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ports in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, but between a French Port and Shanghai in the empire of China, and Yokohama in the empire of Japan as their terminal ports. They only call in at Hongkong on their way to and from the above terminal ports. They carry large quantities of merchandise on every voyage, competing successfully with the vessels of Your Majesty's subjects. They are not within Articles I and II of the Postal Convention of 1856, and they are, therefore, not within the scope of Article V, which is strictly limited in its application to "packets employed by the British Post Office or by the French Post Office in execution of Articles I and II of that Convention."
14. As regards the steamers of the Norddeutscher Lloyd's Company, on which similar rights and immunities have been by ordinance conferred, your Petitioners are aware that these privileges have not been claimed nor conceded under any convention, but as a matter of friendship and good will, at the request of the Imperial Government of Germany, but your Petitioners most respectfully submit to Your Majesty, that the rights given by the ordinances of which they now complain are far in excess of those asked for by the Imperial German Government in the memorandum, dated Berlin 24th February, 1886, submitted to Your Majesty's Minister of Foreign Affairs, and far in excess of those promised in the Foreign Office Despatch addressed to the German Ambassador, in reply, dated 26th April, 1886.
15. The Imperial German Government asked simply for immunity from process for German Criminals on board German Mail steamers in our ports, and Your Majesty's Government promised to give every possible privilege, provided that instructions should be given to German Consular Officers, Commanders and agents to give "all necessary facilities to the local authorities in relation to customs regulations and judicial process and not to claim or exercise the privilege in question to the detriment of public justice.'
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16. This implied that judicial process might still issue, but the ordinance that has been passed here in Hongkong, by conferring on German Mail steamers all the rights, privileges and immunities of men-of-war, puts them entirely and at once out- side and beyond the jurisdiction of our Courts, and prevents the Courts from even entertaining any application for process to issue under any circumstances.
17. French Mail steamers enjoy in like manner a complete immunity from legal process, and in cases in which American, Austrian, Italian or English Mail steamers would necessarily and properly be subject to arrest, detention or search, the German and French Mail steamers are needlessly exempted from the delay, the expense and the annoyauce. An English steamer may have been run down in the very harbour ; an absconding debtor have intentionally taken refuge on board a vessel of the Messageries Maritimes; a heavy loss be entailed on the Colony by a breach of its excise laws, as in the opium case in 1879, and Your Majesty's subjects are in such cases deliberately deprived of their rights and remedies under a Convention which, as has already been pointed out, does not apply to this part of the world or to cargo- carrying steamers, and which Convention has never been sanctioned by your Majesty's Parliament in England and could not, as appears from the decision in the case of the Parlement Belge, be enforced in any part of the United Kingdom although especially applicable there.
18. Your Petitioners further most humbly point out to Your Majesty that in the self-governed colonies of Australia the Postal Convention of 1856 is not, and would not be recognized and enforced, that in Calcutta it appears to be unknown, that Your Majesty's loyal subjects in Singapore, Penang, Rangoon, Colombo, Madras and Kurrachee feel equally aggrieved with your Petitioners at the unusual privileges conferred on French and German Mail steamers, and concur with your Petitioners in their prayer; as appears from the letters from the Chambers of Commerce of these ports, which your Petitioners humbly crave leave to annex.
19. Your Petitioners humbly submit that this exemption from legal liabilities and restraints, this freedom from port regulations, not only confers upon the cargo- carrying steamers of the Messageries Maritimes and Norddeutscher Lloyd Companies, prestige and standing in the eyes of the Chinese, but so facilitates their business as to militate seriously against the interests of your Petitioners, as shipowers and carriers of cargo; and your Petitioners are informed and believe that no similar privileges and advantages, save and except exemption from seizure, are in French ports conferred on the steamers of the Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company, or on any other line of mail-carrying steamers subsidized by Your Majesty's Government. There is therefore no complete reciprocity.