with enemies of our country, we think it is a bad policy in our own interest to help Germans to maintain their commercial position in China, as we have been doing for the last ten months.\n\nThe Board of Trade has expressed the opinion that in the national interest it is undesirable that British subjects should trade with Germans in China during the war. The Prize Court at Alexandria has decided that as Germans in China are only amenable to German law, they cannot claim a neutral domicile in that country, but are in the same legal position as Germans resident in German territory. Yet under the Trading with the Enemy Act, British subjects are not only permitted, but the declared undesirability notwithstanding, they are almost encouraged to trade with German firms in China, on the plea that a German is not an enemy if he lives outside German territory. Germans have gone so far in the past as to claim that their concessions in China are German territory, but our law ignores their claim.\n\nFOR AND AGAINST TRADING WITH GERMANS IN CHINA.\n\nThe arguments in favour of permitting trading with alien enemies in China are mainly (1) That our Allies have not prohibited their nationals from trading with Germans; (2) That German trade marks on British goods would lose their value if they were withdrawn from the Chinese markets, and that therefore British goods shipped under those German marks would lose their market; (3) that the same volume of trade with China could not be carried on if German firms were prohibited from getting supplies in England, as British firms alone could not overtake the whole British trade with China.\n\nAs regards our Allies not co-operating, the Committee at first agreed that this might be a disadvantage to some British shipping and banking interests, but of late freights have advanced enormously, and there has been more difficulty in getting ships to carry the cargo than in getting cargo to fill the ships, so that this objection no longer has the same weight that it formerly may have had. Further, we notice that France has recently prohibited trading with the enemy in China. The French have no doubt about Germans out there being enemies.\n\nAs to other reasons, it may be quite true that German trade marks would lose their value if withdrawn from the Chinese market; but if buyers in China could not get British goods under German trade marks they would soon get the goods they wanted under British marks. From the strong representation made by all our branches in China, we are quite satisfied that there is no sound foundation for the statement that British firms are not capable of overtaking the whole British trade with China without the participation in it of German firms. There would, perhaps, be some change in the method of carrying on the trade, but it would be a healthy change, and one beneficial to British interests generally in China.\n\nQuite recently some very remarkable and interesting information has been received about the way in which the German trade is conducted in China, but the information has not been thoroughly investigated, and I am unable to lay it before you to-day. The Committee will follow the matter up, and perhaps at some later date will be able to communicate further information on the subject to you. The Committee hope that in the light of later information the present Government may see their way to take more whole-hearted action in connection with trading with the enemy in China than appeared advisable to their predecessors.\n\nYou will see in the report that we have taken a hand in correcting the misrepresentations spread in China by our enemies, and we hope the Chinese translation of our pamphlet will be widely circulated. Before concluding I would offer our condolence to those of our members at home and in China who have suffered irreparable losses and have to endure prolonged anxiety from this terrible war. Some of our number have been called upon to make the heaviest sacrifices, and I hope it may be some little consolation to those in far distant China to know that their old friends at home feel deep and heartfelt sympathy with them.\n\nWith these few remarks I beg to propose that the report and accounts be received and adopted. (Applause.)\n\nMr. G. B. Dodwell seconded the motion, which was carried.\n\nMEMBERS' QUESTIONS.\n\nThe Chairman intimating that he would be pleased to answer any questions, Mr. Hanson asked whether the Chairman could assure the members present that none of those unpatriotic British firms who were trading with Germans in China were represented on the General Committee to be elected.\n\nMr. H. Salinger remarked that the Government had already expressed the opinion that it was undesirable to trade with the enemy, and he thought this was the general wish of the Association and the commercial communities trading with China. If traders were not sufficiently patriotic to take note of this opinion, he urged the Committee to bring stronger pressure to bear upon the Government to prohibit all trading with Germans in China.\n\nMr. F. G. Sale inquired if the Committee had any information as to the attitude of the Japanese Government in this matter.