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absolutely no intercourse except that of a commercial nature. Between the two populations there is a gulf almost as wide as there was a quarter of a century or even fifty years ago.

It is true that there are more Chinese who can speak English than formerly, but the proportion they bear to the whole is infinitesimal, the large inajority of the Chinese being as ignorant of our language as the British resident is of Chinese. Under such conditions as these it is not surprising that knowledge of Chinese, their customs and their peculiar requirements should be a sealed book to the British resident, whose intercourse with the Chinese is of the most limited nature, being almost exclusively confined to a discussion of markets, goods and prices carried on in a jargon called "pidgin" English. With such a medium of expression an interchange of ideas is practically impossible and is, indeed, rarely attempted. When therefore the petitioners in paragraph 8 of their petition describe the Un- official Members as the natural possessors of "knowledge and experience," it is impossible that they can mean "knowledge and experience" of the Chinese and Chinese requirements, for, of them, it is notorious that they are very ignorant.

It is not possible that under such circumstances they can in any way represent them. It perhaps may be this inability which leads the petitioners to seriously recommend that the Chinese should have no representatives, representation being monopolised by persons of British nationality, who are to "have complete control over local expenditure" to the payment of which they contribute but a very small share.

In considering the question of representation it is important to remember that, as petitioners state, "the traditional and family interests and racial sympathies of the Chinese who come to Hongkong largely remain in China," which is simply another mode of saying that the Chinese in Hongkong remain Chinese, a truism which is well-known even to the casual visitor to the Colony. But petitioners seem to forget that in calling attention to this undoubted fact they at the same time unfortunately remind us that representative institutions are not only unsuit- able but quite alien to the mind of the Chinese.

" is one

In China the patriarchal system still exists, the unit of society there is the family and not the individual. The modern idea of “.

one man one vote which a Chinaman can hardly comprehend, and if he does succeed in grasping its meaning, it is an idea which does not appeal to him, as it is opposed to the constitu- tion of society and the theory of government in China. In China taxes are levied and expended by the Government, the people having no voice in or control over expenditure, and the Chinese population of this Colony would be quite content to live under the same system so long as the taxes were fairly levied and expended for the purpose for which they were collected, without any of that peculation which is so rife in their own country. Indeed, they would prefer this system to one which, if the prayer of the Petition is granted, would practically place the levying and expending of their taxes in the hands of a small body of British merchants who may be here to-day and gone to-morrow, and whom the Chinese would be most unwilling to recognize as their lords and masters. It would also weaken the Government in the eyes of the Chinese if its views could be over-ridden by a handful of British merchants.

Among the Chinese there are some residents whom residence abroad or con- nection with foreigners have imbued with notions differing from those held by the rest of their countrymen, but they are a small minority and are not representative of the Chinese view. The Chinese have lived in peace under the British flag in Hongkong for more than half a century; they are quite satisfied with the present form of Government under which the laws are fairly administered without distinc- tion of race; under which their peculiar customs and requirements receive every consideration; and under which taxes are justly levied and honestly expended.