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THE HONGKONG WEEKLY PRESS AND
[March 1, 1909.
THE QUEEN CITY OF THE EAST, the great reclamation enterprise which will | the position of China was instinctive, and in for ever be associated with the name of Sir no measure proceeded from reason; and (Daily Press, February 20th.)
PAUL CHATER has been completed and hence it was that it was accompanied by In the Daily Pressa few days ago appeared covered with some of the finest buildings to be many draw-backs, which equally curiously an interesting extract from "The Letters seen anywhere in the Far East. The city were instinctive rather than the outcome of of Queen Victoria ' in which Her late of Victoria indeed has developed to an extent any specially demoniacal type of character, Majesty shortly after her accession informed undreamt of by the pioneers in the Colony; As a fact the character of the late Dowager the King of the Belgians that "ALBERT and who, having regard to the railway de Regent, will long continue to be one of the is so much amused at my having got the velopments in progress on the other side of standard mysteries of history, as incapable Island of Hongkong, aud we think VICTORIA the harbour, will say that the limit of expan- of solution as her own birth and abstraction. ought to be called Princess of Hongkong in sion has yet been reached? The Princess Wisely the present REGENT supported by his addition to Princess Royal." The amuse- VICTORIA Was
never made Princess of councillors have realised the fact that to ment of the Queen and her Royal Consort Hongkong," as the Queen jestingly suggested continue such a government without those was very natural at the time, but Her Lut in the days of its prosperity the Colony peculiar faculties of mind possessed by the Majesty happily lived long enough to watch not only additionally honoured Her late Ma- late EMPRESS DOWAGER has become a matter the rise of this "wretched, pestiferous Island eaty and itself by placing in the centre of the of impossibility; so the Edict lately published of Hongkong" (as one writer described it enlarged city a massive bronze statue of the must be looked upon as an evidence that the nearly twenty years after its annexation to Queen who gave her name to the city but is new administration has made up its mind to the Crown), to the proud eminence of being surrounding this statue with others of their break entirely with the past, and start a one of the largest shipping ports of the Majesties that King and Queen, and Their new régime. There is on the one hand no world, and a great emporium of trade. Royal Highnesses the Prince and Princess doubt that many of the officials who had When the Queen in 1841 wrote the letter of Wales. In addition we have a fine incurred the special enmity of the late from which we have quoted the site of bronze statue of H. R. H. the Duke of RECENT richly deserved their punishment; the present city of Victoria was,
to Connaught who has twice honoured us with but on the other hand there is equally no borrow, the words of Dr. Dennys, a visit, associating himself with the Colony doubt that many who had incurred her most rugged slope of rock, abelving in most on the first occasion by laying the founda- pronounced hostility were able and bonest places precipitously to the waters with tion stone of the Reclamation, and on the officials who had simply fallen foul of some narrow path-way winding along the second occasion by unveiling the statue of of the worse traits of her character. This cliff, to which the fanciful name of Kun-tai-H. M. The King and H. R. H. the Prince was the difficulty that faced the administra lu, or 'Petticoat-string Path' was given by of Wales. Nor does this exhaust the tion in issuing the amnesty for the the fishermen and villagers who then con- ways in which the Colony has continued to past; it was better, evidently thought stituted the sole population of the island." live up to its royal desiguation, for have we the present advisers, that the door should Its importance at that date to the people of not our noble block of King's Buildings, he opened too wide than that any wor Britain lay in the fact that the Minister our Queen's Buildings, Alexandra Build- thy official, whose only fault had been that Plenipotentiary had his headquarters here, ings, and Prince Buildings, and at he did not fall in with one or other of the and even after the issue of a Colonial Charter Kowloon our King's Park? We have peculiar idiosyncracies of the late Regent, in 1843, the office of Minister to China verily become citizens of no mean city and should merely for that reason be excluded continued to be combined with that of Go- can appreciate the amusement which must for ever from the path of preferment. Not vernor of Hongkong until the capture of have been caused to Her late Majesty when all those ministers of various rank who had Canton in 1857 put an end to the system the news reached her that the Island of formed the entourage of the late EMPEROR under which foreign affairs had been con- Hongkong, then but a barren rock, had been before the coup d'etat were incapables or ducted by the Chinese Government, and the added to the possessions of the British corrupt, nor were they prepared to act the subsequent installation of the British Empire and requesting her sanction part of such disloyal agitatora as Sun Yat- Legation at Peking