\n\nReplying to these questions, the Chairman said with regard to Mr. Hanson's query that the Committee did not know of any of their members who were trading with Germans, and they hoped sincerely that none of them were. In reply to Mr. Salinger's remarks, he said that they had done all they could to bring the matter to the notice of the Foreign Office, and a small deputation had attended a meeting at the Board of Trade at which this question was exhaustively discussed with representatives of Chambers of Commerce and other prominent people connected with the Far East. He did not know what was the nature of the steps Mr. Salinger suggested should be taken, other than what they were doing, but if he had any definite suggestion to make they would be glad to consider it. As regards the question whether they had received any answer from Japan, he might say that they had received no direct information, but they understood that the Government were endeavouring to get their Allies united with them in this matter. He did not know of any answer that may have been received from Japan.\n\nELECTION OF OFFICERS.\n\nThe Chairman proposed and Mr. Byron Brenan seconded that Mr. G. Jamieson be re-elected President of the Association. This was carried unanimously.\n\nOn the motion of Mr. Jamieson, seconded by Mr. C. H. Ross, Mr. F. Anderson was re-elected Chairman of Committee, Mr. R. H. Hill vice-chairman, and Mr. R. Chatterton Wilcox hon. treasurer. The following General Committee was then appointed on the motion of the Chairman, seconded by Mr. F. J. Abbott—Bacon Inchcape of Strathnaver, G.C.M.G., K.C.I.E., Sir Claude Macdonald, Rt. Hon. K.C.M.G., Sir Thomas Jackson, Bt., Rt. Hon. Sir Cecil C. Smith, P.C., G.C.M.G., Sir T. Sutherland, G.C.M.G., Sir Walter Hillier, K.C.M.G., C.B., Sir Alfred Dent, K.C.M.G., Sir Charles Dudgeon, Mr. F. Anderson, Mr. John C. Bois, Mr. Byron Brenan, C.M.G., Mr. F. Cornen, Mr. Geo. B. Dodwell, Mr. R. S. Gundry, C.B., Mr. W. Harwood, Mr. J. S. Haskell, Mr. R. H. Hill, Mr. G. Jamieson, C.M.G., Mr. H. D. C. Jones, Mr. H. H. Joseph, Mr. W. D. Little, Mr. C. Selby Moore, Mr. H. W. Robertson, Mr. C. H. Ross, Mr. D. C. Rutherford, Mr. Charles V. Sale, Mr. F. Salinger, Mr. Gershom Stewart, M.P., Mr. H. D. Stewart, Mr. W. M. Strachan, Mr. A. M. Townsend, Mr. T. H. Whitehead, Mr. R. Chatterton Wilcox, and Mr. A. G. Wood.\n\n[Reprinted from the London and China Telegraph.]\n\n2. KS",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/2diw2n4r2/CO129-426 - Public Offices - 1915.txt",
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    {
        "id": 460293,
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        "series_title": "CO129 Colonial Office Hong Kong Records 理藩院香港檔案",
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        "document_key": "CO129-431 - Governor Sir May - 1916 [1-2]",
        "page_number": 426,
        "title": "CO129-431 - Governor Sir May - 1916 [1-2]",
        "content_text": "VII.\n\nbeing responsible only for the details of his own department, while the whole executive power of the State is vested in the hands of the President. On the advice of the defunct Administrative Council the President called into being a new Assembly termed the Tsanchengyuan, generally spoken of as the \"State Council.\" It consists of 70 Members, all nominated by the President himself, and mainly chosen from the older officials of the late dynasty, including a fair number of Manchus. To this body has been assigned temporary legislative functions, pending the inauguration of the new Parliament. It is apparently contemplated to continue the State Council as a permanent branch of the Constitution, though what particular role it is to fulfil vis à vis the Parliament seems as yet undetermined. Possibly it is intended as a counter-weight on the side of the President in case the elected Parliament should prove recalcitrant.\n\nSide by side with this Assembly another body has been sitting termed the Constitutional Conference, to which has been entrusted the important work of drawing up, in consultation with the Foreign Advisers, a revised Constitution. This new Code which was promulgated on May 1st, has been termed in Chinese a \"Constitutional Compact,\" indicating it would seem a sort of bargain between the President and the people. It defines the rights and duties of the citizens on the one hand and of the President on the other; provides for an elected legislature; prescribes the general course of Administration, and forecasts the organization of regular Law Courts and the independence of the judiciary. A copy of this important document will be found in the Supplement, PP. 75/84.\n\nAs regards the Provinces, several important changes have taken place. In the first place the Provincial Assemblies have been entirely abolished as being useless and obstructive. In the second place the important step has been taken of separating the civil and military functions. Under the Manchu regime the Governor was ex Officio Commander-in-Chief of the Provincial Forces, and under the revolutionary system the Governors, termed Tutuhs, were primarily Military Commanders with civil functions attached. Both systems have been abolished. The whole forces of the Empire are now declared to be National, not Provincial, and under the supreme control of the President. Three or four Provinces are grouped together to form one military district, under the command of a Chiangchun or Commander-in-Chief.