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 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. The Hongkong press, which every one is using, prompting, disavowing and prosecuting—the less we say of it the better. A dictator is needed, a sensible man, a man of tact and firmness. We cannot be always investigating a storm in a teapot where each individual tea-leaf has its dignity and its grievance.'
Black as the case thus put before the home country was, it did not cover the whole extent of Hongkong's internal warfare. The dissensions which, as above recounted, disgraced the public life of the Colony, invaded also the Legislative Council. In the first instance the Members of Council, both unofficial and official, frequently overstepped during this period the limit of their proper functions, occupying themselves with matters having no concern with legislation, and really trenching on the powers of the Executive. Next, the official Members, and notably the Attorney General and the Chief Magistrate, claimed an extraordinary measure of independence. On more than one occasion, and without any previous communication to the Governor or Colonial Secretary, these officials censured the Executive in strong terms. The Attorney General, with whose advent the character of the Legislative Council underwent a marked change, often repudiated the authority of the superior Law Officers of the Crown when their opinions, formally conveyed to the local Government, differed from his. With equal nonchalance he declared that he took his seat in Council as an independent legislator, not as a servant of the Crown, and that he was there, if he thought fit, to criticize and oppose the views of the Executive. Naturally the unofficial Members felt under these circumstances justified in claiming equal liberties.
