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THE LEGISLATIVE DEBATE.
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THE HONGKONG WEEKLY PRESS AND
(Daily Press, May 2nd). "Almost thou persuadest' would occur to many pro-Commission minds after read- ing the speech to the Legislative Council by the Hon. Mr. OSBORNE. It was indeed a masterly bit of pleading, but we do not wish to follow the example of praising the speech and condemning the argument. It is a poor compliment to any man to tell him he has made a fine speech and then to vote against bio. It is just as bad to flatter a man on his eloquence and then attack him for saying something he never said. The Hon. Mr. OSBORNE observed that in Hongkong it is the practice to strangle industrial | enterprise with vexatious conditions. The Hon. Mr. MAY's argument was all to show that such enterprise had not been strangled with vexatious prices, which is quite another story The land allocated may not cost too much when taken over, but its subsequent development, on lines for which it was acquired, may, by reason of vexatious conditions then and subsequently imposed, which we think is what the Hon. Mr. OSBORNE meant. He certainly said nothing about the price of land being prohibitive, and his phrase covers far more than the point laboured by the Hon. Mr. MAY. Another critic was the Hou. Dr. Ho KAI, who accused the Hon. Mr. OSBORNE of making a mistake in ignoring the fact that it is the Chinese labour which really makes the trade of the port. The whole point of the Hon. Mr. OSBORNE's argument that there should be no turning back from the work of purification begun in 1903 rested on the necessity of making the conditions favourable to the health of the population, which means primarily, of course, the health of the labouring population. His picture of an empty and a ruined city, with a commerce departed never to return," was plaiuly a picture of a city that had been ruined by disease consequent ou neglected sanitation. Thus so far, it will be seen, the Hon. Mr. OSBORNE'S powerful plea has been attacked for defects it does not co tain. In going on to our own criticism, we have to admit at once that the points we object to are mere excrescences, that do not affect the spirit and tenour of bis thesis. Its main principles we could not feel confident about upsetting, so serious an impression does it make, and so effectively does it throw the shadow of doubt over hitherto cherished opinions. That is the greatest compliment
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cau pay him not that his oratory compares favourably with Parliamentary efforts but that it weakens the faith of the devout; that, in short, it has a converting power. Superficially, as we have said, we find features that offend. There are gratuitous remarks here and there that would mar the effect of a less forcible argument. There is no one less tolerant than the hater of intolerance, and therein we seem to see illustrated the Hon. Mr. OSBORNE'S position when he complains of the charges of incapacity and corruption levelled at the whole department," and when he complains that "from beginning to end of the Commissioners' report there is not one word of approbation, not the faintest meed of praise." Expensive com- missions are not appointed to pay com- pliments to those who may happen to deserve them. The Commission found that mauy things were wrong, and its business and duty was to point them out. Iu entering in his log book that all the forecastle hands were drunk and incapable, we would not expect the Captain to add, "but I have pleasure in recording the fact that the Chief Officer
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was sober."
That is very much what the Hon. Mr. OSBORNE, and possibly the sober officers of the Department, seem to have been expecting. The Hon. Mr. OSBORNE'S complaint of the
"cruel injustice
of bespattering the characters" of such officers and servants as had nothing to blush for was mere rhodomontade, therefore; and the Commissioners would have been to blame if they had wasted time and money by inserting in their already voluminous report a lot of compliments that could only have obscured the more immediately import- ant issues. In defence of those of us who may have been perhaps too hearti- ly damning the bad elements of the Department, it might be shown that the Hon. Mr. OSBORNE, in spite of his eloquent tribute to its better elements, does not come far short of uttering expressions equally capable of wounding those susceptible members of the service who have apparently been fitting on caps not intended for them. The "unnecessary barshness" of the admin- istration he barely admitted, though, it is suggestive to find him remarking that "the whole Sanitary department from President downwards should understand that the law was not framed for the purpose of harassing and annoying," and that above all they should "avoid a senseless interpretation of the law." He also granted "the misplaced zeal, stupidity, and arrogance of subor- dinates," and that admission implies of necessity either incapacity or neglect among those who are not subordinates. There has been, also, in bis own words, a sensele-s interpretation of the law, but whether pro- perty interests would be any safer from such under an elected body with fuller powers than they would be under the Official- medical-cum-Building Authority-cum-Cadet system is a theory that the Hon. Mr. OSBORNE encourages ug to doubt. We must admit with him that much good sanitary work has been done, but we are by no means immune from communicable diseases yet, and in view of certain liabilities that po precautions can relieve us from it is irritating to be vexed by professional fads, and red-tape administration of inelastic byelaws or ordinances. What is wanted, to quote the Hon. Mr. OSBORNE's memorable phrase, is an end of the "administrative incapacity to apply the law in a common- sense and reasonable fashion," and so far as the Commissioners' recommendations seem to promise that consummation, and only so far, they should receive support. For ourselves, we do not think we can be accused of having helped to fuster the delusion that this community is "crushed beneath the heel of official tyranny," though wo do persist in the assertion that it has been sometimes prickel by extravagant official fads, against which there ought to be some check, presumably at.the Sanitary Board. As a result of this latest debate in the Legislative Council, however, we now entertain the hope that a happy issue is in sight. We have more than a hope- it is our conviction that! a suitable compromise is already casting its shadow before us.
