Sessional_Paper_1896 — Page 444

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Enclosure 5.

(Extract from the “North China Herald" of the 25th May, 1894.)

The ratepayers of Hongkong, or such of them as have signed the petition to the House of Commons, which was printed in the N. C. Daily News of the 10th instant, have resorted to a strong measure for the redress of their constitutional grievances. In passing over all intermediary agencies, the Governor of the Colony, the Colonial Office, and even Her Majesty's Government, the petitioners have emphatically expressed their distrust of the powers that be, and have intimated that a case of such paramount importance can only be worthily dealt with by the ultimate depository of authority in the empire-the British people. It is undoubtedly a bold move, inasmuch as the slight passed on the local Officials will naturally arouse their opposition to the scheme, and if the petitioners fail to enlist the House of Commons in their cause they fail altogether, as the faculty of appeal has been deliberately dispensed with.

Of the severity of the grievance which it is sought by this exceptional effort to redress it would be impertinent for any but an experienced colonist to express an opinion. The petition itself gives no clue to it, for it confines itself to a priori inferences, showing by argument the evils which might be expected to arise from the anomalous partiality in the distribution of power which the actual constitution of the Colonial Government perpetuates.

But the anomalies of the British Constitution extend to all its offshoots. Being the product of expediency and experience alone there is scarcely any feature in it which can be correctly dignified with the name of a principle. It possesses the flexibility of an organic thing, and not the rigidity of an iron casting. It is never therefore successfully attacked on abstract grounds. Even hereditary legislators are safe until some specific wrong-doing is brought home to them, or, at the very least, formally alleged. So far, however, as can be gathered from the text of the Hongkong petition the wrongs of the petitioners are hypothetical; consequently the necessity of reform may easily lose itself in a haze of theoretical discussion.

Another weak point in the movement appears to us to be the somewhat, perhaps unavoidably, pointless conclusion of the petition. In the twelfth and last paragraph, where by the laws of construction of documents of that kind one would expect to find the force of the whole concentrated like the point of a steel shell, we find the wants of the petitioners somewhat spread out.

"They ought to be allowed the free election of representatives of British nationality in the Legislative Council of the Colony; a majority in the Council of such representatives; perfect freedom of debate for the Official Members, with power to vote according to their conscientious convictions without being called to account or endangered in their positions by their votes; complete control in the Council over local expenditure; the management of local affairs; and a consultative voice in questions of an Imperial character.'

This somewhat extensive order will be apt to appal the House of Commons, to which these innocent-looking propositions may open out the vista of another Home Rule Bill. Taken in detail, every one of them bristles with difficulties which no House of Commons can solve, and which must eventually be referred back for local solution. For instance the first, "the free election of representatives of British nationality." What, it will naturally be asked, is "free election ?" and by whom? and what exactly is British nationality? Is it synonymous with British race? The only allusion to any electoral constituency is in the caption of the petition itself, where the petitioners describe themselves generally as "ratepayers." The ratepayers, however, in Hongkong, as in Shanghai, are of all nationalities and races. And if they are all to unite in electing representatives who must be of British