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position which British Subjects hold under the Treaty with China, must be taken into consideration. They are withdrawn entirely from the jurisdiction of the lord of the soil and are not amenable to his laws. It would in my opinion create a dangerous precedent if the mere fact of birth in Hongkong, originally a part of the Chinese Empire and conterminous with it, were to confer on a person of the Chinese race the privilege to enter into this imperium in imperio created by the treaty.
With very few exceptions, Hongkong-born Chinese are Chinese in blood, dress, habits, and ideas. No doubt many are polygamous and many more own ancestral and other landed property in the interior, which for British Subjects is disallowed by Treaty.
There must be a very large number of Chinese who have been born on British territory and who are now living in the interior of China. Do the petitioners urge that all these should be placed under British protection? And if so, how is it to be afforded, and how are such persons to be brought under the jurisdiction of British Consuls?
Where a Chinese has really made the British Colony the country of his adoption, is born there, lives there, and brings up his children there, without any intention of eventually, when his money is made, returning to his clan in China, it would