Sessional_Paper_1896 — Page 441

( 15 )

437

The petitioners propose that the Unofficial Members of Council should be chosen by the people, but they fail to say by whom, or by what section, or by what process. These are matters of detail, but the petitioners have not grasped them, and in a proposed reconstruction of the Government to remedy alleged evils they were bound to state in what manner the end was to be accomplished, and to show that they would not open the door to greater evils than those they sought to

remove.

Under a nominally popular Government as in that of New York, for example, (to which I have already referred), the greatest abuses may be perpetuated, and it is almost impossible to conceive a representative Government properly so-called put into operation in a peculiar place like Hongkong without the worst abuses cropping in. I can see room for and danger of the worst abuses! It is incumbent on those who agitate for a change to show how they mean to prevent such abuses, and to do this the petitioners ought to have laid bare their scheme in full detail.

I have an impression that if the promoter or promoters of this Petition had called the community together publicly and explained distinctly what they really wanted, the good sense of the persons who hurriedly signed the Memorial would have prevailed, and the Petition would not have gone further, nor the community have been thrown into gratuitous antagonism to the Government.

It may not be out of place if I now venture to express my personal opinion with regard to the number of Unofficial Members of Council.

I consider that for all practical purposes the present number of five is suffi- cient, but as there is a good deal of feeling expressed from time to time that those persons of European and American nationalities who are neither members of the Chamber of Commerce nor Justices of the Peace have no representative in Council, I would recommend that they should have one, and that their voting privileges should be based on the rents they pay.

I think that it would be of considerable assistance to the Government to have one Unofficial Member of Council of English birth in the Executive Council. Many questions continually arise in which knowledge and experience outside the circle of Government might be of considerable value, and add to the Executive strength.

In conclusion, I would strongly deprecate the addition to the Legislative Council of a second representative of the Chinese.

I have the honour to be,

Sir,

Your Excellency's most obedient Servant,

70 His Excellency

Sir WILLIAM ROBINSON, K.C.M.G.

J. J. KESWICK.