\n\nThe result of these changes will no doubt be to enhance very materially the powers of the Central Government. Under the old system the provincial governments with their command of local troops were able to disregard orders from Peking, and to interpose obstacles to reform or changes of which they disapproved. On the other hand the responsibility for the maintenance of order and good government is transferred to Peking, the duties of the local Governors being limited to the repression and punishment of ordinary crime for which purpose they are allowed to organize a police force. It is remarked however, that these changes, though projected on paper, seem to be but imperfectly carried out, as Chiangchun have been appointed to almost every provincial Capital, thereby causing, it is said, much friction between the Civil and Military Authorities.\n\nThe Government has announced that a new Parliament, the Lifayuan, under a restricted franchise, will be summoned in 1915. The qualifications of both electors and candidates will shut out many of the elements which brought discredit on the Parliament of 1912-13. China's experience of parliamentary government has, so far, not been very happy, but although the new experiment will be on conservative lines, it will none the less be a step in the direction of constitutional government.\n\nThe Republic has justified its existence in a remarkably short space of time. It has re-established the authority of Peking over the Provinces, has to a great extent suppressed disorder, and has inaugurated judicious fiscal reforms on conservative lines, as, for example, in the case of the Salt Gabelle.\n\nThere is an element of weakness in the present system of government in that it is mainly dependent on one man—the President—but the country may count itself extremely fortunate, while it has been passing through a period of violent upheaval, in having a strong man to direct the course of affairs; a weak leader, even with the best intentions, might easily have landed the whole country in anarchy. China has the good fortune, at this crisis in her affairs, to have a leader who not only knows his own mind, but also knows his fellow countrymen, who has decision of character and the courage of his opinions.\n\nIt is clear, however, that there is a great element of danger in any system of government which is dependent on any one individual, however...\n\nPage 423",
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        "id": 468735,
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        "series_title": "CO129 Colonial Office Hong Kong Records 理藩院香港檔案",
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        "document_key": "CO129-443 - Governor Sir May - 1917 [7-9]",
        "page_number": 498,
        "title": "CO129-443 - Governor Sir May - 1917 [7-9]",
        "content_text": "# RULES AND REGULATIONS\n\nof the\n\nCONSTITUTIONAL REFORM\n\nASSOCIATION OF HONGKONG.\n\nName.\n\nI. The name of the Association is the \"Constitutional Reform Association of Hongkong.\"\n\nObjects.\n\n2. The Objects for which the Association is founded are:-(a) The promotion of the greater representation of the public on the Executive and Legislative Councils. (b) The pressing upon the Home Authorities of the claims of Hongkong to be represented on any Imperial Council or Association to be formed, and also to express its views upon post-war trade policy. (c) And generally the active support or promotion or criticism of all reforms or matters of whatever nature which are of public interest and importance to Hongkong.\n\nPage 486",
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    {
        "id": 484268,
        "series_id": 27,
        "series_slug": "histsyn-co129-engine",
        "series_title": "CO129 Colonial Office Hong Kong Records 理藩院香港檔案",
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        "document_key": "CO129-462 - Governor Sir Stubbs - 1920 [7-10]",
        "page_number": 130,
        "title": "CO129-462 - Governor Sir Stubbs - 1920 [7-10]",
        "content_text": "When quickly surveying the 7th hand pink, very A the present Jaquet at there\n\nBibliothèque Conf 1920 29 July previous Paper.\n\nHONG KONG\n\n50384 REC C.O 50384 122. RES 12 JUL 20\n\nLegislative & Exec. Councils unofficial representation\n\nLubricate ways to representation of community on Councils now on display by several public favour abolition in Case of Chinese cutters. Consider member for Chamber of Commerce should be retained & that remaining wide franchise non-Chinese members should be elected to a Labour cite to Two. cite. also be for a fewer of years? or for life.\n\nIn Continuation ...\n\n(I am sorry ... what pression of ... word hem de bagadh imp! ... subsequent Paper.