severed all connection for the designation of the embryo city as BEN and others; the numbera involved were, between the Government of Hongkong and Victoria. The city has gradually extended however, so great that it was impossible to the diplomatic service. Queen VICTORIA from the beach to the very top of the hills, make a selection without being certain to and the Prince Consort had ample and there is Scriptural authority for the state- admit many undesirables, while at the same excuse for jesting over the annexation ment that a city set upon the hills cannot time excluding many deserving. This ap- of this speck in the ocean and the be hid. We share the view that Hongkongparently has been the reason for making the designating of the city which was expected has not yet seen the zenith of its pros to develope practically on the sea beach by perity, and that it will still further justify the name which succeeding generations of its queenly designation. Englishmen will continue to hold in highest honour. When we look up what was writ-
THE AMNESTY. ten about Hongkong in those days we are the better able to appreciate the amusement
(Daily Press, February 22nd.) it created in the Royal Family to learn of The amnesty proclamation issued by the the wish to designate the city by the PRINCE REGENT on behalf of the EMPEROR Queen's name. The city was to grow up
cannot be complained of as not going on the beach "because there was no level far enough in the way of mercy, and space elsewhere
The rocks, is studiously worded 80 BS to give which constitute the whole soil, are com- no offence to any while pardoning all. posed of rotten, decomposing granite which In some respects, as when restoring all as is well known, is as productive of gases forfeited honours, it goes further than and malaria as any bad jungle in India, sovereigns
who bave felt themselves The Chinese have always regard-personally aggrieved are wont, and clearly ed the place as fatal to human life, and is intended to show to the world bow they will not live there, beyond a certain thoroughly the REGENT means to identify season." As for the Chinese who were here himself with the aspirations of his brother at the time, they were described as nearly when the career of the latter was cut short all fishermen "who are pirates when by the Palace coup d'etat of September 1898. opportunity presents. No wonder that If such be the real foundation of the Amnesty the Prince Consort was "so much amused." it is curious to observe how ingeniously it But we can be quite sure that the amusement has been issued as an accompaniment to the must have been succeeded by admiration in further honorific titles to be conferred on the Royal household as the decades passed, the late EMPRESS DOWAGER for her virtues and in the Jubilee year of Queen VICTORIA'S and talents, as well as for what she did for reign Sir WILLIAM DES VEUX, then the the Empire during the half century in Governor of the Colony, was able to say of which she held with a tight grip the reins Hongkong:- "It may be doubted whether of government. Leaving out of consider the evidences of material and moral achieve- ation the crimes of her administration, ment, presented as it were in a focus, make which cannot be blinked nor palliated, there anywhere a more forcible appeal to the eye is no doubt that the late EMPRESS REGENT and imagination, and whether any spot on was one of those mortals in whom the art the earth is thus more likely to excite, or of government is inborn, and not acquired much more fully justifles, pride in the name by any process of education or after- of Englishman. Since that was written development. What she did towards raising
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amnesty practically universal. Some ofl the clauses in it are worthy of specia. mention as indicating an intention of ded parting from one of the worst blots of the Chinese system,-the practise of vicarioun punishment, whereby the relatives of as accused culprit are, however innocent, made partakers in his punishment. The wives and sons of those who have died under th sentence of banishment, whose position ha hitherto, according to Chinese practise, been hopeless, and entailing untold misery even when perfectly innocent, will, says the Edict, be entitled to return home, should they so desire it, on reporting their case. This practise of making innocent relatives suffer for the crimes of others in which they have taken no part has been a rule of Chinese procedure, it is true, during all periods of the existence of the State. It has been more especially the rule during the present dynasty whose position towards their Chi- nese subjects has ever been one of fear and, distrust. It is thus one of the symptoms of the growing intention of abolishing by de- grees the distinction of Chinese or Mancha that this act of mercy should be more especia- ally included. Of the same nature are the clauses making repairs to temples a national duty, and throwing on the state the upkeep of roads and bridges for the benefit of travellers. One of the worst features of the early Manchu rule in China was the neglect of the old means of intere amunication, and the destruction as a matter of policy of the roads and bridges throughout the Empire, which had under the Mings been one of the main objects of imperial care. Even if the
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