(30)
Therefore I am clearly of opinion that in this case there has been a breach of the Opium Ordinance. With regard to the penalty, it has been pointed out that the prisoners are really only the servants of the owner of the opium and that therefore if there was a breach of the law committed by anybody it has been not so much by them as by the owner. I admit the purchaser and the man who ordered the opium to be conveyed in this way is certainly more to blame than the prisoners, who undertook to carry out his orders, but I cannot regard them as in any way under coercion and I consider that being in possession of the opium in the way they were they were wilful transgressors of the law. One of them said to Mr. Bremner that he was getting only a small sum for the job, $10, and that Mr. Bremner was making a much better thing of it. I cannot therefore hold them as other than free agents. It is true they were acting under orders, but orders which they were in no way bound to comply with. It was quite possible for them to refuse to carry them out. In the same way I consider the sampan people to be to blame, though in a much minor degree to the people found in possession of the opium. I therefore find them all guilty of being in possession of opium in quantities less than one chest without proper authority. On the evidence it seems that this practice has been going on for a considerable time and I think it necessary to mark my sense of the offence by giving an exemplary punishment. I therefore fine the first, second, and fourth $500 each or three months' imprisonment, and the third, fifth, and sixth $50 each, or one month; the opium to be confiscated.
Mr. Francis gave formal notice of the appeal.
The fines were paid out of the money which had been deposited as bail.
C
FURTHER CORRESPONDENCE
OF THE
WITH THE
HONGKONG CANTON & MACAO STEAM-BOAT COMPANY, LIMITED, AND THE CHINA NAVIGATION COMPANY, LIMITED,
HONGKONG GOVERNMENT,
AND OTHER PAPERS
UPON THE SUBJECT OF
SMUGGLING BY THE RIVER STEAMERS TO CANTON.
Extract from the Hongkong “Daily Press” of 23rd November, 1889, of the proceedings at the Hongkong Supreme Court on 22nd instant,
in the Appeal suit of
Tang Man and OTHERS, APPELLANTS, #.
DONALD BREMNER, RESPONDENT.
This case, which was heard on the 13th inst., was an appeal against the decision of Honourable H. E. WODEHOUSE, Police Magistrate, in which he convicted the appellants of being in possession of raw opium in quantities less than one chest. The opium was seized in a boat by the respondent, a Police Inspector.
Mr. POLLOCK, instructed by Mr. WEBBER, appeared in the absence of Mr. FRANCIS, Q.C., for the appellants, and the Acting Attorney-General (Honourable A. J. LEACH) instructed by the Acting Crown Solicitor (Mr. A. P. STOKES), for the respondent.
The Acting Chief Justice read the following judgment of the full Court :—
The only real question at issue on this appeal is whether a man in possession of the contents of several chests of raw opium packed in bags can be convicted of being in possession of opium "in quantities less than one chest," under Section 6 of Ordinance XXII of 1887. "Chest of Opium" is defined by the Ordinance to mean "the package with the opium therein such as is usually imported by merchants in the Colony." It is argued on the respondent's behalf that from this definition and from the object of the Ordinance as stated in the preamble, which recites that "it is expedient to regulate and control the movement of raw opium within the Colony," it can be gathered that the intention of the 6th section must have been to prohibit the possession of raw opium otherwise than in the chest, i.e., in the full chest as imported, and that this inference is strengthened by the 11th section, which in dealing with the subject of the removal and transhipment of raw opium refers only to the removal or transhipment of a chest or chests of opium. It may be admitted that if the 6th section can be construed to mean that the possession of raw opium otherwise than in the chest is illegal the control of the Executive would be far more complete than if, as the appellant contends, the section merely forbids the possession of opium in quantities less than the contents of a chest,
522