\n\nHC. 24489 B\n\nThis despatch bears cordent Grace The Governor's own hand. The account of the Constitutional Reforms agitation given is clear & is Unmistakable. His quite clear that there is little demand, and no justification for constitutional changes Such agitation has been the mouthpiece of a need or Q\n\nthere have been been some in the line of increasing the power of a small and fugitive European representation: Whereas the line of development could like to further of possible would be to ham the Council to cater\n\n(8904) WL. 14185:94 Gp.153 28,000 8.20 W & B (W B & L)\n\nPage ...\n\nThe original text appears to be a historical document related to Hong Kong, with discussions on constitutional reforms, representation on councils, and the role of the Chamber of Commerce. The text has been heavily distorted by OCR errors.\n\nAfter re-organizing and correcting the text according to the given rules:\n\n# HONG KONG\n\n## Legislative & Exec. Councils unofficial representation\n\nLubricate ways to representation of community on Councils now on display by several public favour abolition in Case of Chinese cutters. Consider member for Chamber of Commerce should be retained & that remaining wide franchise non-Chinese members should be elected to a Labour cite to Two. cite. also be for a fewer of years? or for life.\n\n## Constitutional Reforms\n\nThis despatch bears ... Grace The Governor's own hand. The account of the Constitutional Reforms agitation given is clear & is Unmistakable. His Lordship makes it quite clear that there is little demand, and no justification for constitutional changes. Such agitation has been the mouthpiece of a need or ...\n\nthere have been been some in the line of increasing the power of a small and fugitive European representation: Whereas the line of development could like to further ... of possible would be to ham the Council to cater ...\n\nFile Reference: XCR(85)72 is not present, however,  'HC. 24489 B' and '50384 REC C.O 50384 122. RES 12 JUL 20' are.\n\nPage information is not clearly detected.\n\nhas been rewritten to meet the requirements as follows:\n\nWhe quacly ut from Kurvey the 7 hand pink, pery A the present Jaquet at ttre\n\nBiblis Couf 1920 29 July revious Paper.\n\nHONG KONG\n\n50384 REC C.O 50384 122. RES 12 JUL 20\n\nLegislative & Exec. Councils unofficial representation\n\nLubacite vais to representation of community on Coila Kewarks ou eis difference linplayed by seural tablic Favour alschon in Case of Chutne cutters. Consides wember for Chamber of Commerce old be retained & that revoining wide fruchiss non-blunese anybes rat be elected the a Zabun cite to Twee. cit. als be for a fewer of year? 004 for life.\n\nIn Cottins ...\n\n(I am sorry wat presion of word hem de bagadh imp! bsequent Paper.\n\nHC. 24489 B\n\nThis despatch bears cordent Grace The Govero's own hand. The account of the Constitutional Reforms afpitation given pare & is Umminatung. His quite clear that there is little demand, and wa for constitutional changes Such agitation duncheon of Q need or justification\n\nthere have been ben heme in the of increasing the power of a small and fagitive Enquen perfutation: Whereas the line of development could like to funtor of possith would be to ham the Cheese to cater\n\n(8904) WL. 14185:94 Gp.153 28,000 8.20 W & B (W B & L)",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/2diw2n4r2/CO129-462 - Governor Sir Stubbs - 1920 [7-10].txt",
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    {
        "id": 493961,
        "series_id": 27,
        "series_slug": "histsyn-co129-engine",
        "series_title": "CO129 Colonial Office Hong Kong Records 理藩院香港檔案",
        "series_use_hku_proxy": false,
        "document_key": "CO129-478 - Public Offices & Others - 1922",
        "page_number": 352,
        "title": "CO129-478 - Public Offices & Others - 1922",
        "content_text": "MINUTES.\n\nMINUTES NOT TO BE WRITTEN ON THIS SIDE.\n\npetition come time after careful comm un able to meet the memori atidő; but Ag 4 views of the Ziat- 7 Rauch 1895 the \"Petition presented by the Seminer Steator, from Ht.. an motion at the Table\" Jeme Bof. C. to have Cumbe wad by the Cluth there the matter far $ton (12015/94)\n\nThe petition this Office the fur. We Levet uceved in 12/1/94 4 the Deyp. to 23/8/94. Copies of Lord Repuis seep. If on Chamberlain's LAMBAL ware by 23/8/94 Leap of 29/5/96 to $2610/10\n\nI have placed Sie E. Kidder direction & attached change it LD. called for; but that the تسمع the it again if cover dared Change patitin اری mort to doubt y when Neperistaly desviable. bytel. saice - 347 Bat ? Inform Fe. In that mmporting the \"signed kiy Onla 1300 Paques Brition in thabitants g MK. ka & Parliament been presented behalf of the Reforma for a Codeor. + ber Cot. Ward Constitutional 9 report, ref. desp. on $6461/20. & follow up with Sending out the letter a diep. the supl. copies & lucks (ie. contents of jacket 126.96) · 29/3. them in a jamet attached to this. Presumably the Ew. is this petition. Kiangh it hand uot office through him.\n\nIn 50384/20 reported that reached this the Fw. \"there is no general demand for any two change. น interest in the matter. & Perhaps the Risley any faction Dept. C Lay whether the shs. be taken in in view of the fact that the petition has hem presented to Piment. カット 29/5\n\nI like it that cutest at Ward бочил пий м.Р. feeko ! informed The fou. wa that the 1. qft. was inclined that Me focivck to the beyond the apple of Ever. Cal., and ottais Ka offerdenity to king jround a the Lalition uestion the matter who there, though the subject so nee",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/2diw2n4r2/CO129-478 - Public Offices & Others - 1922.txt",
