the Governor of Hongkong should not, according to the circumstances of each case, be at liberty to grant or refuse the rendition.
Were it known that rendition would be refused if the offender undergoing sentence for a crime committed in China, it would, I submit, be a powerful inducement to a Chinese who has committed a crime in China and who had fled here, to secure impunity by committing an offence in Hongkong, rather than to postpone the penalty awaiting him in China, and thus at any rate to escape altogether - through the death or absence of the witnesses, or by undergoing imprisonment in Hongkong, and then not improbably escape.
Edw. J. Aakroyd,
Acting Attorney General
March 30, 1887.
DRAFT.
The Under Secretary of State,
Foreign Office.
MINUTE.
Mr. Fronda, 22 April
Mr. Dekoveck, 22
Mr. Wingfield.
Mr. Bramston.
Mr. Meade.
25
Sir R. Herbert, 25.
Lord Dunraven.
Sir H. T. Holland.
25
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Sir,
I am directed by Sir H. Holland to transmit to you, to be laid before the Marquis of Salisbury, a copy of a despatch from the O.A.G. of Hong Kong relative to the extradition of a Chinese prisoner.
Sir H. Holland proposes, with Lord Salisbury's concurrence, to instruct the Governor...