398
THE GOVERNOR'S SPEECH AT THE OPENING OF THE LEGISLATIVE
COUNCIL.
In opening the session of the Legislative Council yesterday Sir WILLIAM ROBINSON was able to give a very favourable account of the condition and prospects of the colony. How far His Excellency would claim that the flourishing state of affairs now prevailing is due to official influences we do not know, but he seems to put forward a claim that officialdom is at least not a millstone round the neck of the colony. He has looked in vain, he says, for the symptoms peculiar to a people writhing under injustice and taxed up to the limit of endurance and he has discovered only that happy condition of pro- gress and prosperity which usually obtains in a well ordered community. That the form of Government has a considerable in- fluence on the condition of a people may be accepted as a truism, but it cannot be ad- mitted that officials individually are to be thanked for all that is good, or, on the other hand, blamed for all that is bad. The public, paying good salaries, has a right to look for a certain degree of excellence in its public servants, and excellence merits commendation; but the taxpayers cannot be expected to break forth into praise because the officials are not utterly bad nor the community at large writhing under injustice or groaning under excessive taxation. The freedom enjoyed under the British constitution is such that even in a remote Crown Colony under a bureaucratic Government the power for evil of bad or incompetent officials is limited; like eczema on the body politic, they may cause great irritation and inconvenience, but they are hardly capable of giving rise to a fatal illness. In Hongkong we may consider ourselves a moderately well ordered com- munity, but there is plenty of room for improvement and no good reason why the improvement should not be
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effected. Sir WILLIAM ROBINSON'S re- marks yesterday challenge criticism on the official system of the colony and the verdict must be that if the system is not so bad as it might be it is certainly not so good as it ought to be.
THE HONGKONG. WEEKLY PRESS AND
conducted the fight to a successful issue, much to the advantage of trade and of good order. Had he yielded to the advice ten- dered him by the committee of merchants he could hardly have been blamed, but that he took the responsibility of ignoring that advice and carrying the matter through on his own lines, which proved successful, entitles him to the highest possible praise, which the whole community united in according to him.
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But if the Governor's action with regard to the coolie strike merits high praise, it would be almost impossible to condemn too severely his action with regard to the Sanitary Board. His Excellency says "there are those who Have pretended to see in the action of the Government an attempt to deal a death 'blow to the Sanitary Board. I disolaim "any such motive.' Reference to His Excellency's speech at the opening of the Legislative Council last year will show that no pretence was required on the part of those who saw a design to deal a death blow to the Sanitary Board, His Excellency having him- self been sufficiently explicit as to his inten- tion. On that occasion he said that "favour
able as he was personally to municipal and representative institutions where they could be safely established" he was bound to say that he considered the opinion that in Hongkong all sanitary arrangements should be placed in the hands of one thor- oughly competent officer who should be per- sonally responsible to the Government for all matters connected with the health of the colony and for carrying out all sanitary laws and regulations was one that should be acted upon; and, further, that he did not believe a Sanitary Board meeting once a fortnight could properly control and direct such a staff as was required, and that four or five independent gentlemen could be found who had the time and inclination to devote several hours daily to such a task was beyond the bounds of possibility. It is true His Excellency concluded by saying that he hoped shortly to be in a position to state definitely what steps it had been de- ded to take to place the Sanitary Board on a new basis, but the only inference to be drawn from the whole passage was that the Board was to be placed on a new basis by being killed and buried. It is extremely gratifying to learn that the project is not to be carried out and that it now appears so monstrous even in the eyes of the Governor himself that His Excellency cannot believe he ever entertained such a project.
[November 27, 1895
asked to pay only on the general revenue ex clusive of municipal revenue.