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    {
        "id": 493972,
        "series_id": 27,
        "series_slug": "histsyn-co129-engine",
        "series_title": "CO129 Colonial Office Hong Kong Records 理藩院香港檔案",
        "series_use_hku_proxy": false,
        "document_key": "CO129-478 - Public Offices & Others - 1922",
        "page_number": 363,
        "title": "CO129-478 - Public Offices & Others - 1922",
        "content_text": "It is sometimes urged that a greater degree of success would have been achieved if those dissatisfied with the existing order of things had pressed their claims with greater frequency and vigour. That is probably true, but it has to be remembered that the absence of representative institutions tends naturally to arrest the growth of a civic spirit and to stifle initiative and independence of character. While repression has this fatal psychological effect, the exercise of responsibility acts, on the contrary, as a mental tonic. Nor can it be denied that, in addition to the opposition of the Government, naturally anxious to retain its power, there has been a small but very influential section composed of the \"Vested Interests\" who have quietly but none the less strenuously resisted any change which threatened their supremacy. As the Directors of many of the principal local commercial enterprises they alone have had the ear of the local Government and enjoyed the right of direct access to the Secretary of State. While it is not denied that their stake in the Colony entitles them to due consideration, it is disputed that they have the right to sole consideration, for their interests as large property-owners and as holders of public concessions do not necessarily coincide, but rather conflict, with those of the majority of their fellow-countrymen, who are absolutely without any voice in the Legislature. So generally is this view accepted that, although they nominate many of the Justices of the Peace (who are limited in number to 120) and have a considerable voice in the Chamber of Commerce (which consists of nearly 200 members), they have only succeeded in returning one of their nominees—and him by a very slender majority—to these bodies in the six elections which have taken place since 1915.\n\nAt the opposite end of the scale we find amongst those who stand to gain most by an amendment of the Constitution a lack of enthusiasm because the proposed reforms do not go as far as they would wish. It must be borne in mind, however, that the Constitutional Reform Association has had to submit a programme calculated to command the greatest common measure of support and to stand some chance of acceptance by the conservative minds which dominate the Colonial Office. Obviously this involves compromise, but as Burke remarked: \"All Government, indeed all human benefit and enjoyment, every virtue and every prudent act, is founded on compromise and barter.\" While it is true that the scheme submitted would not involve any revolutionary change it would, nevertheless, ensure the faithful representation and more respectful consideration of the views of the British community, create a healthy interest in local affairs, promote legislative efficiency, and develop a corporate sense.\n\nAnswers to Objections.\n\nIt is a poor case which cannot afford to be confronted with the arguments of the other side. Let us look, therefore, at the reasons which have been advanced for withholding from Hongkong the concessions made to many other Crown Colonies. To do this we shall have to go back some 25 years to the despatch of Lord Ripon, for it is a significant fact that both Mr. Bonar Law and Mr. Winston Churchill have prudently refrained from entering into any detailed discussion of the subject, while the local Government, when asked by the Hon. Mr. H. E. Pollock to explain the reason for retaining the nominative system in the case of two of the four non-Chinese Unofficial Members of the Legislative Council, was obliged to seek refuge in the plea that the question touched the Royal Instructions and was therefore out of order. Some of the points raised by Lord Ripon need not be considered now, because they were either founded on a misapprehension of the petition referred to him, or do not occur in the later proposals. We will, therefore, proceed to tabulate those objections which are common to all the petitions and also those which have been specially directed locally against the later ones, as follows:-\n\nThe past progress of the Colony as an evidence of good Government.