Page:Twentieth Century Impressions of Hongkong, Shanghai, and other Treaty Ports of China.djvu/89

Rh The Times on March 15, 1859, caustically commented on the state of affairs at Hongkong which the controversy disclosed. "Hongkong," it said, "is always connected with some fatal pestilence, some doubtful war or some discreditable internal squabble; so much so that, in popular language, the name of this noisy, bustling, quarrelsome, discontented little island may not inaptly be used as a euphemous synonym for a place not mentionable to ears polite. Every official's hand is there against his neighbour. The Governor has run away to seek quiet or health elsewhere. The Lieutenant-Governor has been accused of having allowed his servant to squeeze. The newspaper proprietors were, of late, all more or less in prison or going to prison or coming out of prison on prosecutions by some one or more of the incriminated and incriminating officials. The heads of the mercantile houses hold themselves quite aloof from the local disputes and conduct themselves in a highly dignified manner, which is one of the chief causes of the evil. But a section of the community deal in private slander, which the newspapers retail in public abuse. Of the Hongkong Press, which every one is using, prompting, disavowing and prosecuting, the less we say the better. A dictator is needed, a sensible man, a man of tact and firmness. We cannot always be investigating a storm in a tea pot where each individual leaf has its dignity and its grievance."

Sir John Bowring was not happy in his administration in other respects than those to which particular reference has been made. He entered into a quarrel with the Legislative Council over the construction of a praya or sea wall, which was to extend along the whole front of the town from Navy Bay to Causeway Bay and to be named the Bowring Praya. The project aroused determined opposition from the mercantile community, the property of individual members of which was likely to be adversely affected by the construction of a wall. A draft bill legalising the scheme passed its first reading with only one opponent. But when the Council assembled on February 4, 1859, to discuss the second reading of the measure the Chief Justice and the Lieutenant-Governor were absent and to the Governor's intense mortification a motion that the Praya scheme be deferred sine die was carried by six votes against three. The only votes cast in favour of the bill were those of the Acting Attorney-General, the Colonial Treasurer, and the Auditor-General. The Colonial Secretary, the Chief Magistrate, and the Surveyor-General all exercised the luxury of voting against the Government. The Governor did not question the right of the official members to vote according to their convictions, but he gave a plain indication of what he considered to be the mainspring of their action by attacking the system under which public functionaries like the Attorney-General and the Surveyor-General were allowed to accept private practice. In a despatch he wrote:—"The enormous power and influence of the great commercial houses in China, when associated directly or indirectly with personal pecuniary advantages which they are able to confer on public officers, who are permitted to be employed and engaged by them, cannot but create a conflict between duties not always compatible. &hellip; One of the peculiar difficulties against which this Government has to struggle is the enormous influence wielded by the great and opulent commercial houses against whose power and in opposition to whose personal views it is hard to contend."

When Sir John Bowring retired in 1859 the Chinese, as a mark of the genuine esteem in which he was held among all classes of the native population, tendered him some magnificent presents, including a roll of satin inscribed with two hundred names. In his autobiographical recollections Sir John Bowring thus refers to his period of service in Hongkong:—"My career in China belongs so much to history that I do not feel it needful to record its vicissitudes. I have been severely blamed for the policy I pursued, yet that policy has been most beneficial to my country and to mankind at large. It is not fair or just to suppose that a course of action, which may be practicable or prudent at home will always succeed abroad."

Sir Hercules Robinson, who succeeded Sir John Bowring in the office of Governor on September 9, 1859, and administered the affairs of the Colony for nearly six years, was an official in every respect qualified for the difficult post which he had to fill. A man of strong character, shrewd, tactful, and with more than a common share of intellectual attainments, he was precisely the type of administrator to unravel the discreditable tangle into which affairs in the Colony had got under the rule of his predecessor. His administration was a brilliantly successful one and marked the turning point in the fortunes of the Colony. His earliest efforts were directed to a much needed reform of the civil service. In some matters he was unable to carry his Council with him, but he nevertheless contrived to evolve a new system the main feature of which was a cadet scheme introduced for the better government of the Chinese portion of the inhabitants. Side by side with these reforms were formulated proposals calculated to induce the Chinese inhabitants to take a more intelligent interest in the affairs of the Government. A Chinese edition of the Government Gazette was issued, a translation office was organised to secure the correct publication of all Government documents, and, finally, the old system of governing the Chinese through their own headmen was abandoned in favour of a system of direct control by the Registrar-General. Another innovation which met with less general approval was the introduction of rules designed to deprive the official members of the privilege of independent voting which they had exercised to Sir John Bowring's marked discomfiture. The power is probably one which cannot be dispensed with in a crown colony system of government in which the autocratic principle necessarily is in the ascendant, but the position was not so well understood a half century ago as it is to-day, and there was much grumbling at the limitations imposed on the Council. Sir Hercules Robinson, however, pursued his course undeterred by hostile criticism and the proceedings of the Council were kept by him in a groove which left little room for the violent surprises which had characterised its history in an earlier period. There was only one occasion on which the Governor had any difficulty in enforcing the rule of official solidarity in voting. This was in 1865 when the question of the payment of a military contribution to the imperial funds came up for consideration. Owing to the improvement in finances brought about by Sir Hercules Robinson's strong administration the Home Government deemed that the Colony was prosperous enough to contribute something to the upkeep of the garrison, and in 1864 put in a demand for £20,000 a year for five years. The claim was strongly resisted by the Government on the grounds that Hongkong was an imperial rather than a local station, that owing to its insular position it required no military protection, that its finances were not equal to the strain which such a contribution would make upon them; and that the Colony had already contributed in the shape of land for naval and military purposes to the cost of the military garrison. In spite of these representations, however, the demand was insisted upon, and the Governor had no alternative but to include the military contribution asked in the estimates for 1865. On the proposals being brought up for decision, they were opposed by all the unofficial members and also by the Colonial Treasurer, and in the end were only carried by the casting vote of the Governor. The Colonial Treasurer got a severe wigging subsequently from the Secretary of State for his independent action. But that he had strong sympathies on his side was shown by the action of the Council in passing a resolution subscribed to by all the official members (excepting the Chief Justice) apprising "that the maintenance of troops in Hongkong is not necessary purely for the protection of Colonial interests or the security of the inhabitants, and that the Colonial revenue cannot fairly be charged with any contribution towards the Imperial military expenditure in China and Japan."

The cession of the Kowloon Peninsula under the terms of the Peking Convention was one of the leading events of Sir Hercules Robinson's administration. The ceremony of handing over the territory took place on January 19, 1861, amid much pomp. At the outset a Mandarin tendered to Lord Elgin a paper containing soil in token of the cession. Then the Royal Standard was hoisted amid the salutes fired by the men-of-war in harbour, and by a battery on Stonecutter's Island. An acute controversy arose out of the cession of Kowloon between the military and the civil authorities. The former urged that the idea of appropriating the peninsula had originated with them, that the Colonial Office had approved of its appropriation for military