January 4, 1902.]
tion such as Your Excellency's where justice is always tempered with mercy, where national prejudices readily give place to personal sympathy, where thy stern voice of command is generally softened by words of encouragement the most kindly, and when the imposition of the most stringent law is invariably accompani- ed with the greatest consideration for those who are thereby affected. We sincerely thank Your Excellery, therefore, for having gracionsly afforded us today this opportunity of testifying | publicly our gateful appreciation of your administration, which will long be remembered by each and all of us as being eminently sympathetic and benevolent. Our fond hope is that after a short visit home yon will return to this island and continue the noble policy of an enlightened Governmont | which you have inaugurated and carried out during the past three years. We shall look forward with great pleasure, and I am afraid with some degree of impatience, to the day when we way welcome you back amongst us accom. panied by your nobly consort, L dy Blake, to whose gentle kindness and unfailing sympathy we owe so much and for whom we entertain the profoundest esteem and sincerest regard. I beg leave now to read the address.
The address ran as follows :—
TO HIS EXCELLENCY
SIR HENRY A. BLAKE, G.C.M.G. Governor and Commander-in-Chief of the Colony of Hongkong and its Dependencies and Vio-Admiral of the same..
YOUR EXCELLENCY-On behalf of the Chi- nese Community of Hongkong we beg repect- fully to offer to you our best wishes for a pleasant holiday and to place on record the profound gratitude and admiration which your able and sympathetic administration has inspired in us. Indeed, if we may venture to prophesy, long after the details of your administration have grown dim it will be remembered among us by its benevolent and sympathetic character. It is by sympathy alone that the gulf that separates class from class, race from race, and religion from religion can be bridged over, and the possession of that quality and your freedom from the trammels that ignorance and prejudice impose have enabled you to take a liberal and broadminded view of all the problems you have been called upon to solve.
CHINA OVERLAND TRADE REPORT.
Every department of our social and manicipal | life has experienced the stimulating effect of your keen interest. The increased accommo- dation at the Tu Wa Hospital testifies to it, as does the Infections Diseases Hospital which is being built at Kennedy Town; and we recall with gratitulo that we are indebted to Your Excellency for the recognition of the justice of our claim to treat Chinese suffering from infectious diseases in our owa hospital under Government malical inspection.
The erection of public bath-h nses will give the labouring classes opportunities which they have not hithert possessed in Hongkong of exercising cleanliness, and the maintenance of law and order will be rendered easier by the erection of the Central District Watchmen's Houso on hand given by the Government, an by the opportunity thus given of improving the discipline of the force.
The movement in favour of a more liberal
education for our sons and daughters owes its existence to your suggestion and encouragement an-l to that of Lady Blake.
But it is not only the inhabitants of Hongkong who have cause to remember Your Excellency's The benevolent spirit that administration. actuates it has been quickly recognised by the inhabitants of the New Territory. The good order that was so soon established and that still exists there undisturbed bears testimony to the contentment of the inhabitants and to their confidence in the jastica of British rule. The interest that Your Excellency has taken in agriculture and in local industries has been highly sppreciated and will bear good fruit, and we are confident that the money devoted to the opening up of communications and to developing the resources of the Territory is money well spent, and that the New Terri- tory will sɔou prove a valuable acquisition to this Colony.
In conclusion we bag to offer to Your Excellency our respectful congratulations on the present state of the Colony. On all sides is to b seen evidence of industrial and commercial growth, whilst the increase in the Colonial revenue has kept pace with commercial develop. ment. We trust that Your Excellency will spend a pleasant holiday and that on your arrival in England you will find your family in good health; and we hope that it will not be long before you return invigorated to resume the responsible duties of your high office. During the three years of Your Excellency's We respectfully bag that Your Excellency rule we have experienced storm as well as sun-
will be kind enough to convey to Lady Blake, shine. Each spring has witnessed a recrudes who we hope will accompany you on your cence of the plague and each recrudescence has return, our sincerest wishes for her welfare. pecessitated the adoption of stringent sanitary Those who have had the privilege and honour precautions. But the annoyance and discom- of kuowing Lady Blake will not soon forget fort that these bave caused to many of us have her never failing kindness and her gracious been mitigated by the knowledge that we had interest in all relating to the social and family your cordial sympathy and that, whilst recog-life of the Chinese. (Applaus-). nising the necessity of the measures adopted, you recognised also that consideration was due to those who might possibly suffer under them and insisted on the greatest patience being exercised. The typhoon of November last year, which caused so much loss and suffering to the boat population, gave to us another opportunity of appreciating your sympathy with such, the most humble members of our community, when anything touches their welfare, and it was to Your Excellency that were due the measures of relief that were taken.
It will be long too before we forget tha during the lamentable occurrences in the province of Chihli last year your prompt as- sistance restored to their homes many Can- tonese who were in a state of extreme destitu- tion and danger, and that during that grave crisis, when the events in Peking had estranged European sympathy, we still received at your hands the same just treatment and considera tion, and we feel proud that during that trying time your confidence in our loyalty remained unshaken. Your Excellency is also to be con- gratulated on haring successfully maintained the most cordial relations with the local Govern- ment at Canton, thus enabling trade and com- merce to be carried on with the neighbouring provinces without interruption or diminution.
