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The action of the Secretary of State in overruling the Governor's advice in 1889, 1893, and 1931 was most unusual. It was, doubtless, a highly moral stand, and spared the Secretary from the obloquy of appearing as an advocate of vice in an unsympathetic House of Commons. But the results were disastrous, so disastrous in fact that the official instructions were circumvented in Hong Kong for thirty years with the connivance of the Colonial Office. When they were enforced under a compliant Governor the results turned out to be as bad as had been predicted.
2
1
NOTES
Hong Kong Government Gazette, 15 February 1873 p. 55.
Hong Kong Legislative Council, Sessional Papers 1931, pp. 102 and 111. Correspondence relating to the Working of the Contagious Diseases Ordinances of the Colony of Hong Kong, C3093, p. 21 in Parliamentary Papers 1881 LXV, p. 599.
4 Mr. Labouchere to Governor Bowring, 27 August 1858, reproduced in Report of the Commissioners appointed to inquire into the Working of the Contagious Diseases Ordinance 1867 (Hong Kong: Noronha 1879) p. 207.
6
Op. cit. note 3, p. 22.
For a full description of the system in operation in 1878 see Report of the Commissioners, 1879, Appendix, especially the evidence of C. Clementi Smith and A. Lister at pp. 1-8.
+ Ibid, Appendix p. 6. 'The examinations were the greatest punishment (the women) could have and the mere threat of sending them to examination was generally sufficient to keep them in order. See also CO129/259 pp. 132f for the situation in 1893.
Quoted by Governor Sir J. Pope Hennessy in a despatch to the Earl of Kimberley, 13 Nov 1880, in op. cit., note 3, p. 46.
9
9 W.H. Marsh, Officer Administering the Government, to Secretary of State, 10 Jan 1887 in Parliamentary Papers 1887 LVII p. 689, no. 6.
10 Sir H.T. Holland to Governor of Hong Kong, 2 July 1887 in Parliamentary Papers 1887 LVII, p. 793, no. 30.
Sir W. Des Voeux to Lord Knutsford, 8 Oct. 1888 with enclosures in Parliamentary Papers 1889 LV p. 163, no. 22.
12
Knutsford to Des Voeux, 30 Nov. 1888 and 15 Feb. 1889 in Parliamentary Papers 1889 LV pp. 173 and 204, nos. 25 and 39.
13 Knutsford to Des Voeux, 3 Jan. 1890 and 13 Jan. 1890 in Parliamentary Papers 1890 XLIX pp. 56 and 63, nos. 25 and 27.
14
Des Voeux to Knutsford, 29 July 1889 in Parliamentary Papers 1890 XLIX p. 38 no. 10 and Marquess of Ripon to Sir William Robinson, 17 March 1893 in Parliamentary Papers 1894 LVII p. 39, no. 13.
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