THE HONGKONG GOVERNMENT GAZETTE, 4TH JUNE, 1881.
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There also came before me a proposal which showed that a special restriction had been laid upon them, and which very much concerns what I said in the opening part of my remarks about the transactions in landed property. There came before me certain reports of the Surveyor-General referring to the restrictions imposed by order of the Governor in Council on the extension of Chinese premises in Hongkong. The Executive Council met to consider the reports. There was an appli- cation before me for converting certain European buildings in Queen's-road Central into Chinese structures, for building Chinese houses in Duddel-street, and there was also a proposal made by Messrs. DOUGLAS LAPRAIK & Co. to dispose of certain land for Chinese commercial purposes in another part of the Colony. The upshot of the discussion in Council was, that I was able to relax somewhat the rule that appeared to have been made by Sir RICHARD MACDONNELL, I think it was-to restrict the building of Chinese houses, and I was able to allow Mr. CHATER to sell the property and to allow the Chinese to build their shops and stores, but, although entertaining some doubts as to the policy of not allowing Messrs. DOUGLAS LAPRAIK & Co. to sell their land to Chinese, I declined, on the advice of the Council, to permit it. But in writing to the Secretary of State I said, "I am disposed to think the "line Mr. PRICE, the Surveyor General, has now drawn cannot be maintained very long in justice "either to the Chinese who wish to buy property or to the Europeans who wish to sell it." mitted the minutes of Council and a memorandum by one of the members who opposed the slight relaxation I made in the restriction, and who expressed the opinion that the increase of Chinese I anticipated would not occur, for he thought the future of the Colony was to be what it had been in the early days, more of a European than a Chinese community, and, acting on that principle, he entered a protest, which I transmitted to the Secretary of State. However, Lord CARNARVON approved so far of what I did in partially removing the restriction, and so the matter rests.
The three or four years
I trans-
that have passed since then have only shown more clearly the impolicy, indeed, the impossibility, of trying to stem the free current of commercial life, and, by any artificial restrictions, of endeavouring to preserve the best parts of the town to Europeans or Americans. In fact, such restrictions are not merely restrictions on the Chinese of Hongkong; they are, indirectly, restrictions on the manufacturers of Manchester, who want the cheapest and best agents here for placing their goods on the China market.
I also had the opportunity of consulting the Chinese on another proposal. There came to me a resolution from the Chamber of Commerce, in which the Chamber proposed that the Government should adopt a system of registering all the sleeping partners in Chinese houses of business. They showed that it was exceedingly difficult to find out who had money in a Chinese trading concern, and recommended that the natives should be compelled by law, and under adequate penalties, to register every person who had a share, no matter how small, in a Chinese business. The Chamber of Com- merce added that they had no desire to apply this system to the European houses, but wished it to be confined solely to the Chinese. Acting on my usual principle, I mentioned it to some of the leading Chinese bankers and others, but they pointed out that the Chinese system of trading would be completely upset by it-that there is an extraordinary net-work of investments in this Colony, as in any other community of Chinese, and that it would interfere seriously with Chinese trade, and, in fact, tend to prevent the influx of Chinese into the Colony. Accordingly, I declined to accede to the proposal of the Chamber of Commerce.
A
From time to time suggestions have been made to me about sanitation, and they have generally assumed the character of recommending the pulling down of Chinese houses, compelling the Chinese to adopt what are called the rules of Western sanitary science, that is, to have underground drains, to build their houses after a system they do not like, and to conduct their domestic arrangements according to European and American models. There again I found, on consulting the Chinese, that they did not like it. They said all this would only tend to drive them away, and they ventured, shrewdly I think, to say that their own system had some merits, and that the system to be substituted for their own had not worked well elsewhere-had caused typhoid fever, diphtheria, and cholera, from which this Colony and the neighbouring ports are free. ·
Well, gentlemen, it is upon such questions as these that I have been able to give to the Chinese community positive assurances to the effect that I would make no distinction between them and the other British subjects in the Colony. The mere fact of doing that which was, after all, but a negative exercise of the functions of the Government has gained for the Government the confidence of the Chinese community, and they have come to the Colony for the last three years in large numbers. They are settling here, buying property, and what they are doing is, no doubt, of great interest to us all. I must say it is of interest to me as the Queen's Representative, not merely because I see Her Majesty's Chinese subjects prosperous, but because what is going on in Hongkong tends to render prosperous men of our own race from England, Ireland, and Scotland in this Colony. I rejoice, also, to see that this prosperity is shared in by the Armenians, the Parsees, and other subjects of the Em- press of India; as well as by the Portuguese, the Americans, the Frenchmen, the Germans, and the other foreigners who here enjoy the commercial advantages of an Anglo-Chinese Colony and the protection of the British flag.
My honourable friend the Attorney General has seen the West Indian Islands. He and I have seen Englishmen full of enterprise and ability there, but we have seen, too, many of them bankrupt planters, broken-down merchants. Why? Because the native community they had to work with
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