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THE HONGKONG WEEKLY PRESS AND
the aid of Governors or of officials with high | Mandarins of China a praiseworthy example of sounding titles. In his preface our author free trade principles and humane government.
Floreat semper!"!
says Sam
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"To the popular view the position of Hong- kong in the East appears to be that of a remote island, a mere dot in a little known ocean. In reality, however, Hongkong, which, com- mercially, ranks as the second port of the British Empire, occupies geographically a most fortunate place in relation to the destinies of the Far East. For the last two thousand years the march of civilisation has been directed from the East to the West; Europe has been tutored by Asia. Ennobled by Christianity, civilisation now returns to the East; Europe's destiny is to govern Asia. Marching at the head of civilisa- tion Great Britain has commenced her in- dividual mission in Asia by the occupation of India and Burma, the Straits Settlements and Hongkong. By fifty years' handling of Hong- kong's Chinese population Great Britain has shown how readily the Chinese people (apart from mandarindom) fall in with a firm European régime, and the rapid conversion of a barren rock into one of the wonders and commercial emporiums of the world has demonstrated what Chinese labour, industry, and commerce can achieve under British rule."
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It may well be doubted, however, whether the leaven of European civilization has not worked more powerfully on the life and thought of the Chinese people from Shanghai than from Hongkong. Dr. Eitel himself seems to recognise the limitations to the colony's moral influence, for elsewhere he says:--- It requires no prophet's gift to see that the politics of the near future centre in the East and that the problems of the Far East will be solved on the Pacific main. Contests will be sure to arise, and in those contests Hongkong will be one of the stations most important for the general strength of the British Empire. Here, even more than in its bearing upon the Asiatic problem, lies the real importance of Hongkong. Such is the position of this colony in relation to the destinies the Far East. Hongkong will yet have a prominent place in the future history of the British Empire."
梦静
The commercial importance of Hongkong is great and undeniable, so also is its moral in- fluence, though an exaggerated idea may be formed of both, but it would be difficult to over- rate the importance of the island as a place of arms, a station for the general strength of the British empire. As to the handling of Hong- kong's Chinese population and the readiness of the Chinese people to fall in with a firm Euro- pean régime, the following extract from Dr. Eitel's concluding chapter, "A short Jummary,' is suggestive, though it hardly supports the reference to the subject in the preface:
"As regards the general attitude of the Chi- nese community, it seems that, in proportion as the leading Chinese residents learned, towards the end of this epoch, to understand the prin- ciples of British communal liberty, there appeared among them a tendency to retire into their own shell, deliberately refusing any identi- fication with the European community. The persistent refusal to adopt European costume. or English ways of living, the uniform aversion to participation in local politics coupled with a deep-seated anxiety to keep on good terms with Chinese Mandarindom even when it blockaded the port to throttle their trade, the steady in- crease of Chinese joint-stock companies from which foreign investors were jealously excluded, the readiness of secret combination to retaliate against unpopular Government measures by a general strike,—all these symptoms of Chinese clannish exclusivism, natural enough in people whose just liberties have for centuries been invaded by despotic rulers, clearly indicate that on the Chinese side there is, as yet, no desire to see the chasm that still separates Chinese and European life in this colony bridged over.
Still the last paragraph of the book will com- mand assent :--“ So far, however, the history of Hongkong has on the whole been the gentle dawning of a bright success. Our hope of the future is but the memory of the past reversed. Hongkong has clearly fulfilled, up to this point, the purpose of its establishment as the guardian of the interests of Europe in China. Notwith standing all its faults and shortcomings, this British colony has set before the people and
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[September 12, 1895.
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Had the colony possessed a Municipal Council it is inconceivable that the sanitary condition of the place should have remained long neglected. The present generation is accustomed to look upon Dr. Ayres, the present Colonial Surgeon, as the pioneer in the advocacy of sanitary reform. The subject had, however, frequently attracted attention before that officer came to the colony. The following extract is interesting on this point:
Sir R. MacDonnell, who suggested to H.M. Government that the colony should be allowed, as far as possible, the liberty to expend, on It will be interesting to give Dr. Eitel's local improvements and works, all the available judgment on the administration of the various public income that can be raised from the com- Governors of the second of the two epochs into munity for these purposes. But the strangest which he divides his history of the colony. thing was that, while the foreign community We have spoken above of the arrangement of remained silent on the subject, the Chinese the chapters according to the various ad- residents came forward of their own secord and ministrations as tending to give an exaggerated requested the organisation of a distinctly Chi- importance to the personality of the Governors; nese Muncipal Council for their own particular but Dr. Eitel makes no mistake on this point in benefit, and obtained a Police of their own and a his concluding chapter, in which he says:--- consultative voice as to the management, by the "As to the individual Governors of this Registrar-General, of Chinese affairs. As to a epoch, one feels tempted to say that apparently British Municipal Council, it has to be noted each man begins the world afresh and the last that the history of this period emphatically con man repeats the blunders of the first. How-tradicts one great objection to it, which Sir G. ever, it is remarkable how little really depended Bonham formulated by asserting that out here upon the character, wisdom, or energy of any