for my benefit, it really describes the way in which most of the Societies in Singapore manage their affairs, and certainly quarrels nowadays, only arrive at any magnitude when the Head-men are helpless and incompetent.
The majority of the principal office-bearers of the Singapore Societies, honestly desire to keep their men in order, and themselves out of trouble, and the quarrels which occasionally grow into small riots, would, amongst such a heterogenous Chinese population as that of this Colony, continually occur, were there no Secret Societies in existence. There is this difference however;—under Ords. XIX of 1869, and V of 1877 we are able to exercise a wholesome control of the Chiefs of Hoeys, while if the Secret Societies were abolished, we should have no check at all on the thousands of the disorderly class of Chinese.
In my opinion, it would be impossible to rule China by British law; much more so, the three or four hundred thousand Chinese in our Colony, who, (except a small proportion) the scum of the Empire, and coming from different Provinces, Prefectures, and Districts, of their native land, speak dialects and sub-dialects unintelligible to each other; while all are ignorant of the language and motives of the governing nation.
Our freedom,—the germs of which were brought into Britain by our English forefathers,—(in deference to Mr. Freeman I do not use the word Anglo-Saxon) has been gradually developed during more than a thousand years, at the expense of many of the noblest of our race, who have given up their lives for the good cause, in the field, and on the scaffold.
The Chinese, on the contrary, is accustomed from infancy to lean upon, or to dread, some superior and ever present power, either in the shape of his Government, his clan, or the village elders. I do not think any persons will say that they find anything of the sort in our complicated, and to the Chinaman, (who comes here at a mature age with his prejudices and habits confirmed) inexplicable course of Law.
If some such system as those in force in the Dutch, French, or Spanisli Colonies, is incompatible with our constitution and laws, I can see no other way of ruling Chinese, than by recognising the secret Societics, and by immediately commencing the training of a competent staff of officials, conversant with the Chinese language, and mode of thought, to supervise and control them.
I am aware that these views are almost diametrically opposed to those I advanced in Frasers Magazine, some
