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the Secretary of State (Lord Kimberley) recently as in his despatch to D'Extel 31 of the 24th February 1882. Mr is any real authority on the question referred by the Colonial Office for his decision; for notoriously, and as he himself admitted to me, wholly ignorant of the Chinese language, as spoken by educated and official Chinese, (commonly called the Mandarin dialect,) in which Sir Harry Parkes, the Bishop of Victoria, and others consulted by me are proficients, although, during his long residence as a Missionary in the interior of China, he acquired a fluent knowledge of the Punti (Cantonese) and Hakka, two dialects, or local patois, spoken in parts of the Southern Provinces, and in Hongkong.
4. By way of illustration and solely in defence of myself and of the Government of this Colony I would venture, most respectfully, to request permission to suggest an analogous case. Let it be supposed that while your Lordship was Secretary