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Q.-Could you supply the whole of the non-Chinese community with private chair and ricksha coolies?
A.--I would want some one to help me. I have counted them. There are 2,700. Q. Could you provide that number?
A. I don't think I can. Some of them are l'untis, some of them Haifong and other districts.
Q. Could you not get some of your own men-Swatow and Chu-chau men? A.—I have always 1,000 men with me.
Q. What do you mean by that?
A. Of fresh men, I think I can only get 1,000.
Q.-Supposing the whole job of providing private chair and ricksha coolies were placed in your hands, and nobody else allowed to do it, do you think you could provide the whole of them? Would not the present coolies come to you?
A.—If you allow me to do certain things, I think I could do it.
Q.—What would be your terms, and what would you want to do before making any promise?
A The first thing is that plague patients are to be treated in my house or at home,
Q. If any of your coolies contracted plague, you say they would have to be treat- ed in your quarters?
A. Yes.
shed there.
Ask the Government to provide a piece of ground and build a mat-
Q-I see. They might be put into a place like that which they had at the Kow- loon Godown. What is the second thing?
A. The second thing is that when they come to be employed by me they shall have their photos. taken and when they are found to be of bad character, deport them. A third thing I would ask your Honour to abolish is the private chair coolie guild.
The Chairman (to Interpreter). He doesn't say that. The third point is that he wants the monopoly taken from the man who is running the public chair coolies at the Peak. Give us the third thing again.
A.At the Peak, the public chair coolies have formed a private society or guild.
Q.
A.
What do you want done with that?
Some time ago I was asked to engage twenty men to go to the Peak but the man at the Peak said to me: "You are not a member of the Guild, if you come here you will be beaten."
Q. Is that a private chair man or a public chair man?
A.-
The headman of the coolies. I told Inspector Hanson about it.
Q. What would you do next?
A. When their photos. are once taken, they are not to be allowed to run an unre- gistered ricksha should they leave their master.
Q-What next?
A.—According to the Hongkong regulations, there should only be two men for each ricksba, but now five or six men are on the same ricksha, by day running from 8
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