expresive of His Excellency's thanks for this proof of friendship. Any individual specially pointed out by the Chinese Government as a refugee and proving
and of
would
to be so on
examination course be handed over, but Members
our
of the Triad Society apprehended by our own police, as offenders under the Colonial Ordinance, of necessity be punished by our own
must
Law.
over the
The British Criminal jurisdiction the Chinese of this Colony, which is absolutely indispensable as a condition of its good government, is naturally unpalatable to the Rulers of China; and so dangerous and critical a topic does the Imperial Commissioner consider it in relation to himself, that he made it the subject of a private communication, Enclosure, No.3.
In my reply, I endeavoured to show that on this point I was the mere passive instrument of principles and
Circumstances
N°2
N°5
Nob
of
admit,
45
circumstances that admit of no change.
and took occasion at the same time to point out the palpable distinctions between Anglo Chinese subjects at Hong Kong, and mere commercial residents from England at the Consulates. That the former constitute the mass of the populace in the Colony, the chief subjects of communal Law; while the English traders to China are confined to particular posts, and even to a particular location at each port, and are not one in a thousand to the native population. That the severe restrictions in their
case were consistent
with, and justified an extraneous jurisdiction, while the liberty allowed in the other rendered it impossible. Above all that the Treaty itself sanctioned the existing arrangement.
I have
Jervis
applied J. H. Keenan's (blue copy)
Fredrick W. A. Bruce