AN AMIABLE COLONY.

Colonist, Volume II, Issue 190, 16 August 1859, Page 2

AN AMIABLE COLONY.

( From the Times ) It is now some months since we'made passing allusion to the abnormal and not very creditable state of our official' arrangements in"the little Island of Hongkong. The subject ,has, -as we.theii. predicted, gradually forced itself upon' tlie public attention; certain keen-sighted grievance-hunters of Sheffield have made it the ground of a public meeting and a Parliamentary petition; and the inhabitants of Tynemonth have shown curiosity upon the matter, and have backed tlie potitfon ofthe cutlers. The makers of sword-blades and the builders of ships feel a natural interest in elements of disturbance happening far away, and Hongkong has once again been honored by a mention in the Imperial Parliiiim-si'* Tlie sound of the name in our Parliamentary proceedings never bodosgood to our national inten ss. It is always connected with some fatal "pestilence somo.doubi t'ul war, or Some discreditable internal squabble; so much so, that in popular language, the name of this noisy, bustling, quarrelsome, discontented, arid insalubrious little island, may not inaptly be "used as an euphemous synonyn for a place not mentionable to ears polite. We cannot wish that the sea should take it back again to itself, because English lives and English property would be endangered ; but, if these could bo withdrawn, we should willingly resign any benefits .which we derive from its possession, to., be relieved of the inconveniences which it forces upon us. Lord Malmesbury in the Lords, and Sir E. Lytton in..the.; Commons, seem thoroughly to have sympathised with the tone in which we treated this last difficulty when it arose. It is a troublesome, vexatious, and paltry affahy imposing upon everybody a great deal of trouble for a totally inadequate object, and with the promise of a most unsatisfactory result. '«- At the date of the last advices every official man's hand in Hongkong was against his neighbor, and, as that important dependency of the British Crown is distressingly complete in its official staff, the hostilities are more difficult to remember than the intestine wars of the Selucidse or the politics of the Italian "Republics. There is a Governor, a Lieutenant-Governor, a Chief Justice, an Attorney-General, an Acting AttorneyGeneral, a Council, a Colonial Secretary, a Registrar artd Protector of Chinese, a Colonial Treasurer^ and others'".too'numerous, to,'mention." These officers are all criticised. represented, or calumniated by some six newspapers, wherefore we believe that at least one has a daily issue, and no one restricts itself to a single weekly appearance. The islands in which these agencies work and boil over is considerably less than the Isle of Wight, and the inhabited portion might all be put into Hyde Park. When we last heard of this, amiable community, the Governor had run away to seek health or quiet in the Philippines; the Lieutenant-Governor was at issue with Mr. Tarrant, of the Eriend of-China, on account of Mr. Tarrant's persistent accusations that the Lieutenant-Governor had, at^ome remote period, encouraged or protected his servants in "squeezing" the Chinese;' the Attorney-General was suspended for bringing certain charges against the Registrar.; the Acting Attorney-General had been "worried to death, and another was succeeding to his perilous office ; the Colonial Secretary was absent, but the Acting Colonial Secretary was undergoing accusations of having, while uniting an himself the somewhat incongruous duties of a private barrister and Colonial Secretary, given his •clients the benefit of his official position, and; of having destroyed papers which compromised a notorious offender; the Colonial Treasurer was feeing cro^s-examined in a witness-box as to. the pressure he: had'put upon the Daily Press when he had the editor in prison ; the Registrar and the Protector of Chinese had accumulated upon his head all the accusations that can be reasonably brought against any one man, from piracy on the high seas down to brothel-keeping; the newspaper proprietors were 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 ; and the Chief Justice was trying an action against the Governor. We ate not about to attempt an analysis of those papers which Sir Bulwer Lytton produced amid tiie respectful discouragement of the British House of Commons. Produce them, or even print them as we may, their contents will never he thoroughly known to any one but the reader of the Queen's Printer's printing-office, to whom they might afford a plausible ground for an application to increase.his salary. .They form an imbroglio. which no one desires to unravel, and they contain a secret history which no one wishes to discover. No doubt, there ate faults in all these official people. There are faults in the imperfectly regulated energies of Mr. Chisholm Anstey, for if those energies had been better regulated they would have carried him very far clear of Hongkong. There are faults in tlie conduct oi Sir John Bowring, for it is a fault in any man not to make himself popular in a community of English merchants. There is a fault in the position of Dr. Bridges, at once the Colonial Secretary and the Council of such men as Alum, the baker, and Manchow Wang, the convicted pirate. There is a fault also in the position of Mr. Caldwell, who is allied by marriage to the Chine c population^ ai-d who therefore,.can never disibuse the-Chinese of .the' notion that he is one of them, and can he acted upon as they are acted upon. But then we must expect to find faults in every public man, and persons who are necessitated to " go to Hongkong " are not exempt from the general infirmity. As to the Hongkong Press, which everyone is using, prompting, disavowing, and prosecuting, the les3 we say of it the better, for we .could say nothing of it that would at all tend to "the credit of out- profession. Any attempt to deal judicially witli this congeries of intrigues, accusations, ,^nd animosities here in England must signally fail.. We cannot do justice* at" the Antipodes while cartloads of evidence are arriving by every post and local information is wanting to the judges. It is a case for a Dictator. It- would be better to send but some sensible man with power to mediate, and, failing mediation, with authority to judge. A man of tact and firmness would settle the matter in a week, but he ought'to'be" empowered to leave behind hurt the menace that the first person who recommences this state of official chaos shall be at once dismissed. We cannot be alwaj'S investigating a storm in a teapot, wherein each, individual tealeaf has its dignity and its grievance. . ... ;-..• .__