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public body.
4. On 7 August 1883, Derby informed Bowen that he would agree to the number of unorfieials being increased to 5, one of them Chinese; with this smaller increase, the Chamber of Commerce was to nominate only one member. The JPs would also nominate one member. On 2 November 1883 the Governor proposed this change to the Legislative Council, stating that "as a general rule" 2 of the 5 unofficials would be nominated by the Chamber of Commerce and the JPS. At the beginning of the following year, the system went into effect; there is one problem in this connection, namely that it appears (from the letter of the Colonial Secretary to the Senior Police Magistrate, 20 December 1883, enclosed in Sir Murray MacLehose's letter to you of 2 June) that there was an Order in Council for the reconstitution of the Legislative Council, but I have been unable to find any trace of one. I have located only Additional Instructions of 8 December 1883, which authorised the appointment of 5 unofficials, and it is possible that these Instructions were in fact the "Order" referred to by the Colonial Secretary. They make no mention of nomination by JPS or the Chamber of Commerce. I have looked at a large number of other Royal Instructions, none of which include any reference to this practice.
5. The general conclusion is thus that the practice was never enshrined in the constitution of Hong Kong and was simply a convention. I suspect that the term "privilege" is being rather loosely employed by the interested parties, and that it has no technical significance. The source of the misunderstanding about the meaning of nomination and its misleading description as a privilege seems, indeed to be the letters exchanged in Hong Kong in December 1883. In his letter to the Colonial Secretary of 28 December 1883 (enclosed in Sir Murray MacLehose to Laird, 22 May 1972), the Chairman of the Chamber of Commerce states that he has been informed (by the Colonial Secretary) that Her Majesty has conferred "the privilege of nominating for His Excellency's approval one member to a seat in the Legislative Council". The letter of the Colonial Secretary to the JPs, of which we have a copy (enclosed in Sir Murray MacLehose's letter of 2 June) and which is apparently identical to that sent to the Chamber of
Lof 20 December Commerce, states only that one unofficial member will "as a
general rule" be appointed to the Legislative Council on the nomination of the JPS. The terminology used by the Chairman of the Chamber of Commerce is thus unjustified.
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6. As I stated in paragraph 1 above, there is one important reservation. Some volumes of the Colonial Office List (e.g. that of 1885) state that the Legislative Council included "five unofficial members, three of whom are nominated by the Crown on the recommendation of the Governor, one is nominated by the JPs from their body, and one by the Chamber of Commerce" Although I think this must be an error - Roval Instructions and other instruments of course vest the ultimate appointment to office and to Council seats in the Crown, and it would be most unconstitutional for a Chamber of Commerce to be placed on the same footing in this respect as the Crown - I draw this fact to your attention in case it should be adduced by others in argument.
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