63
THE HONGKONG GOVERNMENT GAZETTE, 23 FEBRUARY, 1878. proposals, to have a hard cash value of $66,000, and under the circumstances, I am sure there will not be a single member of this Council who will not heartily wish success to Your Excellency's appeal on the important subject of transportation, and moreover I am certain that not one of the community, except its criminals in Gaol, but will wish with all earnestness to see it realised.
The GOVERNOR: Gentlemen, I entirely concur with my honourable friend Mr. KESWICK that it is highly desirable, in submitting any scheme of a financial nature to the Council, that the Council should have before it full details as to the ultimate cost of such a scheme. It has been necessary from time to time to take a vote on account, the estimates not being prepared, and the ultimate expense not actually being before the Council. For instance, I notice the fact that a sum was taken last year for the Central School of $30,000 and we spent $52,000, or more nearly $60,000 in buying the site, quite irrespective of the building. There are cases in which it is extremely difficult to arrive at an estimate of what the cost of a project may be. Sir ARTHUR KENNEDY therefore put down $30,000, which he thought might purchase a site, but owing to the increase in the value of land it cost a good deal more, and the plans have not yet been sent home. Similar remarks apply to the important question touched upon by my honourable friend Mr. KESWICK. I think I may read to the Council a passage from a despatch addressed by Lord CARNARVON to me in May last, and which was laid before the Executive Council in August. I was under the impression it had been submitted to the Legislative Council, but I see it has not. "That committee," His Lordship says, referring to the Gaol Committee, "seem to have considered the question of the reconstruction of the Gaol system as beyond the scope of their inquiries, though expressing an opinion in favour of the plan. I upon the separate consider the separate system to be the only true basis of prison discipline, and among Chinese prisoners there are very special reasons for its adoption. It is mentioned in the report that few of the warders know Chinese, and the terrible outbreak in the Singapore prison is a warning of the danger of affording Chinese prisoners an opportunity to combine. I have to request that you will at once call on the Surveyor General to draw out plans for consideration, showing the alterations that would be requisite and the surrounding ground and buildings." Well, that has been done. You have now heard from the Surveyor General that the scheme, if carried out in its entirety, would cost $95,000, but he has pointed out that it is quite possible to reduce that by a considerable sum, about fifty per cent., and that reduction would depend upon a project which he is quite justified in mentioning to the Council, namely, my policy of securing the little Colony of Labuan as a sort of convict settlement for Hongkong. I have been in correspondence with the Governor of Labuan and the Secretary of State on the subject. It unfortunately happens that the Governor took a somewhat different view from mine as to the utility of convict labour in Labuan. He has expressed to me his opinion that convict labour is so detrimental to free labour that he doubts whether it would do the Colony of Labuan any good. However, that depends neither upon his opinion nor upon mine, but on the decision of Her Majesty's Government, and I have every hope that the Secretary of State will be of opinion that convict labour would not be detrimental to free labour, but would, on the contrary, enable that little Colony to develope its coal mines and other resources. As to the advantage to Hongkong there can be no question. I have some little confidence that my views on the subject will be supported, and that the Chief Justice will be enabled, in dealing from time to time with the worst classes of criminals, to use that severe deterrent, transportation. As my honourable friend the Surveyor General has pointed out, if the Secretary of State sanctions that plan, no doubt the expense of this project would be reduced fifty per cent. we do not ask the Council now to vote more than $10,000. That sum is in truth all that could be But spent by the Surveyor General's department in one quarter of the year, and we cannot expect to have the plans approved of and returned before the latter quarter of the year. And I think, as the Secretary of State has expressed this wish of having the plans and alterations proposed sent to him, that it would be well so far to comply with the wish of Her Majesty's Government to have $10,000 voted on account, which, if spent, will be spent in converting into separate cells a few of the wings of the present Gaol without really involving any very large expenditure. I apprehend no objection to that. It is clearly desirable to have as many separate cells as we can, and independently of taking the officers' quarters and putting cells there, as far as the vote now goes, it only pledges the Colony to the conversion of part of the present Gaol into separate cells. The $10,000 I think a very safe item for the Council to pass. There is no doubt whatever that the very fact to which Lord CARNARVON refers, the outbreak in the Singapore Gaol, ought to be a warning to us. reports of the Commission and of the Judge who tried the prisoners reached Lord CARNARVON, then When the there came out to the late Governor of Singapore, Sir WILLIAM JERVOIs, a long despatch from Lord CARNARVON, in which his Lordship pointed out that Her Majesty's Government had urged upon the Government of Singapore the absolute necessity of the separate system and said in very distinct language that the outbreak which occurred and its shocking consequences should be laid at the door of those who, not complying with the instructions of Her Majesty's Government, had neglected to carry out the separate system. The Secretary of State wrote to Sir WILLIAM JERVOIS that both Lord KIMBERLEY and himself had pointed out to the Government of Singapore that the separate system was essential and yet it was not carried out. He called upon him to let him have the minutes in reference to the matter, and to let him know how it was the Governor and Council of Singapore had neglected to do that which Her Majesty's Government had so often pressed upon them. In these matters we must of course look to the experience of Her Majesty's Government. And about the
No comments yet.
Private notes are available after approval.