858
compete in the markets of the world; British Columbia and Vancouver's Island are in fact rapidly becoming one of the richest mining fields in the world. The climate is comparable to that of northern France, and the present population, rapidly growing too, is of the purest English stock so that Vancouver is marked out by nature herself as in the near future the head quarters of a great naval power, able to undertake unassisted the command of the entire Pacific. This is the position which for the sake of running after socialistic fads and fancies Great Britain is, with her eyes open, wilfully neglecting. If even a great nation were deliberately running for a fall, that nation is England of the open- ing century. God grant that wiser in- stincts may return, before, like the Roman Empire before her, whose worst extravag: ances she is deliberately following, she fall into a contemptible decay.
ENGLISH MEADOWS.
(Daily Press, June 5th.) Some Chinamen we may not love, such as the Shanghai baker whose offence is de scribed in a paragraph elsewhere, but there are others with whom we could clasp
hands and swear brotherhood. Of such is Maurice BARING's Chinese student at Oxford, an interview with whom that jour. nalist publishes in one of the last mail papers received.
grass."
THE HONGKONG WEEKLY PRESS AND said the reason of this was that the French language was a bastard language: that it was, in fact, a kind of pigeon Latin. He said when a Frenchman says a girl is 'beaucoup belle he is using pigeon Latin. The courtesy due to a host prevented me from suggesting that if a Frenchman said 'beaucoup belle' he would be talking pigeon French. Another professor said to me that China would soon develop if she adopted a large Imperial ideal, and that in time the Chinese might attain; to a great position in the world, such as the English now held. He said the best means of bring ing this about would be to introduce cricket and football into China.
I told him that I thought this was improbable, because if the Chinese play gam s they do not care who is the winner; the fun of the game is to us the improvisation of it as opposed to the organisation which appeals to the people bere. Upon which he said that cricket was like a symphony of music. In a symphony every instrument plays its pirt in obedience to one central will, not for its individual advantage but in order to
make 8
beautiful whole.
'So
it is with
our games,' he said, 'every man plays his part not for the sake of personal advantage, but so that his side may win; and thus the citizen is taught to sink his own interests in those of the community. I told him the Chinese did not like symphonies and Western music was intolerable to them for this very
reason.
Western musicians seem to us to take a
musical idea which is only worthy of a penny whistle (and would be very good indeed if played on a penny whistle); and they sit down and make a score of it twenty yards broad, and get a hundred highly-trained and highly paid | musicians to play it. It is the contrast between
tremendous apparatus and waste of energy on one side, ad the light and play- ful character of the business itself on the other, which makes me, a Chinaman, as incap able of appreciating your complicated games as I am of appreciating the complicated sym- phonies of the Germans or the elaborate rules which their students make with regard to the drinking of beer. his fun and not missing a joke when he finds it by chance on his way, bat we cannot under. stand his going out of big way to prepare a joke at a certain fixed date. That is why we and to make arrangements for having some fun
consider a wayside song, a tune that is heard
We like a man for taking
the For English exiles, we begin with the question and answer that struck us most forcibly. "What do you like best in England?" asked Mr. BARING, and the Chinaman said he liked best the gardens, "and the little yellow flowers that are sprinkled like stars on your green The buttercups in the English meadows! What a note to strike in the humid heat of the Hongkong summer! Still,
Chinaman who &
notices the little yellow flowers that are sprinkled over the green grass of England is an observer we can listen to with great respect; and sure enough, when we study the rest of the interview, we find a keen
The best of it is that our Chinese visitor mental vision, and thoughts as clean knew he had arrived too late. The most and clearcut as the cuckoo-bud. His pre-admirable Englishmen were all dead. As ference for Chinese rural architecture is be put it, explicable, if not to be supported by us; but his reflections on the English cult of 'Ekker are wholly pleasing in our eyes, Perpend.
"They talk as if these games and these sports were a solemn affair, a moral or religious ques- tion; they said the virtues and the prowess of the English race were founded on these things. They said that competition was the mainspring of life; they seemed to think exercise was the goal of existence. A man whom I saw there and who, I learnt, had been chosen to teach the young on account of his wisdom, told me that competition trained the man to sharpen his faculties; and that the tension which it provoked is in itself a useful training. I do not believe this. A cat or a boa constrictor will lie absolutely idle until it perceives an object worthy of its appetite; it will then catch it and swallow it and once more relapse into repose without thinking of keeping itself in training. But it will lie dormant and rise to the occasion when it occurs. These people who talked of games seem to me to undervalue repose. They forget that repose is the mother of action, and ex- ercise only a frittering away of the same."
He found that our wise elders of Oxford were not wholly wise; let us shelter behind him as he says it, nor accept one jot or tittle of responsibility for so serious a statement. It is again our Chinaman speaking.
They most of them seemed to take for granted that I could not speak English: some of them addressed me in a kind of baby language; one of them spoke French. The professor who spoke to me in this language told me that the French possessed no poetical literature, and he
wandering in the summer darkness, to be better than twenty concerts."