\n\nWithout going so far as to say that the progress of the Colony has been in spite of, rather than because of, the system of Government, we may point to the still more rapid advance of Shanghai with its representative institutions. In both cases favourable geographical position as an entrepot of trade has been the chief factor in development. Even good government, however, may be capable of improvement, and is not necessarily a satisfactory substitute for self-government.\n\nThat no weighty examples have been cited of the over-riding of popular opinion by the arbitrary exercise of the official vote.\n\nThis obviously depends upon the definition given to \"weighty examples.\" Within the last five years the Government has refused to consider a proposal for the exclusion of Germans from the Colony for a term of years after the war—a proposal submitted to it, in the first instance, by the Chamber of Commerce and subsequently endorsed by a crowded public meeting at the Theatre Royal—and to concede the demand for a Commission of Inquiry into the admittedly unsatisfactory Hospital administration. As a rule, of course, the Government is discreet enough not to goad the public into open and violent protest, but it may flout or ignore public opinion on countless occasions none of which may justify a public demonstration, though they may be very irritating and, taken collectively, constitute a substantial grievance. In addition, however, to sins of commission there are sins of omission to be considered—the neglect to pay due heed to the needs of vast majority of the British community who are still politically...\n\nPage 357",
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        "id": 502295,
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        "series_title": "CO129 Colonial Office Hong Kong Records 理藩院香港檔案",
        "series_use_hku_proxy": false,
        "document_key": "CO129-491 - Public Offices - 1925",
        "page_number": 542,
        "title": "CO129-491 - Public Offices - 1925",
        "content_text": "The petition \n\nAnd the duly \n\nunder \n\nWhen first E. Stübbe \n\nformal \n\n15 Support \n\nconsidered \n\nreported \n\n16 1925 \n\n528 Kat white \n\nconditions \n\nI would \n\nand some of \n\nthe changes \n\ndesigned \n\nstrongly deprecated anything \n\nI political change \n\nHongkong \n\nwhile \n\nConditions \n\nMoreover \n\nChina \n\nto unsettled. \n\nLed already \n\nLo Wha \n\ndemand \n\nconstitutional reforme; \n\n1500 signallinis in petition \n\nHis \n\namong \n\nA \n\nannexed \n\n20 \n\nWom \n\nIt \n\nleading \n\ncommunity \n\nLan \n\ndespatch \n\nstatement \n\npresented itself \n\nGenerally agreed \n\nthat \n\neffects \n\nin 1923/23 gives \n\nprobable political \n\nalready \n\nassociated \n\nHis position \n\nKhim. \n\nand \n\nview \n\nit \n\nof \n\nLas they \n\nThe Chiman, \n\nthe dishi Bancur \n\nin China My Bolshevik influence, any \n\nfor the Then bring \n\nWhen in August 1923 \n\nand of the \n\nchange quashot. \n\nWhen \n\nthe petition \n\nwas referred to Mr Ormsby \n\nSave by \n\n1 \n\nClark Khi Schiet Commiture on \n\nRui",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/2diw2n4r2/CO129-491 - Public Offices - 1925.txt",
        "external_url": "",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 502297,
        "series_id": 27,
        "series_slug": "histsyn-co129-engine",
        "series_title": "CO129 Colonial Office Hong Kong Records 理藩院香港檔案",
        "series_use_hku_proxy": false,
        "document_key": "CO129-491 - Public Offices - 1925",
        "page_number": 544,
        "title": "CO129-491 - Public Offices - 1925",
        "content_text": "'PHONE: BATTERSEA 3098.\n\nJOHN WARD, J.P., M.P.\n\nJW/GE.\n\nAPPLESHAW HOUSE,\n\nEAST HILL, 530\n\nWANDSWORTH,\n\nLONDON, S.W. 19.\n\n15th January 1925.\n\nThe Rt. Hon. L.C.M.S. Amery, M.P.,\n\nSecretary of State for the Colonies, Colonial Office,\n\nS.W.1.\n\n21 JAN 25\n\nDear Sir:-\n\nI have received the enclosed copy letter to The Clerk to the Public Petitions Committee, from the Secretary of the Committee for Constitutional Reform at Hong Kong. I should be pleased to know whether your Department has considered the subject matter of the Petition which I presented to the House of Commons, and, if so, can any information be supplied to me relating to the opinion of your Department upon the matter.\n\nA great many reforms have been made in the Local Government of our Crown Colonies that - as far as I am able to understand - have not injured the Imperial connection or Imperial interests, and it would be strange if the Britishers in Hong Kong are the only people who are to be considered as incapable of having some direct voice in the management of the Colony which their activities maintain.\n\nYours faithfully,\n\nJohn Ward",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/2diw2n4r2/CO129-491 - Public Offices - 1925.txt",
        "external_url": "",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 590532,
        "series_id": 27,
        "series_slug": "histsyn-co129-engine",
        "series_title": "CO129 Colonial Office Hong Kong Records 理藩院香港檔案",
        "series_use_hku_proxy": false,
        "document_key": "CO129-610-3 Rehabilitation of Hong Kong University 15-2-1949 - 7-2-1950",
        "page_number": 102,
        "title": "CO129-610-3 Rehabilitation of Hong Kong University 15-2-1949 - 7-2-1950",
