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5. Hongkong, when 53 years ago it became a British possession, was inhabited, I understand, by some 7,000 to 12,000 Chinese squatters and fishermen. Accord- ing to the census of 1891 the population, in round numbers, amounted to 221,400, of whom 211,000, or more than nine-tenths, were Chinese. The Europeans and Americans numbered 8,500, and nationalities other than Europeans, Americans, and Chinese, 1,900. The census further analyses, as follows, the European and American population.

Out of the total of 8,500, the resident civil population amounted only to 4,200 the British military and naval forces numbered 2,900, and the remaining 1,400 represented merchant seamen, police, and others.

Of the 4,200 individuals, who constituted the European and American civil population, 1,450 only were returned as British. Of this number not more than 800 were adult males, and therefore presumably not more than 800 of them would be entitled to vote.

6. I shall revert to these figures shortly in connexion with the question of popular representation. Meanwhile it may be deduced from them that under the existing form of government the population of Hongkong has in half a century increased (say) twenty fold which is primâ facie evidence, as you suggest in your despatch, that the Colony has been well governed, But a further deduction has also to be made, and that is that under the protection of the British Government Hongkong has become rather a Chinese than an European community; and the fact that the Chinese have settled in the island in such large numbers has not only been one main element in its prosperity, but also the most practical and irrefutable evidence that the government, under which a politically timid race such as the Chinese have shown every desire to live, must have at least possessed some measure of strength and of justice. How far Hongkong is a Chinese settlement, how far the Chinese have paid the taxes and contributed to the trade, is touched upon in Mr. LOCKHART's excellent inemorandum which accompanies your despatch. He is clearly of opinion also that the tendency is for the trade of the Colony to pass more and more into Chinese hands.

I cordially welcome what is said in the petition as to the skill and energy of the British merchants who have been or still are residents in Hongkong, and I can testify with pleasure to their public spirit. But the fact remains that the over- whelming mass of the community are Chinese, that they have thriven under a certain form of government and that in any scheme involving a change of adminis- tration their wishes should be consulted and their interests carefully watched and guarded.

7. The communities with which Hongkong is in the petition unfavourably contrasted, as regards its mode of government, are Malta, Cyprus, Mauritius, and British Honduras. Hongkong, it seems to me, differs from all of these four dependencies of the British Crown alike in degree and in kind. It is smaller than any of them, it has no history or traditions, no record of old settlement or of political usages and constitutional rights. It has practically no indigenous popula tion; and, if I understand right, it has few life-long residents, whether European or Chinese.

8. It is perhaps a fair account of Hongkong and its fortunes as a British Colony, to say that 50 years ago it was taken by and for the British Crown to serve Imperial purposes, and to safeguard British trade in the Far East.

Holding a commanding position at the mouth of the Canton river, endowed by nature with a fine harbour, which has been carefully kept as a free port, like the Sister Crown Colony of the Straits Settlements, strongly protected by an Imperial garrison and British ships of war, it has owed its prosperity to these