716
half an hour before the closing of the bag, with a request that it might be forwarded to Your Lordship by the then outgoing mail.
The mail had of course already gone before the papers could have reached me.
I have the honour to be, My Lord Marquess, Your Lordship's Most Obedient Humble Servant,
William Kahn
Ordinance 13 of 1893,
Enclosure C.O. 13430
RECR
Legislative Council Chamber,
HONGKONG, 27th June, 1893.
249
MY LORD Marquess,
I desire to place on record my formal protest against an Ordinance recently passed by the Governor and Legislative Council of Hongkong and now before Your Lordship for submission to Her Majesty the Queen for her approval, and I have the honour to request that you will, before submitting the Ordinance in question for such approval, take into your consideration this my protest and objection to the principal provision of the Ordinance and direct an examination into the whole subject with a view to the return of the Ordinance to this Colony for amendment before it is finally sanctioned and passed into law.
2. The Ordinance to which I desire to call attention is entitled "An Ordinance for the establishment and incorporation of the Chinese Society for the prevention of kidnapping and for the protection of Women and Children commonly known as 'The Po Leung Kuk,'" and it was read a third time and passed in the Legislative Council on the 19th June instant, and is numbered 13 of 1893.
3. A Bill to the same purport and effect was read a first time on the 11th April, 1892, and was based upon a Petition from the Directors of the Po Leung Kuk and a Report of the Registrar General of the Colony thereon laid on the Council table on the 14th March, 1892. This Petition and Report appear in the Appendix to the Blue Book hereinafter referred to, and are numbered in the Appendix 26 and 27.
4. Before that Bill came on to be read a second time His Excellency the Governor, in consequence of communications from the senior Unofficial Member of Council, from myself, and from a member of the Police Force, and of the strong opposition to the provisions of the Bill manifested in the local papers, postponed the second reading of the Bill sine die, and appointed a Committee to investigate and report on the Po Leung Kuk, and on its working, and on the Bill generally, of which Committee the Registrar General, the Honourable J. H. STEWART LOCKHART, was appointed Chairman.
5. I objected to this appointment of the Registrar General as Chairman, and my communications with the Governor on the subject form the fourth Appendix to the Blue Book above referred to, and had I known, at the time, that that correspondence would not have been laid before Your Lordship in due course and without delay I should have appealed to Your Lordship for your opinion on the point. The matter, however, is now of very little relative importance, and I pass it over, simply referring to it as an incident in the history of the Bill.
6. The Committee so appointed reported in April last, and the Reports (a majority report and two minority reports) with full notes of evidence and appendices were published in the form of a Blue Book, and were laid on the Council table on the 25th May last. On the same day, and without any time being allowed for the Members of Council or for the public to read and consider the reports and
To the Right Honourable
The MARQUESS OF RIPON,
Her Majesty's Principal Secretary of State for the Colonies,
&c.,
&c.,