        "content_text": "POLITICAL.\n\nUNIVERSITY OF HONG KONG PRESENT POSITION.\n\nNobody in Hong Kong can yet speak with assurance about long-term prospects but people generally regard the measurable future with equanimity. The opportunities of trade with China are good once a currency understanding has been reached and if the prices of British manufacturers can be adjusted to Chinese capacity to pay. The attitude of the Northern leaders is in fact much friendlier than their public statements would suggest. The commonest point of view in Hong Kong is that adequate security measures are being taken, that we shall not be caught out as we were in 1941, that there should be no show either of fear or of antipathy on our part, that, above all, we should not permit to grow any uncertainty about our resolve to carry through the constitutional and social reforms on which already we have embarked. This holds for education generally and specifically for the University. Delays or postponements would be interpreted as fearfulness about the future of the Colony.\n\nSTUDENTS. One of the results of the disturbed conditions in China has been a great increase in applications for admission from students domiciled in continental China. Already restrictions on entry to medicine have had to be imposed and possibly in October of this year the like measures will have to be taken in the Faculty of Engineering. The developments towards a University of Malaya have had less effect in reducing applications from Malaya and Singapore than we had expected. Applications are largely from people whose fathers and uncles were trained in Hong Kong and from the families which, though resident in Malaya for as much as two generations, still regard their permanent domicile as in Hong Kong or in one or other of the coast towns of Southern China. Dual nationality, which is legally recognised in Hong Kong at the cost of some inconvenience, is a valued privilege.\n\nThere has been a decline in the number of students from the Dutch Indies. Recent moves towards a political agreement may result in a restoration of the old relation within a few years. The number of \"English\" students, especially women, the daughters of professional and business men resident in the Colony, tends to increase. We have found that associating freely, as they do, with Chinese students these women make for a far richer social life among students. With the virtual closing against foreign students of the Universities of North China, Hong Kong becomes the obvious place for senior students in Chinese and in the history and economics of the North Central Pacific area. Provision is offered for one or two Fulbright scholars this year.\n\nSTAFF. With the help of the Association of Universities of the British Commonwealth satisfactory appointments to chairs and lectureships have been made. These have been reported to the Council. Financial provision has been made for further appointments. Staffs for the Departments of Education and Architecture, a new venture, are to be recruited. A Professor of Marine Zoology who will also be director of the scientific research in the New Fisheries Institute (a joint project of the Government and the University) is to be sought for.\n\nA new Professor of Chinese will not only have to reorganise his Department but may have to share in the work of an Institute of Chinese which may, for the time being, work in close relation with the London School of Oriental and African Studies to fill the gap caused by the virtual cessation of advanced work hitherto done mainly in Peiping. Discussion on this matter, initiated by Professor Simon of the London School, are still in progress. If the project develops the University will have to strengthen...",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/2diw2n4r2/CO129-610-3 Rehabilitation of Hong Kong University 15-2-1949 - 7-2-1950.txt",
        "external_url": "",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 595001,
        "series_id": 27,
        "series_slug": "histsyn-co129-engine",
        "series_title": "CO129 Colonial Office Hong Kong Records 理藩院香港檔案",
        "series_use_hku_proxy": false,
        "document_key": "CO129-619-1 Parliamentary delegation to China 1-9-1947 - 23-12-1947",
        "page_number": 76,
        "title": "CO129-619-1 Parliamentary delegation to China 1-9-1947 - 23-12-1947",
