219
for consideration
with reference
to the second point, on
andum and
first
reading the Attorney General's memo;
comparing it with the Chinese Passengers Act and the Hongkong Ordinance 407 1870 I was
at a loss to conceive what he
meant
The E. Crs. suggest an explanation of his meaning and they submit that his interpretation of the law is erroneous
I would point out that sec XIII of the draft Hong Kong Ordinance in 2003 (which is under reference to the For: Off:) confers upon
the Governor
powers
similar
to what the Att. Gen. contends
under the abovementioned Act
The E. Crs. submit that sec XVII
of the draft
ordinance was ultra vires in so far as it extended to foreign vessels This point has been referred to the FO with the concurrence of Mal Lord Kimberley we view with much reluctance the exclusion of foreign vessels from the operation of sec XIII.
122/3
It would be idle to follow Mr
Heugh
MINUTE PAPER.
through that part of his argument in which he renews his old proposal to prohibit Chinese Emigration altogether. If we thought it right to try to prevent Chinese from emigrating we could not do it. they
are determined to emigrate if they
can and if they
cannot be properly cared for they
will
go to other places under bad conditions
Polynesia,
What we have
to do is to help
them to emigrate under favourable conditions.
the question then is how to prevent abuses
in
emigration which we desire to encourage. As far as British vessels and British Colonies are concerned
we can prevent ships leaving in contravention to such rules as
we like to lay down, by local ordinances. But Mr Secley's letter & Mr Laurence's opinion seem to indicate that this is not enough, and that we must follow British subjects to places in China
and elsewhere (perhaps
Peru) and it looks as
if
an
Imperial Act
is necessary for this purpose.
It is to be regretted that the kidnapping Act 1872
was not made wide enough to cover
kidnapping
in any part of the world. HM's Govt should consider this
point
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