9
61
8
inflicted on persons convicted of this offence Your Petitioners look with much anxiety to the continual annoyance, if not hardship and oppression to which Grocers and others will be subjected by having their houses searched upon information given by some person anxious to make gain if by chance a conviction could be obtained,-and further as these "condiments" are so "noxious" to Europeans, the Shopkeeper may be fined for proffering for sale an article said to be "noxious?" but to a Chinese, not only considered "wholesome," but probably is in such state a necessary of life. Your Petitioners make no objection whatever to the law taking its course as regards "tainted" "adulterated" or "unwholesome" liquor or meat or provisions, which Your Petitioners consider just and proper. After the explanation contained in the reply, which Your Excellency so graciously condescended to make to Your Petitioners' first Petition, to the effect that if our houses are kept clean and free from smells that our families will not be troubled by visits from the Health Officer, they feel contented and satisfied that no undue exercise of this power will be made so as to cause alarm to their wives and families.
With respect to Ordinance Number 9 of 1866 Your Petitioners have no remark to make except that as the object of it is the prevention of the crime of Piracy, and the punishment of all persons in the Colony having any connection with Pirates, they fully concur in the great necessity there exists for some severe law on the subject and they trust that the provisions of this Ordinance will be attended with all the success Your Excellency hopes for from them.
As regards the Stamp Act, Your Petitioners think it would be better to leave the matter in the hands of the European Community, who are more able to judge as to the merits or demerits of the requirements of that Ordinance, and to represent the same to Your Excellency than they are; although they still think the imposition of Stamps, the time taken up thereby, and the attention and particularity required to avoid incurring Fines, will materially interfere with, fetter, retard and otherwise injure, the trade of the Colony.
In conclusion Your Petitioners humbly beg to assure Your Excellency that they have stated in this Petition what appears to them to be the views entertained by all the peaceable and well-disposed portion of the Chinese population of this Colony on the recent highly important enactments which Your Excellency in your wisdom has deemed it expedient to put in force. Your Petitioners believe that in doing so Your Excellency has had in view only the safety to life and property and the comfort, well being and good order of those living under Your Excellency's Rule, and the benefit of the Colony generally, and Your Petitioners esteem it a privilege that they are allowed to lay before Your Excellency their own views on those portions of the Ordinances which Your Petitioners humbly conceive require re-consideration at the hands of Your Excellency; fully believing after the great pains Your Excellency has been pleased to take in correcting their former misconceptions, as to the scope and intention of these Ordinances, that Your Excellency will also give your best and favorable consideration to the observations and remarks on some of the most objectionable portions of these Ordinances, which they have endeavoured to express in this Petition.
And Your Petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray &c. Dated the 2nd of November 1866.
MEMORANDUM.
GOVERNMENT House,
HONGKONG, 12th November, 1866.
I have perused carefully the Memorial addressed to me on the 2nd Instant, by a numerous and respectable body of Chinese residents----- drawing my attention to several provisions in the recent Ordinances which they suggest may cause unnecessary hardship.
The Memorialists overlook the fact that this Government has been driven reluctantly to adopt stringent measures for ascertaining the character of all Native vessels, by reason of the crimes and robberies of the Countrymen of the Memorialists. There are higher considerations than those of mere trade-and there are duties, which this Government owes to civilisation and humanity-which must be discharged, whatever hardships those duties entail on residents.
It is, however, gratifying to feel that, fortunately, there is nothing irreconcilable between the plain duty of this Government, and the profitable pursuit of their ordinary occupations by Memorialists, or by the Native shipping, which usually frequents this harbor.
There is in fact no adequate reason for most of the apprehensions entertained by the Memorialists, who, although they have made themselves better acquainted than at first with the Ordinances affecting Shipping and Registration, have still fallen into many errors.
Thus they have overlooked the fact, that vessels which make many trips are those which naturally have most chances of profit--and although in the example, which they give, $110 might be a large sum to pay for one or two trips-or even for twenty voyages, it cannot appear a very large sum in the case of 120 voyages-during the course of which so many thousand Dollars must have been employed in the transactions connected with those voyages, as to render the $110 alluded to by Memorialists a comparatively trifling expense-especially as it would be paid in small sums not amounting to one Dollar a trip.
I am nevertheless glad to have it in my power to terminate the misgivings of Memorialists on that point, by informing them of the intention of the Government to treat with special indulgence every vessel obtaining a general annual trading license, in consideration of the guarantee afforded by the Bond-required as a condition precedent to obtaining a license--for the general good conduct of the vessel and all connected with her.
I therefore mean to use the power (Section 28) of lowering the fees leviable under the Ordinance, whenever I have reason to be satisfied with the general conduct of the Owners and Consignees of licensed vessels, and when I am convinced that they are doing their utmost to assist in carrying out the Law-and promoting the objects of recent legislation-
They
In such cases I hope to diminish by one half or more, after the first dozen trips, the amount of fees payable by licensed Junks.
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