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THE HONGKONG GOVERNMENT GAZETTE, 24ти DECEMBER, 1898.
and unselfish efforts with which they carried out their humane duties. Three of the Sisters caught the infection at the post of duty, of whom two died, giving up their lives as nobly as men who die on the field amid the din and excitement of battle. The outbreak of war between Spain and America-two countries in friendly relations with England- threw on this Government the onerous task of maintaining the laws of neutrality. A little island stored with food, coal, and all the munitions of war in great abundance lying off a coast indented with harbours, is naturally a convenient spot where belligerents might replenish their stores of coal and food, and it is a source of satisfaction to this Governinent that, thanks to the energy and tact with which the officials carried out their duties, the laws of neutrality were strictly enforced, and yet the end of the war found us on as friendly terms with either belligerent as at the beginning. The changes that this war may bring may deeply affect this Colony, but they still lie in the future and are not yet within our ken. A social incident not without its bearing on a great national movement was the arrival in Hongkong of a German Prince charged for the first time with high command in Eastern waters. The Prince of Prussia would have found a welcome for his own sake. Courteous, kind, and capable, yet every inch a Prince, he was welcomed by the whole community of Hongkong, and the English inhabitants did not forget in their welcome that he and his wife are grand-children of our beloved Queen. Hongkong has long felt the anomaly of its position, with the northern side of its magnificent harbour actually belonging to another Power, its forts at the eastern entrance cominanded at short rifle-range by the Devil's Peak, and the end of its mine fields almost touching the Chinese soil, the Bay of Kowloon within the precincts of its harbours but outside its jurisdiction. In June last a Convention was signed by which our boundary line is pushed some thirteen miles to the north, thus sweeping away these anomalies giving Hongkong room to expand, and more than all preventing the passing into other hands of the roads of Lantau, and the spacious harbour of Mirs Bay. Much interest is naturally felt in Hongkong as to the position of the stations of the Maritime Customs. It seems to me only just and necessary that these should recede with the new boundary, for it would be an abdication of sovereignty if a Foreign l'ower were allowed to exercise control within British waters. At the same time I recognise that it is right that we should aid the friendly Government of China in her task of protecting her revenue, made so difficult by the indented nature of the coast line, and to this end I have suggested that opium should be stored in Government godowns, and only issued on Government permit. In legislation much useful but unobstrusive work has been done. I may instance The Trade Marks Ordinance, The Liquor Licences Ordinance, The Bank Note Ordinance. The increased issue of Bank notes has, from causes well known to you all, been long demanded and the enlarged circulation is proving a great boon. The Queen's Recreation Ground Ordinance. In the last I have taken great interest, and I have some right to look upon it as a bantling of my own. The recurrence of the plague has forced on every thinking man the need of letting light and air into the blocks of Chinese houses, which, full of human beings in many cases, literally stand back to back in the City of Victoria, containing rooms into which the sun never enters, and where the fetid air has no motion. Doctors and physic, good though they be by themselves, are powerless to cure, while sun and air are a sure preventive; and great as the task may be of bringing these natural agents into this reeking mass of humanity their admission must be secured by law. A Bill is now before you which I admit does not go far enough, but it will at least be the beginning of a great reform. Many complaints have been made as to the shortcomings of the Post Office; a great deal of the confusion comes from retrenchment having been carried too far, and from the business having outgrown the building. I have submitted recommendations to the Secretary of State which will, I trust, produce great improvement in the department, in whose well-being every individual is concerned. Nearly allied to the Queen's Recreation Ground is the reservation of the rocky bluff on which stands the boulders called Sung Wan Toi, or the "Watch Towers of the Sung,' which, as far as I can gather, is the only historical monument which links modern history with the old-world time. To make its reservation more certain I applied to the Secretary of State for leave to bring in a Bill to this end, and his permission is now on the sea. I regret that I will not have the pleasure of giving assent to it. A survey has been made of the Jubilee Road round the Island. It has been traced with easy gradients, and offers in the section between Aberdeen and Deep Water Bay, an important sanitary reform, for part of the scheme is to fill up and turf over the festering inlet to which the leading medical men of the Colony point as the source of the malaria which has so long marred the health of Aberdeen and the neighbourhood of Magazine Gap. I have nothing but the good of the community at heart, and I emphatically state that if you believe medical testimony, it is your duty to decree that this section be the first taken in hand. Health and pleasure and the wheels of progress, and I may add of bicycles, move on roads, and in my belief a great strengthening of the defence of this Island will take place when the tracing across the pathless barrier of Mount Cameron and Mount Nicholson is broadened into a road. Shortly after arriving in this Colony I urged the Government to take this in hand on public grounds,
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