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restricted to British subjects, which is believed to be the real object of the Petitioners, the electorate will be confined to a handful of Britishers, numbering about 800 male adults, exclusive of the Anglo-Chinese, who are not a numerous class, whose sympathies are almost invariably Chinese, and who have at the pre- sent time a representative in the Legislative Council, the Honourable Ho Kai. These 800 Britishers are already represented in the Legislative Council by four Members, though the amount of the taxation contributed by them is very small when compared with that contributed by the Chinese, whose adult male popula- tion amounts to 127,690, but who are at present unrepresented and who, not being Britishers, under the new arrangements proposed by the Petitioners, will not be qualified for seats on the Legislative Council, which are to be reserved exclusively for persons of British nationality. If the Unofficial Members are to be in a major- ity, as Petitioners pray, the Chinese, who are unaccustomed to the principles of representation, and who have evinced no desire for its extended application in Hongkong, will have to witness the spectacle of the representatives of the Impe- rial Government being over-ridden and defeated by a majority elected from a small number of British residents-an object lesson which would certainly not tend to raise the prestige or strengthen the authority of British rule in the eyes of the Chinese.

The Petitioners desire to have complete control over local expenditure, to which they contribute but a small portion, and at the same time to exclude from having any voice in such control the Chinese, from whom most of the revenue of the Colony is derived.

They wish to have the management of local affairs, which must necessarily include Chinese affairs, of which most of the Petitioners are notoriously ignorant and which the Chinese have shown no desire to entrust to the management of an elected majority of representatives of British nationality.

The Petitioners, British and alien, ask for a consultative voice in questions of an Imperial character. What these may be it is somewhat hard to divine, but it is obvious that no alien should have any voice in such matters. Whether British subjects in Hongkong, including Anglo-Chinese, whose sympathies, as already pointed out, are as a rule Chinese, should be consulted on Imperial matters is a question which appertains to the Imperial Government, and may be safely left to it for an answer.

J. H. STEWART LOCKHART, Acting Colonial Secretary.

26th May, 1894.

Enclosure 3.

(Honourable J. J. Kesunck to the Governor.)

HONGKONG, 5th June, 1894.

SIR,

In compliance with your Excellency's request, I have now the honour to state my views on the subject of the Petition to the House of Commons recently signed by a large number of persons in this community.

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I now proceed to speak in regard to the substance of the Petition, but I will refrain from criticizing it clause by clause as it seems unnecessary. I challenge, however, its general statements which have been marshalled in such form as to