Sessional_Paper_1887-1888 — Page 25

LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL, No. 11.

TUESDAY, 27TH MARCH, 1888.

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PRESENT:

HIS EXCELLENCY THE GOVERNOR

(SIR G. WILLIAM DES VEUX, K.C.M.G.)

His Honour the Acting Chief Justice (JAMES RUSSELL, C.M.G.), vice His Honour SIR

GEORGE PHILLIPPO, Knt., on leave.

The Honourable the Colonial Secretary, (FREDERICK STEWART).

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the Attorney General, (EDWARD Loughlin O'Malley).

the Colonial Treasurer, (ALFRED LISTER).

the Surveyor General, (JOHN MACNEILE PRICE).

PHINEAS RYRIE.

WONG SHING.

ALEXANDER PALMER MACEWEN.

JOHN BELL-IRVING.

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CATCHICK PAUL CHATER.

The Council met pursuant to notice.

The Minutes of the last Meeting, held on the 5th instant, were read and confirmed.

SWEARING IN OF MEMBER.-Mr. WALTER MEREDITH DEANE, Captain Superintendent of Police, was sworn in to act, provisionally, as an Official Member of the Council.

BILL ENTITLED THE EUROPEAN DISTRICT RESERVATION ORDINANCE, 1888.-Read the following Message from His Excellency the Governor :—

The Governor has directed to be introduced to the Legislative Council an Ordinance for the reservation of a European district in the town of Victoria. The object of this proposed law is fully stated in the preamble, which has been inserted in the Ordinance, as follows:-- "Whereas the health and comfort of Europeans in a tropical climate demand conditions which are inconsistent with the neighbourhood of houses crowded with occupants and otherwise used after the manner customary with the Chinese inhabitants, and whereas the influx of Chinese into the Colony tends constantly to narrow the area of the City of Victoria where such conditions are attainable, and it is desirable to reserve by law a district wherein such conditions may be secured: Be it enacted by the Governor of Hongkong, with the advice and consent of the Legislative Council thereof." The correctness of these statements is too well known to need further elucidation. The rapid influx of Chinese into this Colony, where they find facilities of acquiring, and especially of retaining property, which are, to say the least, not universally present in their own country, creates an increasing temptation to land-owners to pull down houses adapted for European habitation, and to erect Chinese houses in their place, which, as providing for a far larger number of people within the same area, offer the prospect of greater profits from rent. This substitution is now going on at such a rate that, in the absence of some effective check, the time is being brought within measurable distance when all but the richer European who can afford the occupation of land of exceptionally high value, will be driven altogether out of the town of Victoria, or compelled to live there under conditions far more prejudicial to their health than those already presented by the tropical climate. In view of the fact that a large leaven of Europeans is, and (in so far as can be foreseen) for a very long time will be, necessary to the well-being of the Chinese themselves, the practical exclusion from the principal town of Hongkong of those whose liberal institutions and whose indomitable energy and preseverance has transformed a bare uninhabited rock into a beautiful city and an emporium of trade second to very few others in the world, would be not merely a sentimental grievance, but a real calamity to all persons without exception who are concerned in the welfare of the Colony. With a view to prevent this undesirable result the Ordinance in question has been drafted for the reservation of a European district in Victoria. The district indicated (the actual limits of which will of course be subject to modification in Council, even if the general principle of the law be approved) is one which has always been occupied by European houses, almost without exception, so that there will be no disturbance of present conditions; and the only change proposed is the prohibition for the future of what has not actually taken place in the past, viz., the erection there of what are known as Chinese houses by large numbers of people after