at issue. To accelerate popular acceptance and to leave untouched popular customs is to win the hearts of the peoples. Formerly persons who made unsuitable laws had to abrogate them in course of time, with the result that people were glad to come and live with their families under their rule, it was never heard that when they knew that the laws were unsuitable, they compelled obedience to them. Moreover Lo says "if you like it, you can follow; if you don't like it, you can stop and go." There you can go; is to stifle all debate on the subject.
There are others who say that the proclamation at the opening up of Hongkong, which invited Chinese to come, has since been revoked. As the present further legislation not only aims at altering the method of Government which has obtained in Hongkong for fifty years, but also at changing Chinese customs which have existed for thousands of years, the Chinese are very deeply alarmed on the subject. Your Petitioners accordingly prostrate themselves before Your Lordship and pray that Your Lordship give explicit orders that the 6th section of the Ordinance shall not be considered to apply to the marriage of wives and concubines but to have special reference to bad characters who kidnap, and to those mothers who vilely bring pressure to bear; in this way, there will be no conflict between the laws and Chinese customs.
If it be argued that in England there is no such practice as that of marrying concubines and therefore it is quite out of the question to introduce anything about the marriage of concubines into the laws, Petitioners reply that they do not aim at any such legislation: