of Hongtong in disposing of it. Convicts by allowing them to be transported to places within the East India Company's Territories if no local reasons of a weighty nature should render the adoption of the Measure inexpedient, called for information on the subject from the local Authorities of the Straits Settlements and the Tenasserim Provinces.
Neither the Commissioner of the Tenasserim Provinces nor the Governor of the Straits Settlements offered any objection to the measure, but the latter Officer considered it very questionable whether the Transportation of Chinese to places where a large portion of the population consisted of their Countrymen would be viewed by the convicts as Exile amongst foreigners, or be attended with the desired influence on Crime which the Government of Hong Kong anticipated.
The Government of India concurred in this view, and in Communicating