I am to request that you will move the Chief Justice of Hong Kong to take notice of the Copy of a Despatch from Lord Kimberley.
It states that if the offender is not a native of Hong Kong, then the Governor of that Island should report him to the Colony to which he belongs.
Lord Kimberley has no objection to such an alteration of the Order in Council, but recommends that the power of deportation should be confined to the Governor.
Lord Kimberley is further of the opinion that it is not right that the Colony of Hongkong should, even when the offender is a native of that Colony, be put to any expense either in keeping him or in reporting him to England or to some other Colony.
To protect that Colony, provision is made by the Order in Council of 1865, Sections 11 & 15, which only frees the Supreme Court for China & Japan from liability to expenses.
Lord Kimberley would therefore recommend that the Order in Council should be amended as to provide that, except when the offender deported to Hongkong is a native of that Colony, all expenses incurred by the Colonial Revenue in keeping and reporting such offenders shall be defrayed by the Imperial Govt, or by the Colony of which the offender is a native.
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