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Q. If this Ordinance and these rules differ so slightly, how it is that there is going to be this prying into privacy which never existed under the old rules?
A.--I look on that new Ordinance as conferring powers on this institution.
Q.-Powers that they never possessed before?
A.--Perhaps they have possessed them before, but I don't know that they were able to exercise them as freely as they would under this Ordinance, and having a Government status.
Q.-Will you tell us how they can exercise them more freely than under these
rules?
A.I should think that when an Ordinance has laid these things down-that they are to be lent Police and so on--it is distinctly different, to my mind, to rules made in a general sort of way.
Q. In a general sort of way? The rules are approved by the Government.
A. Yes, but it is not the law of the land. It is an executive law, those rules are as far as I can understand them. The rules have been accepted by the executive.
Q. And approved by the Secretary of State?
A.-I do not think they came before the Legislative Council.
Q.-In your letter you say "conferring immensely greater authority and powers." In what way?
A.--I consider that, the moment you give a man power under an Ordinance, you place him in a totally different position and give him much greater authority than he would have under a set of rules.
Q.-You think that would be the effect on the Chinese community?
A. In the course of time I think that would permeate through the greater part of the Chinese community.
Q.--You talk about the action of the Pó Leung Kuk affecting the liberty of the subject. Do you know that the object of the Pó Léung Kuk is to protect the liberty of the subject?
A.--I said it might do so.
Q.-Do you know that the primary object of the Pó Léung Kuk is to protect the liberty of the subject?
A.—I did not know that, I thought the primary object of the Society is to prevent people being kidnapped.
Q.-Don't you think that is protecting the liberty of the subject?
A. To a certain extent, but it also acts in an opposite manner, and that is to say that the moment one is allowed to interfere in such matters as they do, it affects the liberty of other people as well as those who are kidnapped.
Q.--Rescuing kidnapped people affects the liberty of others?
A.--The process of doing so may, and does, affect other people.
Q.-Yes, sometimes a kidnapper is sent to gaol. That is affecting his liberty?
If A. That is why I wrote so much in favour of having these things in public. you consider that the main object of that letter was to ask for publicity, I think it would be unnecessary to ask me some of these questions. It all hinges on that. I want the liberty of the subject protected. If a man has done wrong, have him out and let us see it. That is what I mean by the liberty of the subject being affected.