His opinion was that the Emigration Office at Hong Kong had been in the habit of allowing ships to carry Chinese to foreign ports on the orlop deck, if there were six feet of height and twenty-four square feet of superficies per man - that by carrying the letter of the Act to its extreme, a source of Employment and wealth to the Colony, would be driven from the Colony, and that he proposed, when experience should enable him to do so, to pass an Ordinance on the subject.
Sir George Grey replied on the 19th October 1854 that no local Ordinance could dispense with the provisions of the Imperial law, and that any proposed Ordinance to do so would be void.
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4. On the receipt of this Despatch the Lieutenant Governor has issued a notification that the provisions of the local law must be strictly complied with. The Memorialists remonstrate against this decision on the following grounds -
(1) That too stringent provisions will simply drive the Emigration to other Ports.
(2) That the rules established by the Emigration Officer (in contravention however of the Imperial law which prohibits ...)