Aug. 1.
Ar the last quarterly meeting of the Hongkong Chamber of Commerce, the chairman reminded his hearers that the ex-Enemy Aliens Restriction Ordinance, under which no former enemy alien can come to or be within the colony of Hongkong unless by permit from the Colonial Secretary, would automatically expire on the 29th of this month (August) and would not be renewed. Henceforth, therefore, Germans are as free to come to Hongkong as anybody else. Nobody at the meeting appears to have wanted to discuss the question. But the "Hongkong Daily Press publishes a long review of this famous issue, which contains facts not uninteresting to recall. The dispute began in 1917 when a resolution was introduced in the Legislative Council on behalf of the Chamber of Commerce and very hotly argued, proposing that persons of German nationality should be excluded from the Colony for at least ten years after the declaration of peace and after that should only be admitted on strict licence. The resolution was opposed by the Chinese and all the official members, what time the then Governor made his famous allusion to the really big men of the past that Hongkong has produced ''—in implied contrast with the, presumable, pigmies of to-day. The argument which appeals to one most was that of General Ventris, who took the stand that the aim and object of every war is a lasting peace, and that the motion before the Council was quite contrary to the idea of a lasting peace. The resolution was lost and, if memory does not play us false, the Governor even declined to forward the Cham—ber's views to the Secretary of State. Public meetings were held and much public excitement was aroused and doubtless a good many hotheaded and not very wise things were said. But as an illustration of the fact
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.