Hongkong No 150.
20th May, 1898.
Officer Administerg the Government Major Gent. W. Black, CB, to
The Rt. Hon ble
Joseph Chamberlain,
HP
Utter Singh's Petition
Transmits
One Enclosure.
03
ΤΟ
Enclosure
C.O.
13763 RESP face 20 JUN 98
217
THE RIGHT HONOURABLE
MR. J. CHAMBERLAIN, M.P.,
Her Majesty's Principal Secretary of State for Colonial Affairs, Downing Street, London, S.W.
THE HUMBLE PETITION OF UTTER SINGH, OF No. 12, HOLLYWOOD ROAD, VICTORIA, HONGKONG. LATE SERGEANT-MAJOR IN THE POLICE FORCE OF THAT COLONY.
MOST RESPECTFULLY SHOWETH :——
1.--Your Petitioner had the honour to address a representation to you, Right Honourable Sir, in September last, with regard to his dismissal from the Police Force of this Colony-after having served therein for eighteen years-on the alleged ground that your Petitioner was implicated in some money. lending transactions, such transactions being against the Regulations of the Force.
2.---Your Petitioner prayed for a review of the considerations most respectfully advanced therein against the condemnation that had been inflicted upon him without anything like fair opportunities being vouchsafed to him to plead not guilty, and to put in his just defence in support of his plea. Your Petitioner has been informed that his prayer for a redress has not been acceded to.
3-Your Petitioner, therefore, ventures to approach you with a respectful entreaty that you may be pleased to review the further considerations advanced in this communication in testimony of his innocence, and your Petitioner submits that these further considerations have cropped up owing to certain other allegations imputed to him with reference to an inquiry instituted on the 1st day of October, 1897, at the Victoria Gaol by the Honourable The Captain Superintendent of Police as to a charge alleged against him by one Tse Leung of his huxing paid to your Petitioner the money of a Gambling House
in 1896.
4.As to the methods of the inquiries instituted-as in the matter of the alleged implication in money-lending, so in that of money-receiving--your Petitioner has refrained in his previous representa- tion from animadverting on the short notice-ahaost no notice--having been served on him by the Honourable Captain Superintendent that he would be put on his defence for the jaid allogations. Petitioner in both cases was called upon at a moment's notice to answer to the charges, after the Captain Superintendent had heard previously and in camera the evidences of interested parties, and not only that, but any fair questioning or cross-questioning as what might naturally very poorly occur to a person put on his defence at a moment's notice of those witnesses was even rarely allowed, and against the rules and methods observed and observable in all the British Courts the Honourable the Captain Superintendent placed himself against him on the occasion of the inquiries in the triple position of a prosecutor, jury and judge, and the adoption of this constitution of the "Trinity in linity," if Petitioner may be allowed the use of the expression, shut off all legitimate means of the Petitioner to secure a fair and an unbiased investigation, and to exculpato himself thoroughly from the imputations atterupted to fasten on him.
5.----Though deprived of those opportunities, it has nevertheless strongly come out in the first inquiry as to money-lending, that one of the principal witnesses against the Petitioner, namely Da Rocha, to whom the money was alleged to have been lent, when questioned by the Honourable Captain Superintendent in Petitioner's presence as to his having received any money from your Petitioner, subvorted his story altogether, and denied that he had ever at all received any money from the Petitioner, and he told a radically different story from that which be told under that officer's previous inquiry in Petitioner's absence, so much so that the Captain Superintendent was not slow on that occasion to tax Da Rocha severely for thus prevaricating. This inct could well be corroborated by the Honourable Captain Superintendent, and under de circumstances your Petitioner submits that such deliberate shuffling of statements, once made under the indirectly coercive presence of the Captain Superintendent, and at another time when confronted with Petitioner, if placed before a jury would at once entitle Petitioner to the verdict of Not Guilty.”