the attendance and testimony of such officials or laymen as they may deem able to give them useful information. The scope of their enquiry embraces, we be lieve, all matters having an outside bear- ing on the Police force, as well as those more strictly dependant on its interual details. With those latter we may safely leave the Commission itself to deal. It is some years since the discovery was made that a body of men who could communi- cate with only one of the two great classes into which the Colouy is divided wore by no moans as useful as they might be, while those who could communicate with neither were considerably worse. The unmistake able necessity of organizing a force all of whose members should at least understand English has long ago been admitted. The. equal necessity of having a reliable body of men who speak and understand Chinese is also patent. Difficult as it undoubtedly would be to do more than improve the
present system, we may feel sure that whatever seems to present a fair prospect! of success will be recommended. But there is another point to which it is most de sirable that the attention of the Commis- sion should be strongly drawn. Details of organization can be corrected when found to be amiss. A far graver difficulty lies in the determination of how far the ad- ministration of our law tends to hamper those charged with the fulfilment of police duty. Yet this is a matter which the Com- mittee will not, we sincerely hope, over- look. So long as an informality in pro- cedure may permit a known and notorious rascal to slip through the meshes of the law, so long as the police are forbidden to exercise common sense in Hongkong, be- cause their acts might infringe a code of law well enough suited to Europeans at home but utterly inapplicable to Chinese out here, there must be some loose" in our procedure. Mr. Hayllar very, effectively pointed this out at the meeting" some time since, and it is to be hoped that he will impress the facts he then stated upon his colleagues. Still more do we hope that they will find it a part of their duty to give such considerations the prominence they merit in any recommenda- tions they put forward.
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| The Daily Press.
HONGKONG, DECEMBER 27Tx, 1871.
A preliminary meeting of the members of the Commission appointed to enquire into the state of the Police Force took place yesterday at the office of the Acting Attorney-General. It bas been decided not to publish the proceedings until the investigation has been completed, as it is considered that this would involve the publication of partial statements, in which the reputations, if not the characters, of individuals might be concerned, and which it would not be correct to publish until the full particulars, one part of which might explain the other, can be obtained. We understand that the business yes- terday was of a merely formal nature. There will be a vast amount of evidence, documentary and other, to go through, and the proceedings may probably extend over one or two months. The Commission, as mentioned by our contem- porary, consists of the Hon. T. C. Hayllar, Hon. W. Keswick, Messrs. F. W. Mitchell, F. Stewart, H. Lowcock, W. Lemann and G. Fal- coner, and Mr. A. Lister is to act as Secretary. The selection is in every way satisfactory; and, though we should of course prefer to give an account of the proceedings from day to day, we cannot deny the cogency of the reason for refraining from opening the doors to the public until the investigation is ended.
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