Page:Europe in China.djvu/241

Rh even more ruthlessly than in the days of the Co-Hong bondage at Canton. Accordingly, the first Public Meeting of Hongkong was held (October 28, 1844) at the residence of Mr. A. Carter. This meeting, after unanimously condemning the Bill as iniquitous, unconstitutional and un-English in principle, appointed a Committee (J. D. Gibb, D. Matheson, S. Rawson, Pat. Dudgeon and A. Carter) to memorialize the Government accordingly. On the same day the Government published an obscurely-worded Chinese translation of the Ordinance which only added to the excitement and misunderstanding that prevailed among the Chinese, giving them the impression that the poll-tax to be levied from 1st November was monthly and not annual. 'The Celestials,' said the Friend of China a few days later, 'are a passive race and will bear squeezing to any ordinary extent, but when this blundering translation would squeeze one half of their monthly wages out of them, then they thought it was time to return to their own country, nor would we blame them had they left in a body.' On the 30th October there was a universal suspension of all forms of Chinese labour. The shops and markets were shut, cargo boats, coolies, domestic servants, all went on strike simultaneously and all business was at a standstill. The Chinese made preparations to desert Hongkong en masse on the next day, if the Government should enforce this law, but there was no rioting of any sort. At 4 p.m. the deputation of the European community waited on the Governor to present a Memorial dated October 30 and signed by 107 British subjects. This Memorial stated that the principles of the Ordinance were as unjust as they were arbitrary and unconstitutional, because taxing unrepresented British subjects in the most iniquitous of forms; that the provisions of the Ordinance violated the Treaty with China; that they interfered with labour and consequently with the prosperity of the Colony and that it would be found impracticable to work this Ordinance. Unaware at the time of the strong language of the Memorial, which was handed by the deputation to the Clerk of Councils, the Governor told them that the Ordinance would not be enforced for two