November 30, 1903.]
The last and most important act of your Excellency's administration in this Colony has been the founding of the Hongkong Improvement Trust, which We are COD- vinced will have far reaching effects and will confer upon the Colony incalculable benefits which will last so long as Hongkong continues to be centre for trade in the Far East.
It is, however when we consider the health of the Colony, on which our prosperity so vitally depends, that the debt of gratitude which we
owe to your Excellency becomes most manifest.
The all-important question of the Colony's water-supply has occupied much of your attention, particularly the most necessary works which you have inaugurated at Kowloon and Tytam, and we hope that ander the rider main system now being adopted, an effective check upon the waste of water will result.
We would specially refer to your Excel- lenoy's devotion in dealing with the grave question of the periodical outbreaks of bubonic plague in the Colony, which have for so many years hampered our trade and checked our progress.
The self-imposed task carried out by your Excellency last summer in dealing with the plague in sectional blocks and your efforts to promote habits of personal cleanliness among the poorer classes of the Chinese would alone suffice to render the Colony your lasting debtor.
We are further indebted to your Excellency for your constant support of the efforts made to secure the effective opening of the West River, and for the privilege accorded of an additional number of ports of call, resulting in a large increase to the traffic and a corre- sponding advantage to the trade of tongkong. The warm interest exhibited by your Excellency in the important subject of education has been much appreciated in view of the increase in the juvenile population, for whom provision has had to be made in order that they may be thoroughly equipped for the battle of life, which here, as elsewhere, grows yearly more strenuous.
CHINA OVERLAND TRADE REPORT.
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393
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far-seeing, and enterprising mercantile com. wheel has been going round merrily, that no sand munity, its garrison, its forts, its ships, its band has been allowed to get into the bearings, and of Civil serrauts-all will have sunk beneath that, notwithstanding the present universal de- the horizon. The present will have become pression that will I hope soon pass away, Hong- the past, and the five years of your administra kong is as sound and insistent in abounding tion of the Colony will be to you a matter of energy and ever-increasing prosperity as when Ï recollection only, The years and months pass rapidly but, as the Roman epigrammatic poeting to my lights, taken the share of the work that came among you. (Applause). I have, accord- wrote, nineteen hundred years ago. "Pereunt fell to my lot, and I a cept with gratification your et imputantur." They are placed to our account, assurance that I have done it to your satisfaction and I venture to think that, in the retrospect, (Applause). But to one thing I confess that I your Excellency will have abundant cause for shall always look back with the keenest pleasure. sa'isfaction in the work that has been accom. I have secured, with the entire concurrence of plished during your period of office here. the Chinese authorities of Canton, that never A former Governor of this Colony, in replying again shall any man surrendered from under the to an address, once said, "The only reward folds of the British flag be subjected to the a Governor can look to is the approbation harrowing tortures that are still so prevalent in of his Sovereign, the confidence of the Chinese judical proceedings. (Applause), I colonists, and the success of those measures experience difficulties in having my views which
he has put forward in the belief | placed before the then Viceroy, but it is due to that they will be beneficial to the welfare and him to say that when they were presented to stability of the Colony in which his lot has been him he acquiesced with a readiness that did him cast." The important appointment which His honour. And in considering the custom that Majesty has conferred upon you shows that
seems to 118 you have gained the Royal approbation.
80 inhumanly cruel and The fraught with injustice, we address which I have read demonstrates the forget that hardly a century has passed ought not to feeling of the Colonists towards you; and a since cruelties as terrible were possible under consideration of even the Ordinances and our own laws, until at length our eyea Orders in Council for the last five years caunot were opened to the injustice and uselessness fail to impress any impartial person who, like of the barbarous practices. (Applause). I myself, is fami iar with their result, with the wish that I could accept the assumption that conclusion that on the whole they have been the Improvement Trust has actually been most beneficial and useful. In whatever direc- founded. The scheme has gone home for the tion we look we see signs of progress aud im- consideration of the Secretary of State, with provement. If we look towards the harbour, my strong advice that it shall be adopted. we see the near completion of that splendid (Applause). But great as is the importance of work tho Praya Reclamation, and if we look the structural improvement of Hoogkong, there further northward, across the harbour, we see is a matter of greater and more pressing moment a vast increase of territory rescued from that I wish to bring forcibly before you in these comparative lawlessness, pierced by an excellent last moments before I leave your shores. That rad, efficiently policed, and destined in the is the pressing necessity of utilising the British future to form no unimportant portion of this concession that has been granted for a railway growing and energetic Colony. If we look from Canton to the bo.ders of our territory. southward toward the Hill district, we find not (Applause). That concession has been granted only new roads, new and handsome houses, but to a British syndicate, and it is their duty to new hospitals, completed or being built, in which utilise it and supply the natural seaport ter- I trust, much suffering will be relieved, and minus to the great arterial line in Hankow, many convalescents will be restored to health est possible developments be sought inimical and