DISRANKED MISSIONARIES.
(Daily Press, 4th May.) Few Chinese edicts have been more quietly received, considering its importance, than the recent one depriving Roman Catholic missionaries of the official (Chinese) rank they have been enjoying since Bishop FAVIER got it for them in 1899. The Chi- nese Government has thereby in one coup abolished a number of annoying anomalies, and probably prevented a recurrence of the
[May 11, 1908.
peculiar troubles that many people have been attributing to these false positions of the priests. Over forty Roman Catholic bishops in China had viceregal rank, and some of them (if not all) moved about with the parade of Viceroys.
Well over a thousand priests similarly princed about as prefects. The whole business has always been, of course, a direct violence to the religion they teach, as is, indeed, the ostentation of a bishop in any European country. Only in Chin the evil example has been exaggerated. These men may claim apostolic succession, but they certainly do not cultivate apostolic simplicity and meekness. In China this assumption of high rank by missionaries has meant more than a breach of religious d'corum. It has aggravated the worries incidental in any case to the presence of foreign progagandists in such large numbers. Some of the men have been accused of abusing the privilege which was, of course, bestowed for a special reason, on the Jesuitical principle of the end justifying the means. But there is no need to go into that. Even if the accusa- tions of the past cau never be substantiated the position itself was manifestly intolerable. It made the Protestant missionaries-who dare not approve all means to a desired end
jealous, because they looked upon it, no doubt, as giving the rival propagandists an unfair advantage. The Protestant mission- aries in conference at Shanghai about the same time decided against applying for a like privilege. Public opinion at Home would probably have been so much against it, if they had, that their funds derived from collections and offertories would have been in peril of dwindling to very little. Politi- cally there were strong objections to the play-acting that has been going on for nearly a decade, with such results, by the way, as modified the Protestant idea that the systemu gave their rivals an advantage over them. It is perhaps not insiguificant that the Boxer horror should have come to a crisis so soon after the priests began to masquerade as officials among the Chinese. The political objections referred to may be inferred from the fact that while & French consul might be negotiating with a Taotai, a French bishop could be negotiating on the sam subject, and over bis head, with a Viceroy, although the said bishop legally speaking was subject to the authority of the Consul. The same would apply also, of course, to such other nationalities, repre- sented in the missionary fraternity, as had consuls on the spot. That the Chinese did not like it goes without saying, and now that it is ended, we trust they will be less ruffle i by the presence of their uninvited mentors. It depends now almost entirely on the behaviour of the latter how the Chinese will treat them, which is as it should b^.
CHINESE SO DIERS.
(Daily Fress, May 5th.) Some time ago, talking of the new Chinese military ambitions, and of sundry nervous "yellow peril" comments therein, we qu t- el a conversation we had had with a high officer of His Imperial Japanese Majesty's army, who had been giving us his reas ins for believing that the modern military movement in China could not have adequate results for a long time to come. The chief reason had reference to the lack of morale, and the neglect of the reforms necessary to inculcate and develop that essential motive of good soldiering. As a subject for debate the question has no possibilities, being worn threadbare, and the only excuse for again referring to it at present is that we have
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