"
The English knew how to play ones, in the days of Queen Elizabeth, then they had Mas- ques and madrigals and Morris dances and music. A gentleman was ashamed if he did not speak six or seven languages, handle the sword with a deadly dexterity, play chess, and write good sonnets. Men were broken on the wheel for an idea; they were brave. cultivated, and gay; they fought, they played, and they wrote excellent verse. Now they organise games and lay claim to a special morality and to a special mission; they send out missionaries to civilise us savages; and if our people resent having an alien creed stuffed down their throats they take our land and burn our homes in the name of Charity, Progress, and Civilisation?"
"And
He was longing all the time to see a Chinese village once more, built of mud, fenced with mud, muddy-roaded and muddy baked, with a muddy little stream. everywhere the sense of leisure, the absence of hurry and bustle and confusion; the dignity of manners and the grace of ex- How gladly pression and of address,”
would
we exchange with him for the green grass besprinkled with golden cups!
His Excellency the Governor has given his assent, in the name and on behalf of His Majesty the King, to the following Ordinances passed by the Legislative Council:-Ordinance No. 8 of 1908.-An Ordinance to extend the provisions of The Liquor Licenses Ordinance 1898 and to provide for the grant of brewery licenses. Ordinance No. 9 of 1908.-An Ordinance to amend The Evidence Ordinance 1889,
[June 8, 1908.
HONGKONG LEGISLATIVE
COUNCIL.
A meeting of the Hongkong Legislative Council was held on June 4th in the Council Chamber.
PRESENT:-
H18 EXCELLENCY THE GOVERNOR, SIE FREDERICK JOHN DEALTRY LUGARD, K.C.M.G., C.B., D.S.O.
Hon. Mr. F. H. MAY, C.M.G., (Colonial Secretary).
Hon. Mr. W. Rass DAVIES (Attorney. General).
Hon. Mr. A. M. THOMз ON (Colonial Tres-` surer).
Hon. Mr. W. CHATHAM, Q.M.G. (Director of Public Works).
Hon. Mr. E. A. IRVING (Registrar-
General).
Hon. Commander BASIL R. H. TAYLOR, R.N Harbour Master).
Hon. Dr. Ho KAI, M.B., C.M., C.M.G. Hon. Sir Henry Berkeley, K.C. Hon. Mr. H. E. POLLOCK, K.C. Hon. Mr. WEI YUK.
Hon. Mr. H. W. SLADE. Hon. Mr. MURRAY STEWART. Mr. C. CLEMENTI (Clerk of Councils).
MINUTES.
The minutes of the previous meeting were
read, and confirmed.
FINANCE MINUTE.
The COLONIAL SECRETARY, by direction of H.E. the Governor laid on the table Financial
minute No. 24 and moved that it be referred to
the Finance Committee.
The COLONIAL TREASURER seconded, and the motion was agreed to.
THE APPROPRIATION BILL. The COLONIAL SECRETARY moved the second
reading of the Bill entitled an Ordinance to authorise the appropriation of a supplementary sum of $166.735.85 to defray the charges of the year 1907.
The COLONIAL Treasure seconded and the motion was agreed to.
The COLONIAL Secretary—I move that the Bill be referred to the Finance Committee.
The COLONIAL TREASURER seconded and the motion was agreed to.
THE MAN MO TEMPLE. The ATTORNEY GENERAL moved the second
reading of the Bill entitled an Ordinance for
Temple to the Tang Wa Hospital. He added- the transfer of the properties of the Man Mo It appears that certain hereditaments and premises were some time ago vestel in trustees on behalf of the Chinese commanity in Hong- kong, the Man Mo Temple, and it is now desired to transfer this property on behalf of the Tang Wa Hospital. The ordinance was framed with care before I came here and is acceptable to the Chinese community.
Hon. Dr Ho KAI seconded and the motion was agreed to,
The Council resolved itself into committee to consider the Bill clause by clause.
On resuming,
The ATTORNEY GENERAL, having moved the suspension of the standing orders, moved that the Bill having passed through Committee practically without amendments, be read a third
time.
The COLONIAL SECRETARY seconded and the motion was agreed to.
CHEMISTS AND DRUGGISTS ORDINANCE. The ATTORney General moved that the
Council resolve itself into committee on the Bill entitled an Ordinance to provide for the registration of chemists and druggists and to regulate the sale of poisons.
The COLONIAL SECRETARY seconded and the motion was agreed to.
In Committee,
!
Hon Dr. Ho KAI moved the following new sub- section (2f.) of section 11: "By any person holding a foreign medical diploma who at the time of the passing of this Ordinance is bonafide engaged in medical and surgical practice in this colony provided the medicine supplied is for the use of his own patients only." There are, he said, a
1 certain number of practitioners who are holding diplomas from the University of Tientsin and from the University of Oregon. These Chinese gentlemen who have been trained in western medical science have been in the colony for some
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