DIT.
THE HONGKONG
Government Gazette.
Published by Authority.
No. 47.
VICTORIA, SATURDAY, 17гн NOVEMBER, 1866.
VOL. XII.
No. 170.
GOVERNMENT NOTIFICATION.
The following Memorial from the Chinese Residents in the Colony, on the subject of some provisions in the recent Ordinances regulating Native Shipping and General Registration of the Inhabitants, together with His Excellency's Reply to the Memorialists, is published for general information.
· By Order,
Colonial Secretary's Office, Hongkong, 13th November, 1866.
To HIS EXCELLENCY
HUMBLY SHEWETH:
SIR RICHARD GRAVES MACDONNELL, KT., C.B., Governor of Hongkong.
W. T. MERCER, Colonial Secretary.
A respectful Petition presented by the Chinese Merchants, Traders and Lessees of Land, residing in the Colony-
That your Petitioners being so much struck with the unanswerable reasoning contained in Your Excellency's reply to the Petition presented by them on the 5th of September last, have considered it their duty to make further enquiries as to the contents of the Ordinances lately passed by the Govern- ment, and they are bound to admit to Your Excellency that that Petition was drawn up under a misapprehension of the meaning and intent of the Ordinances, arising from imperfect interpretation and the incomplete version of them which appeared in one of the local Chinese Newspapers.
Your Petitioners have since sought the aid of a Gentleman whose thorough acquaintance with the Colloquial Dialect leaves them no room to doubt the accuracy of his interpretation of their contents, the published translation of the Ordinances being likewise in great part unintelligible to them.
Your Petitioners are now free to admit, that, with some few exceptions which Your Petitioners will presently take the liberty to bring under Your Excellency's notice, that so far from the Ordinances being as Your Petitioners previously stated, "obstructive and inconvenient," they are fully satisfied, that, if properly and judiciously carried out, the Colony must be benefited by them, and the position of Chinese residents rendered safer and healthier.
Taking the Ordinances as they are numbered, Your Petitioners would beg to draw Your Excellency's attention first to Ordinance Number 6, and called "The Harbor and Coasts Ordinance, Hongkong, 1866.”
Your Petitioners find by this Ordinance that no distinction is made in favor of Passenger or Provision Junks either as to the Licensing, or to their subsequent treatment when arriving at or departure from the Harbor.
Your Petitioners respectfully submit that some distinction should be made between these Vessels and the Trading or Cargo Junks. Your Excellency may possibly not be aware that the former class of Vessels are almost wholly employed in conveying to and from the Colony, Chinese Passengers, and in bringing Provisions from the neighboring Chinese Ports, and that it is on these Junks alone that the Colony is dependent for its daily supply of Fresh Vegetables, Fruits, Poultry, Eggs, and