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and also complained about a recent ordinance, passed in April, which had prohibited the use of Chinese copper coins as legal tender in Hong Kong, which he claimed was an interference with the new republican government in Guangdong. After he had made this statement, he was committed for trial at the Criminal Sessions two weeks later.
The case was heard there before the Chief Justice, Sir Rees Davies. Li was charged with firing a revolver with the intent to kill and murder His Excellency the Governor. There was an alternative charge of intent to do the Governor grievous bodily harm. Li promptly pleaded guilty to both charges. The Attorney General briefly outlined the facts of the case, and the statement Li had made in the magistrate's court was repeated. No evidence was offered as to Li's background or his state of mind. In passing sentence, the Chief Justice said: 'You have pleaded guilty to a most dastardly crime. The motives which you put forward at the police court relate to conditions which have no foundation whatsoever in fact, and they do not in the least palliate your crime'. Li was sentenced to life imprisonment with hard labour.7
May reported the outcome of the trial to London, enclosing a medical certificate by a prison doctor that Li was of sound mind. He added the suggestion that the prisoner's statement had been mistranslated and that he was complaining about the compulsory repatriation of Chinese labourers from South Africa (Fei Chau) and not about mistreatment of Chinese in Fiji. He concluded: 'It seems quite clear that the attempt upon me was not connected with any political plot. It seems to have been the act of a man who, if not mad, must be of weak intellect'.8
On the day after the trial, an editorial in the South China Morning Post expressed the hope that this sentence would prove a salutary lesson and deterrent to other criminals. Too much leniency had been shown by the courts, said the editor, and this sentence should put a stop to the recent wave of crime and disorder. Similar views were expressed by the other English-language newspapers. The China Mail thought that the only redeeming feature of the regrettable affair was 'the genuine