[vi]
In the last paragraph of your letter you express His Excellency's regret, and his expectation that I will on reflection share in that regret, that I should have permitted myself to suggest as a reason for the Registrar-General's removal from the Chairmanship of the Committee, that he is charged with having used his official influence to obtain subscriptions for the Pó Léung Kuk.
To deal with this last question first, as perhaps the most important of the points raised by your reply, I have the honour to state for the information of His Excellency that after reflection, and after consultation with those best competent to advise me, I see no reason to regret that I pointedly called attention to what, in the absence of explanation or contradiction, I have reasonable grounds for believing to be true. I have been myself informed by more than one well-to-do Chinaman in this Colony that he would not have subscribed to the fund recently got up for the Pó Léung Kuk, but for the persuasion of the Registrar-General. I find this statement confirmed by the Committee of the Pó Léung Kuk in their petition to the Registrar-General, enclosed in his report of the 1st February last. The petitioners there say in paragraph 7, speaking of the subscription of $30,000, that it was owing to the Registrar-General's assistance that it was subscribed with so much good will. The Chinese who gave me the information above referred to (privately and in confidence) refused me permission to give their names.
Will you be so good as to explain to His Excellency that in repeating the statements made to me and putting them forward as a matter for enquiry I do not for a moment impute to the Registrar-General any unworthy or improper motive. I know him to be animated by the highest and best motives. Neither do I suggest that he used any influence whatever, that, if he had been dealing with Europeans, could have been designated as in the slightest degree improper, or as implying pressure. But I do entertain the opinion, and many others in the community agree with me, that any attempt at persuasion by a Government official, and especially by the Registrar-General, does in fact put pressure on the Chinese, even the best of them, and that it ought not to have been used, especially in this case, and that if it has been used in any form--if any Chinaman has because of the interposition in any form of the Registrar-General subscribed to the Pó Léung Kuk who would not have done so, or who refused to do, on the application of his fellow countrymen,-it deprives the subscription of the element of spontaneity of which so much is being made. It is a curious additional fact, if true, that the petition states that the subscription was got up by the Pó Léung Kuk only after they had been repeatedly urged by the Registrar-General to do so.
I am very decidedly of opinion that this seventh paragraph of the petition of the Pó Léung Kuk needs explanation, and that, if the statements in it are correct, their application for incorporation and for a money grant wears a very different aspect from that put before the Council.
Was it held out to the directors of the Pó Léung Kuk that if they raised so much money they would get a Government grant, or were they told that it was useless to ask for one until they had shown a greater interest in the cause by raising a subscription?
If it is shown to the satisfaction of the Committee of Council and of the public that the action of the Chinese has been purely voluntary, and that they have not been urged on and assisted by the Registrar-General, no one will rejoice more than I shall, but again I must say that I do not think the Registrar-General should preside as Chairman over the Committee of Enquiry. His official position and experience undoubtedly render him most capable of assisting and directing such an enquiry, but the fact that he is the person most interested in securing a free, full, and impartial enquiry is the strongest possible argument against his presiding over the Committee entrusted with that duty. That he should be a member of the Committee, yes; the advocate on the Committee of the Pó Leung Kuk, yes. He is the person who advised and urged the Pó Léung Kuk to move in the matter, who helps them to get together their fund, who receives, forwards, and recommends with all his power their petition, who frames the Bill, and proposes it in Council. He is necessarily committed to certain views and opinions. It is not in