Enclosure 2.
Renort by the Registrar General.
212
Hon: Colonial Secretary,
I have read and careilly considered the scheme
of the Colonial Surgeon on which I have been asked to re-
port.
So far as I understand the scheme has two chief
objects in view,
1. To secure more reliable returns of the real causes
of death.
2. To furnish medical assistance and medicine to the
poorer classes of the Colony.
As regards the first part of these two objects
there can be no doubt that it would be highly advantageous
to have the real causes of death certified by properly
trained medical officers or practitioners. But, in consider-
ing this matter, it must be remebered that the Chinese as
a whole are not in favour of Western medical methods and
that they would offer strong opposition to any system of
improved registration of the causes of death which would
necessitate anything in the nature of an invasion of the
privacy of Chinese comestic life, on which they lay so much
stress. If properly certified certificates of death are to
be made compulsory, I do not see how interference with Chi-
nese domestic life can be avoided. Such interference would
in my opinion, only tena to intensify the prejudice existing
a.ong the Chinese against Western methoos and so fur frou
succeeding