of in the East there is no leisured class and that these exalted individuals. Sir J. Bowring, the men of standing possess neither time nor in- man of ideas, had rare capabilities and was clination to devote to the interests of the public. brimming over with fruitful schemes, but, to The long continued and varied activity in purely use Lord Clarendon's words, events which public affairs displayed during this period could not be foreseen and which got (or rather by individuals like J. Dent, Ph. Ryrie, J. all along were) beyond his control' left him Whittall, W. Keswick, and others, and most stranded powerless. Sir H. Robinson, Fortune's particularly the large share of attention and favourite, was apparently the most successful time which the Hongkong Chamber of Com Governor of Hongkong, thanks to an adven- merce devoted to questions of general policy, titions prosperity of commerce, but if his ad. gives the lie to the assertion that the commercial ministration had fallen into his successor's time men of this colony are unwilling to sacrifice of financial insolvency, he would have been their time and their strength to the manage- deprived of all the means of success and left as ment of communal affairs." helpless as his successor. Sir R. MacDonnell, the autocrat, was perhaps the greatest, most energetic, and powerful Governor that ever ruled over this much-ruled colony, but adverse circumstances, bad times, opposition on the part of the colonists, and dissensions with the Colonial Office rulers clipped the wings of his usefulness and success. Sir A. Kennedy, the amiable, is the model of a successful and most popular Governor who achieved focal immortality by doing as little as possible whilst making himself personally pleasant to the colony as well to the Downing Street officials As to Sir J. P. Hennessy, the less said the better. His acts speak powerfully enough. The centre of his world was he himself. But with all the crowd of dark and bright powers that were wrestling within him, he could not help doing some good and the Colony emerged out of the ordeal of his administration practically unscathed. No, what makes or mars the fortunes of Hongkong is not the wisdom or foolishness, the goodness or bad ness of its Governors. There is an indomitable vitality within and a Supreme Governor above this British colony, and these powers irresistibly push on and control the evolution of Hongkong until its destiny be fulfilled in accordance with a plan which is not of man's making."
Hongkong has never enjoyed the privileges of municipal government. A Parliamentary Committee in 1847 recommended that a share in the administration of the ordinary and local affairs of the island be given, by some system of municipal government, to the British residents, and had that recommendation been acted upon the conditions of life in the colony would pro- bably have been very different from what they are, Perhaps the community is itself in some measure to blame. Sir G. Bonham requested fifteen Justices of his selection to consult on the organisation of a Municipal Committee of Police Commissioners. "If,” says Dr. Eitel, "the Justices had been satisfied to begin, in a small way, as a mere Committee of Police Commissioners, booking to future im- provement of the revenue to provide the means for extending the scope of their functions, Hongkong would not have remained for fifty years longer without municipal government. As it was, they demanded a fall-blown Municipal Council under impossible financial conditions." Again, in Sir John Bowring's time "a pas- sionate public meeting was held, which com- plained, amongst other things, of the exclusion of the public from the meetings of the Legisla- tive Council and of the absence of a Municipal Council. In summarising the period from 1854 to 1882 to Dr. Eitel says:-
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"Strange to say, the problem of municipal government, raised by the Parliamentary Com- mittee of 1847, and diplomatically handled by Sir G. Bonham, was allowed by the mercantile community to remain dormant through the whole of this epoch. Stranger still, the only Gover nor who alluded to the subject was autocratic |
When Dr. Harland (the successor of Dr. Menzies) died of fever in the year 1858, it was noticed that he was the fourth Colonial Surgeon who had fallen a victim to the climate. His successor, Dr. Chaldecott, reported, as a novel appearance in the colony, the outbreak of true Asiatic cholera and hydrophobia. Whilst in- sisting upon the urgent need of improving the sanitary condition of the colony. repeatedly pointed out by his predecessors, Dr. Chaldecott stated that this first appearance of Asiatic cholera was, if not entirely owing to at least fearfully aggravated and extended by, the neglect of proper drainage and cleanliness, the results of which must act with double force in a com- munity so crowded together as that of Victoria, and in a climate so favourable to the decomposi tion of animal and vegetable products."
On the subject of residence at the Peak there are various references in Dr. Eitel's book, and it is amusing now, when the Peak and Mount Gough are covered with villas, to notice how chary the community at first was of trying residence on the heights. Peak sanatoriums were first recommended in 1848 by the Colonial Surgeon, Dr. Morrison. Years elapsed before the idea was adopted, and this is what Dr. Eitel has to say of it: The long talked- of scheme of a medical sanatorium, to be established on Victoria Peak, was at last carried out, but did not receive a fair trial. At the recommendation of the Principal Medical Officer of the station, the Military Authorities opened, in spring 1862, a well-built sanatorium on the plateau below the flag-staff and filled it with patients (of an unsuitable class). But, before the close of the year, the military doctors condemned the scheme as a manifest failure, on the ground that nearly every case sent up had been attacked with diarrhoea of an intractable nature and that all medical cases had been aggravated rather than improved. The fate which had pursued the island as a whole, and the Kowloon Peninsula in particular, asserted its power also as to the first settlements on the Peak: the first occupation produced disease, and patience and discretion were re- quired to overcome the difficulty. It took years before Peak residence, strongly advocated by Mr. Granville Sharp, who took a lesse of the deserted sanatorium, rose into favour.” There appears to be a mistake in the year mentioned and in the ultimate disposal of the land, for further on we read: Sir H. Robinson, however, had more faith in the
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