The Governor seems to anticipate that the Taipingshan resumption scheme will prove a financial as well as a sanitary success. If that result is attained it will be an eloquent tribute to the far- sightedness of Governor Sir WILLIAM DES Vaux, who, as will be remembered, before ever the plague was thought of, had a Bill passed giving the Government power to buy up insanitary districts and deal with them as Taipingshan is now being dealt with. Sir WILLIAM DES VEUX unfortunately fell sick and had to go away, and, under our excellent system of government, no more was thought of the scheme. Sir WILLIAM ROBINSON had never even heard of it, until the plague came and woke up the Govern ment and every one else to the sanitary requirements of the colony. Satisfactory progress is now being made in sanitation, however, with the result that the death rate this year is lower than it has ever been be forc, and with a popularly constituted Sanitary Board in control, as we hope will soon again be the case, we may reasonably look for a continuous policy of improvement and that valuable schemes like that provided for by the Crown Lands Resump tion Ordinance will not be lost sight of when their originators leave the colony, as is apt to be the case under a system of unadul- terated officialdom.
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With reference to other topics touched upon in His Excellency's address, it is gratifying to know that the economies recommended by the Retrenchment Com- mittee
are being effected rapidly as opportunity offers, that the shipping. returns show a satisfactory expansion of trade, that crime has been at a low ebb during the year, and last, but not least, that in the hurly-burly of international politics the Governor has reason to believe that the interests most particularly affecting this colony have by no means been lost sight of. Just how much or how little that may mean it is impossible to say, but it has a cheerful ring with it. We hope His Excellency may shortly be in a position to make a more explicit statement on the subject and that the expectations to which his present remarks give rise may not be disappointed.
THE MAHOMMEDAN REBELLION.
We have no desire to underrate really valuable services. The precautions taken against the plague this year have, we believe, prevented a recurrence of the disastrous epidemic of last year. The belief is perhaps speculative, because no precautions have been
The extent and importance of the Ma- taken in Canton and there has been no Turning to other matters in the address, hommedan Rebellion in the North-west of recurrence of the epidemic there, which we note first His Excellency's remarks on China seem to have been considerably might be taken as a prima facie ground for the military contribution question. The exaggerated in the first reports of the move- believing that there would have been amount of the contribution is now put down ments of the insurgents. This circumstance, no recurrence here, but certain it is that a at 17 per cent. of the revenue (exclusive as we pointed out recently, is not surprising. number of cases occurred in the colony of of land sales) and $40,000 for barrack ser- News in the Central Kingdom, like a snow- such virulence as, in the absence of effective vices. His Excellency says he is in posses- ball rolling, gathers as it travels, and it is precautions, would have raised serious sion of the views of the unofficial members often the case that a trifling incident occur- apprehensions and did indeed do so. The on that subject, but he asks them to vote ring in the interior assumes portentous precautions taken and the efficiency with the sum set down in the estimates subject dimensions ere the intimation of it reaches which the necessary measures were carried to further representations and such modifica- the coast. A missionary belonging to the out may, however, be taken almost as a tions as may hereafter be approved. It is China Inland Mission informs the Wuchang matter of course, for any Government or to be hoped the unofficial members will not correspondent of our Shanghai morning community after the experience of 1894 comply with the request, but will fight for a contemporary that the rebellion has all would have been mad not to have done debate on account of the municipal expendi- along been opposed by the head men among all in its power to protect itself against a gure, so that we may be placed on the same the Mahommedans, who doubtless cherish a similar visitation. We appreciate the basis as the Straits Settlements, and will also lively recollection of the merciless severity services rendered in that matter, but they try to have the $40,000 for barrack services with which the last insurrection in the pro- were only what the colony had a right to struck out, though it is to be feared that on vinces of the north-west was quelled. When, expect. The services rendered by the the latter point they have, with the excep however, the people broke out the leaders Governor individually in the matter of the tion of the Hon. T. H. WHITEHEAD, already were compelled to throw in their lot with coolie strike stand on rather a different committed themselves too far to draw back. them, but all the same they are not eager footing, A representative committee ap-On the basis on which the 17 per cent. for the conflict, and if the Chinese authori- pointed by the mercantile community was should be reckoned, however, there can be ties do not use their power too harshly in favour of throwing up the sponge and ho division of opinion. It would be clearly putting it down at Hochow, where
gurrendering to the forces of lawlessness, inequitable to make this colony pay 17 per started, it is believed but Sir WILLIAM ROBINSON stood firm and cent, on its full revenue while the Straits are likely to spread. The
rebellion rising, as w
we have
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