DIE
MON
DROIT
THE HONGKONG
Government Gazette.
No. 8.
Published by Authority.
VICTORIA, SATURDAY, 23RD FEBRUARY, 1878.
VOL. XXIV.
VOTES AND PROCEEDINGS OF THE LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL OF HONGKONG.
No. 9 or 1877.
MONDAY, 19TH NOVEMBER, 1877.
PRESENT:
His Excellency Governor l'OPE Hennessy, C.M.G.
The Honourable the Chief Justice (Sir JOHN SMALE).
The Honourable the Acting Colonial Secretary (CECIL CLEMENTI SMITH).
The Honourable the Attorney General (GEORGE PHILLIPPO).
The Honourable the Acting Colonial Treasurer, (Charles May).
The Honourable HENRY Lowcock.
The Honourable WILLIAM Keswick.
The Honourable JOHN MACNEILE PRICE.
ABSENT:
The Honourable the Colonial Secretary (JOHN GARDINER AUSTIN, C.M.G.), absent on vacation leave. The Honourable PAINEAS RYRIE, on leave of absence.
The Council meets this day at 2.30 P.M., pursuant to adjournment.
The Minutes of the Council held on the 12th November are read and confirmed.
HIS EXCELLENCY moves the second reading of the Ordinance appropriating a sum of $783,000 for the public service for 1878.
THE GAOL.
The Honourable W. KESWICK:-Before proceeding into committee with the estimates, I think, as a matter of principle, it would be well that when we are dealing with public works, works that are likely to cost a very large sum of money, and where the amounts in the estimates to be expended do not indicate precisely the total estimated cost of these works, we should have before us, and stated in the estimates, the estimated amount required to complete what is undertaken, and that the sums in the year's estimate should be stated as simply on account, and the sums in future estimates, sums on further account. The statement which Your Excellency made at the last meeting of the Council was one of the most satisfactory character. The revenue, I think, is calculated to meet the expectations which have been formed of it; but when we come to large expenditure it behoves us to be most careful that we do not initiate public buildings and spend money without considering whether in future it will be as prosperous as it at present looks. At any rate, we should keep well within our resources. It would be very well for the well-being of the Colony that there should be some reduction of taxation. I do not say it is incumbent, but it would be desirable. Some of the public works are desirable, but not urgently so. It is a grand programme, which if completed within the next five or ten years would be a credit to the Colony, but I don't know that there is any urgent need for some of its items. separate system in the Gaol would no doubt have a deterrent effect, but it raises the question whether it is the duty of Hongkong to become the prison-house of China, whether some policy should not be pursued which would keep crime from our borders. It does not originate with us; it comes to us,
The
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