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the Executive, and the money has been paid to the Committee, while they have been conspicuously exposed at the principal entrance door of the Hall, more than one grant having been made after the present Governor's attention had been specially directed to this notice, as is shown by the dates of these payments and by His Excellency's allusions in his speech at the Legislative Council to his "friend Mr. Palgrave" as being one of those who had called his attention to the notice, that gentleman not having been within my knowledge in the Colony since the summer of 1877, and by His Excellency's letter to the Committee of the 28th March 1879 with reference to the opening of the Museum to the Chinese on Sundays. It was not however till the 19th September 1879 that His Excellency, to use his own words, "found it necessary to discontinue the annual grant of $1,200," and the withdrawal of the grant was not specifically put upon the ground of the notice being a "violation of the conditions on which public money had been voted to the City Hall" till some months later, viz., on the 10th January 1880, when the original notice had been modified under what the Committee had thought were terms of compromise with His Excellency in such a way as practically to provide for the admission of any respectable person of any nationality at all times at which the Museum is open (save Saturdays, which are reserved for Chinese women and children) gratuitously upon application. To me, it seems little short of an abuse of language to speak of this modified notice as a violation of Governor MacDonnell's conditions. The one test of admission at all times has now become respectability, in other words, the quiet behaviour and decent dress of Governor MacDonnell's minute of the 3rd October 1868, and not nationality. On the other hand, however, is not the withholding of the money for the last six months of 1879 and for the first half-year of 1880, which had been duly voted, or the paying it to Mr. Ryrie, if it has been so paid, with the obvious object that it should not reach its proper destination, a breach of contract? and could not a suit under the Civil Code of Procedure be, if necessary, successfully maintained by the Committee against the Government or against the Government and Mr. Ryrie according to circumstances? The answer to these questions may properly stand over pending the decision of the Secretary of State, before whom, it seems, all the papers have been laid.
THOS. C. HAYLLAR.
Hongkong, 23rd September, 1880.
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THE CHAIRMAN OF THE CITY HALL COMMITTEE TO THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE COLONIES.
CITY HALL, HONGKONG,
October 1st, 1880.
To the Right Honourable THE EARL OF KIMBERLEY,
Her Majesty's Principal Secretary of State for the Colonies, &c., &c., &c.
MY LORD,
The Committee of this Institution regret to have to again address you with reference to the matters dealt with at some length in their letter of the 13th May last.
Had it not been for the statements made by His Excellency the Governor at a meeting of the Legislative Council held on the 10th September last with reference to the conduct and position of the Committee, the latter would have refrained from again troubling your Lordship and would have awaited an expression of your opinion upon the statements already presented to you. As, however, His Excellency thought fit at that meeting to express his surprise at the action of the Committee in not acceding to the proposal made by him, as he stated at the suggestion of the Secretary of State, that the experiment of opening the Museum at all hours indiscriminately should be tried for six months, the Committee think it only fair to themselves to state that on the 11th June, the date upon which they received a letter from the Colonial Secretary containing this proposal, the letter addressed to your Lordship on the 18th May had been almost a month in the hands of the Governor, and that although on the 4th June they had asked whether any despatch had been received by the Colonial Government from the Secretary of State for the Colonies with reference to the matter, and, if so, to be furnished with a copy, they had received no reply to these enquiries, notwithstanding that the despatch referred to must have been in His Excellency's possession for a considerable time.
This despatch from Sir Michael Hicks-Beach was also referred to at the meeting of the Legislative Council the other day, but has not been furnished to the Committee, although applied for by them, in order that they might submit it with the other documents to Counsel.
The Committee have always been most anxious to listen to any suggestion that might be made either by your Lordship's predecessor or yourself, but as they found that the despatch to your Lordship had apparently not been forwarded as requested, but had been kept back
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