        "content_text": "# CONFIDENTIAL\n\n## I. Brief for Parliamentary Delegation to China\n\n### Introduction\n\n1. The Delegation will be the official guests of the Chinese Government. They will meet with an abundance of hospitality from the Chinese Government and people, not only because the Chinese are naturally one of the most hospitable people in the world, but also because they will regard the Delegation's visit as a compliment to themselves and an expression of interest in and sympathy for China's efforts at national reconstruction after a prolonged and exhausting war during which a large part of the country lay under enemy occupation. The Chinese will also interpret the Delegation's visit as an expression of interest by the Mother of Parliaments in recent constitutional developments in China.\n\n2. The Delegation will no doubt wish to emphasize the \"goodwill\" aspect of their visit by giving expression to this sympathy and interest on the part of the British people and Parliament in the speeches which they will be called upon to make at public dinners, etc. and on other suitable occasions. The Delegation should at the same time be prepared to satisfy on such occasions a widely expressed desire on the part of the Chinese people for knowledge about such matters as the way in which Britain is grappling with her own economic and financial difficulties, our social reforms, and the general workings of the British Parliamentary system.\n\n### / 3.",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/2diw2n4r2/CO129-619-1 Parliamentary delegation to China 1-9-1947 - 23-12-1947.txt",
        "external_url": "",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 595016,
        "series_id": 27,
        "series_slug": "histsyn-co129-engine",
        "series_title": "CO129 Colonial Office Hong Kong Records 理藩院香港檔案",
        "series_use_hku_proxy": false,
        "document_key": "CO129-619-1 Parliamentary delegation to China 1-9-1947 - 23-12-1947",
        "page_number": 91,
        "title": "CO129-619-1 Parliamentary delegation to China 1-9-1947 - 23-12-1947",
        "content_text": "## 16\n\neach of the Democratic Socialist and Young China Parties, \nand 4 non-partisan members. Eleven seats were left \nvacant for the Communists. The Executive Yuan, or \nCabinet, was similarly reorganized with the admission \nof members of minority parties. The Chinese Government \nclaimed that those reforms marked a transition from \nthe period of political tutelage under the Kuomintang \nto the introduction of representative government \npending the inauguration of full constitutional \ngovernment. It became clear, however, from a closer \nanalysis of the changes made that the Kuomintang still \nenjoyed effective control in the reconstituted \nGovernment.\n\n## 12\n\nSince the end of 1946 the Communists have \npersisted in their attitude that they cannot enter \ninto negotiations unless the decisions of the Kuomintang-\ndominated National Assembly of December, 1946 are \ncancelled and Central Government troops are withdrawn \nto the positions occupied in January, 1946, at the time \nof the Political Consultative Conference. These terms \nare clearly unacceptable to the Central Government. \nIn July, faced with a serious decline of morale in the \nChinese army and with a wave of criticism from the \nstudents, Chiang Kai-shek issued a general mobilisation \norder against the Communists whom he castigated as \nrebels. It was subsequently announced that the seats \nreserved for the Communists in the State Council and \nNational Assembly had been abolished. This in effect \nburned the Government's boats so far as any further \nattempts at reconciliation were concerned and placed \nthe Communists in the category of outlaws.\n\n## 13",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/2diw2n4r2/CO129-619-1 Parliamentary delegation to China 1-9-1947 - 23-12-1947.txt",
        "external_url": "",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 596982,
        "series_id": 27,
        "series_slug": "histsyn-co129-engine",
        "series_title": "CO129 Colonial Office Hong Kong Records 理藩院香港檔案",
        "series_use_hku_proxy": false,
        "document_key": "CO129-623-9 Estimates of Expenditure- includes a report for the year ending March 1952 1-2-1951 - 30-11-1951",
        "page_number": 13,
        "title": "CO129-623-9 Estimates of Expenditure- includes a report for the year ending March 1952 1-2-1951 - 30-11-1951",
        "content_text": "American embargo and the further complication of the postponement of constitutional reforms, we should not press for the imposition of additional taxation at present, but that the Governor's attention should be drawn to the correspondence about the defence contribution and access to the London market for loans to finance development mentioned in the Tai Lam Chung reservoir despatch (7) on 54307/50.\n\nCopy at\n\nThe telegram at (1) mentions two other points.\n\n(a) at paragraph 7. The establishment of a Development and an Essential Commodities Equalization fund. This is being considered on 54466/1/51 and has been concurred in by Supplies and Finance Departments and the D.G.C.A. and I think we may approve the proposal. I have included a reference to this in paragraph 4 of the draft telegram.\n\n13\n\n(b) at paragraph 8. A reply about consolidating a portion of the present cost of living allowance has gone vide (4). The file 53832/1/51 is in circulation for preparation of the letter referred to in paragraph 1 (a) of (4).\n\n? Reply to (1) as in draft.\n\n2. 3. 1951.\n\n7 Do Hong Kong tel 3136 of 2/4/17\n\nhf.\n\n8\n\nDispatch 47\n\nDispatch 48 w/estimates\n\n17\n\n16 5 S1\n\nS.\n\nSI",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/2diw2n4r2/CO129-623-9 Estimates of Expenditure- includes a report for the year ending March 1952 1-2-1951 - 30-11-1951.txt",
        "external_url": "",
        "rank": 0
    }
]