strength. If we look towards the east, we to the interests of Hongkong (hear, hear). We will find a foreshore and land now covered by have not built up our Empire by being laggards the sea, but hereafter destined, when the grand in the race for developments necessary for the Eastern Reclamation Scheme, of which your expansion of the trade of the world, and letting Excellency has approved, is carried out, to form I dare not" wait upon "I will" has never con- no insignificant portion of the improved City of quered a position nor retained it for either men Victoria. If we look towards the west, we find or nations. And now, ladies and gentlemen, I will hundreds of commodious new buildings and touch upon a statement that has been reiterated that excellently graded Jubilee Road, which is many times duringthe term of my administration now completed to Aberdeen, and which I trust That is that I am too pro Chinese in my views. will some day be carried round the Island. And if Well, I hardly know how to answer this. If we look at the city itself, we see handsome edifices it means that I have favoured the Chinese springing up all around, some of the finest members of the community at the expense within a stone's throw of the Hall in which we of the Europeans I deny it most strenuously, are now meeting, we see electric tram-lines being (applause), and this beautiful address in which laid from one end of the city to the other, and we
Chinese and non-Chinese have joined, supports fiad law and order, as much as it does in a Euro- my denial. What is the duty of the British pean city, reigning amongst an industrious and Government, and what is the duty of His prosperous coinmunity. Now, these are simple Majesty's representative in Crown Colonies facts which cannot be gainsaid. The signs of whose prosperity depends upo the common material progress are all around us, and, action of the best men among its population ? considering the geographical position of this Not to destroy social distinctions, nor to decrease Colony and the constant changes in its the respect and consideration that ought to be the Your Excellency's Obedient Humble servants, population, I venture to say its social and moral reward of the educated, the upright, the honest
[Here follow signatures.]
progress has been of a most hopeful character and successful man of every race, but to give equal Sir WILLIAM GOODMAN continued. It was during the term of your Excellency's adminis. protection to all, and to bring home the feeling think, in 1886 on my homeward voyage from tration. But I will not longer detain you. I that under the British flag, justice is pure and Inother colony where I was Chief Justice, will only, in the name of those who signed the unpurchasable, and every man through all the that I frat had the honour of meeting your address, wish your Excellency a hearty fare grades, from the highest to the poorest coolie Excellency and Lady Blake at Nassau, when well, a pleasant voyage, and happiness and whom we meet with dull eye and patient you were Governor of the Bahamas. I recollect prosperity in your future career. Loud industry toiling up from the sea to the Peak how much I appreciated the kindly hospitality applause.)
with his loads of sand or bricks, is free to think I, a passing stranger, experienced on that
what he likes, to speak what he thinks with- occasion from you both, at Government HIS EXCELLENCY said-Sir William Good-out let or hindrance so long as he obeys the Houss. How little did I then imagine that, mau, ladies, and gentlemen,-I thank you.
laws that have been made for securing the pro- seventeen years later, should, as Chief Justice and through you the community who have tection and comfort of the whole community. of Hongkong, have the pleasure of read signed this beautiful album, for your expres- (Applause. This is the estimate that I have ing an address to your Excellency sion of goodwill-a feeling that is, I assure formed of my duty, and I have endeavoured to оп your departure from this Far you, warmly reciprocated by Lady Blake carry it out with a keen and abiding sense of Eastern colony. But it is the unexpected and myself. You are kind enough to re. my responsibility to my King, to this com- which so often happens; and now, after four capitulate certain incidents that have occurred munity, and to my own conscience. (Applause). most successful terms of office as Governor of during my administration, and your friend. And now that am about to hand over the four different Colonies, your Excellency is about, ship attributes to me a larger share in reins of government to my friend the Colonial as Governor of Ceylon, to enter upon aucther the inception and carrying out of those Secretary, for whose industry, ability, and episode in your varied and brilliant career. In projects than is always my due. The material honesty of purpose I would gladly vouch were a few short hours, you will have left our progress of this great port is secured by the it necessary in a community to whom he is so shores. Our rocky island-with its ever. collective capacity and energy of the o mmunity, long and so intimately known. (Applause). I increasing swarm of thrifty and industrious
and my wife bid you good-bye with heartfelt workers, its noble edifices, as well as its crowded
wishes for your happiness and prosperity in- tenements, its open-handed, large-hearted,
dividually and collectively, and our earnest
The encouragement which you have given to all healthy out-door sports and pastimes, in so many of which you actively partici- pate, has been most valuable as an example of the benefit to be derived from physical exercise and reqreation in an enervating climate.
In taking leave of your Excellency it is satisfactory to know that, when
you leave these shores, your, ripe experience will still be tilised in the service of the Empire, and we cordially wish you all success in your new sphere of labour. We also trust that, when the time arrives for you to lay down the cares and burdens of the public service, both your Excellency and Lady Blake will long enjoy in your native land the leisured case you have so well earned, and that good health and hap- piness will always attend you.
We have the honour to be, Sir.
When the applause had subsided,
and no one realises more fully than I that in such progress I have been the fly upon the wheel. But it is a happiness to me to know that the
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