But out of vil springs good, and the trials of the last few years have served to bring out into stronger relief the sympathetic character of your government and to bind the Chinese inhabitants of the Colony more closely to the British Empire.
Mr. FUNG WA CHUN afterwards read the
address in Chines',
Resuming, Hon. Dr. Ho KAI said-Before handing to Your Excellency the address, how
ever,
I would ask your kind permission to refer to two matters. The first is that the album I am about to hand over to you, Sir, contains only a copy of the address in English and Chinese; the address itself is being sent to Canton to be embroidered on silk. When it is finished I shall bare the honour to forward it to Your Excellency. The next is, I regret to- day the unavoidable absence of my honourable colleague Mr. Wei Yuk, whose letter to me, if Your Excellency will permit me He writes to read it, will explain itself, as follows under the date 39th December:- Dear Dr. Ho Kai.-Kindly make my sincere apologies to His Excellency and express my deep regret for my unavoidable absence on the occasion of the presentation of an address to him by the Chinese. My absence is due to family reasons. My presence is required in Canton on the occasion of the marriage of my nephew, and I am suffering from ill health besides, and my medical adviser has advised me to leave Hong kong for a change of air. Kindly offer my apologies to His Excellency." With these re- mark, I beg to present the address to you. Applauso).
3
bound in black relieved by silver filigree corner- pieces, and in the, centre is a small tablet of the same metal bearing the following inscrip. tion-Presented to His Excellency Sir Henry A. Blake, G C.M.C.. by the Chinese community of 'ongkong and others.
neşe.
men.
HIS EXCELLENCY the G VERNOR having ac- cepted the address, said-Dr. Ho Kai and gən- tlemen, I thank you most heartily for the evidence of good feeling towards me and Lady Blake conveyed in this address, and you, Di. Ho Kai, for the observations with which it has been so kindly prefaced by you. In your observa- tions on the effects of sympathy I fully concur. Without mutual sympathy and forbearance it is difficult for two peoples with divergent social systems and customs to live together with
free
And that we do comfort as
whare live without friction in Hongkong, every man, enjoys freedom in its fullest form, freedom to think his own thoughts, to speak his own mind, aud to guide his own actions without interference, so long as those actions do not prevent the exercise of a similar freedom by others, is a proof that the feeling of sympathy is not confined to the Governor but is widely shared by the community. European and Chi- You have mentioned many incidents of the three years since I have assumed the admi- nistration of this Government, and chiefest among them is the annually recurring visitation of plague. This is a scourge that has been known in Europe for several hundreds of years. In olden times when Europe knew as little of sanitation as bina knows to-day one half the population was swept away in certain places by the plague. but with the increased know. ledge of the present day the plague, which has again been introduced from the East, has made no progress but has died ont in conse. quence of the very stringent sanitary measures of disinfection and cleanliness undertaken by the various Sanitary Boards. It is becaure we have seen the saccess of these measures that WO are striving so eagerly to sare the lives of the Chinese people in Hong kong by the adoption of similar means, and I wish to tell you and, through you, the Chinese people how deeply I am impressed by their attitude and assistance in our present efforts to avert by timely precautions a visitation of plague in the present year. I have walked through the streets that
890 the Chinese being disinfected and I families bearing all the inevitable discomforts with a cheerful fortitude that could not be ex- coeded by any community in the world. God grant that these precautions may be successful, bat successful or not you may rest assured that
are
content for
we are trying honestly to save the lives of the Chinese working people by the measures that seen to us to promi-e the greatest pro pect of success. Ta› move aent in favour of more liberal education is fraught with issues of great moment for the people of all Southern China in the future, for such an advanc› in knowledge among you immediate families will inevitably extend to the neighbouring provinces and bring the light of modern knowledge to supplement the classical literaturé with which China has been
With knowledge will come so many centuries. progress and a new and brighter lif. I hivə no doubt that the report of the Commission on Education, now sitting in Hongkong, of which Dr. Ho Kai is a member, will suggest many improvements in the system of educa tion now existing in this Colony. "I ressive with great pleasure the renewed expression of your loyalty to His Majesty the King, and the confirmation of reports from other sources of the contentment of the inhabitants of the New Territory. Of your loyalty you have given substantial proofs, and as to the New Territory, the inhabitants have shown by their actions that they already realise the benefits of living under the benign rule of Great Britain. I b3 satisfied with have every
I agree with you that their conduct.
ere Territory will the New
long form a prosperous portion of the Colony of Hongkong. I am glad to tel you that we have completed the constraction of the leper settlement near Un Long to replace the miserable huts in which these afflicted people
were
to reason
The address was formally accepted by His
half sheltered before we took over Excellency. It is the work of M ssrs. Kelly & Walsh and reflects credit upon them by the the territory. This settlement of wretched It is shanties constructed by these poor people excellence of its design and execution.
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