1901-01-24 — Page 1

LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL, No. 1.

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THURSDAY, 24TH JANUARY, 1901.

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PRESENT :

HIS EXCELLENCY THE GOVERNOR

(Sir HENRY ARTHUR BLAKE, G.C.M.G.).

His Excellency Major-General WILLIAM JULIUS GASCOIGNE, C.M.G., General Officer Commanding. The Honourable the Colonial Secretary, (JAMES HALDANE STEWART LOCKHART, C.M.G.). ,, the Attorney General, (WILLIAM MEIGH GOODMAN,Q.C.).

,, the Colonial Treasurer, (ALEXANDER MACDONALD THOMSON).

,, the Director of Public Works, (ROBERT DALY ORMSBY).

,, the Captain Superintendent of Police, (FRANCIS HENRY MAY, C.M.G.).

,, BASIL TAYLOR, (Acting Harbour Master).

,, CATCHICK PAUL CHATER,C.M.G.

,, HO KAI, M.B., C.M.

,, JAMES JOHNSTONE KESWICK.

,, WEI YUK.

,, JOHN THURBURN.

,, RODERICK MACKENZIE GRAY.

The Council met pursuant to summons.

The Minutes of the last Meeting, held on the 17th December, 1900, were read and confirmed. His Excellency the Governor addressed the Council as follows:—

Honourable Members of the Legislative Council,—I have summoned you to-day to make to you formally the saddest announcement that has ever been made during the existence of this Colony—to announce to you that our revered and beloved Queen is dead. During a long reign begun before any Member of this Council was born, Her Majesty Queen VICTORIA, the purest and greatest monarch of historie times, devoted her life to the welfare of her country. Never was monarch more faithful, never was monarch more beloved. In her letter of the 27th January, 1892, when acknowledging in touching and noble words the expression of loyal and loving sympathy from all classes of the empire on the occasion of the death of the Duke of Clarence, the Queen wrote:—"My bereavements, during the last 30 years of reign, have indeed been heavy. Though the labours, anxieties, and responsibilities inseparable from my position have been great, yet it is my earnest prayer that God may continue to give me health and strength to work for the good and happiness of my dear country and empire while life lasts." And God has granted her prayer, for to the last the Queen preserved those marvellous powers and royal gifts of wisdom and foresight which were always exercised in the interests of the peace and progress of the world. And now the gracious monarch of the greatest nation on earth; the perfect Queen, the stainless wife, the devoted mother has entered into her rest crowned with the triple diadem of strength and truth and purity, and enveloped in the loving veneration not alone of all the peoples of her world-wide empire but of the great mass of the thinking people of the world. Within the last hour I have received the following two telegrams:—

"In the name of the people of Portuguese India and mine, I present to your Excellency the respects of our heartfelt grief for the great loss which the noble British nation has sustained by the demise of the Queen Empress, Victoria of everlasting memory.

GALHARDO,Governor."

"With the greatest regret I present to your Excellency the expressions of my deep grief, and in the name of this Colony I accompany all the English people in their dolour by the death of Her Gracious Majesty the Queen Empress.

GOVERNOR of Macao."

For us as representing this Colony it but remains humbly to lay at the feet of their Majesties, whom God protect, our expressions of loyal condolence, and for that purpose I propose the following resolution:— "That the Members of this Council have heard with profound sorrow the sad announcement of the death of Her Majesty the Queen, and desire humbly to express their most heartfelt, loyal, and respectful sympathy with their Majesties and the Royal Family in their bereavement."

The Honourable C. P. CHATER addressed the Council as follows:—

Your Excellency,—As the Senior Unofficial Member of the Council, the sad task lies upon me to formally second the humble expression of our grief which your Excellency has proposed. Little could we have thought but one short week ago that so dire a blow was falling on her late Majesty's subjects, or

foreseen that her nation was losing its august and beloved Queen. It is not for us now to dwell upon her royal worth as a monarch, her thoughtfulness, her care, her solicitude for her people. These things the past has verified to all, and the history of the future can only prove yet more and more the immensity of our loss. To their Majesties the King and Queen of Great Britain and Ireland and the Royal Family we tender, in the words of the resolution, our most heartfelt, loyal, and respectful sympathy, and if what we say to-day can lighten, though but for a moment, their burden of sorrow, we, Sir, may venture to hope that we shall not have spoken altogether in vain I beg to second your Excellency's resolution.

The Honourable Dr. HO KAI addressed the Council as follows:—

Sir,—As the representative on this Council of the British Chinese subjects and the Chinese community of this Colony, I and my colleague desire to express, on their behalf and on behalf of ourselves, our entire concurrence with the sentiments which have been expressed by your Excellency and by the Honourable the Senior Unofficial Member. In the sad death of our well-beloved and much-respected Queen, we have sustained a great and irreparable loss. We feel that we have not only lost a just, august, and mighty Sovereign, but also a kind and affectionate Mother, whose parental care has for more than half a century cast a mantle of protection and peace over us and our island home. No part of the British Empire could feel the dreadful loss we have just sustained more than this Far Eastern Colony, and none in this isle could mourn her loss more than her loyal Chinese subjects inhabiting its shores, seeing that this Colony was born as it were in Her Majesty's reign, and brought up through the successive stages of infancy and childhood under her fostering and watchful care, and that we, Her Majesty's Chinese subjects, owe our liberty, security, wealth, and happiness, and indeed our all, to her wise and beneficent rule. Truly, to us the loss is woefully great, and our sorrow and grief are proportionately profound. I regret, Sir, that in a great national calamity and affliction of this nature, our hearts are too full and overwhelmed to give appropriate expression to our sorrow, or to convey to those who, on account of natural ties, are even more afflicted than we are, an adequate sense of our heartfelt sympathy and sincere condolence. We can only say that we sincerely mourn with those that mourn and weep with those that weep, and that our united and earnest prayer will ever be "May God bless and comfort Their Majesties and Members of the Royal Family in their sore distress and bereavement."

His Excellency asked every member who sympathised with the Resolution to rise. All rose, and the Resolution was carried unanimously.

The Council then adjourned sine die.

HENRY A.BLAKE,

Governor.

Read and confirmed, this 31st day of January, 1901.

R.F.JOHNSTON,

Acting Clerk of Councils.