Enclosure 2.
31431 Rece وam 112 NOV 10 The Daily Press. HONGKONG, October 5th, 1899.
His EXCELLENCY THE GOVERNOR (after a pause)—Does any honourable gentleman second it? Whether it is seconded or not I should be very sorry indeed if the honourable gentleman did not receive some explanation, which I think is due on the question of this item, for I take it that the item which the honourable gentleman is alluding to is the item in connection with "Beaconsfield." I saw in the public press after the last finance meeting what had taken place at that meeting. I think it well that the Council should know exactly what took place, and I will tell you so far as I am able.
A very short time after I arrived in the colony I received a letter from Mr. Belilios asking me to re-open the question of "Beaconsfield." I looked over the papers and I found that it had been decided before I came here by my predecessor, and consequently I answered that I declined to re-open the question. That was in December. In the early part of January it was brought to my notice, and in fact it was recommended by the Acting Attorney-General, that this case should be compromised. I think the Acting Attorney-General can have no objection to my saying this now, although there is a salutary rule that the opinions of the Attorney-General are held to be confidential.
At that time the position was peculiar. The position at that moment was that a case had been taken against Mr. Belilios by a contractor named Ali Hok, who claimed from him certain monies due for an expenditure on "Beaconsfield" which he declared by his pleadings had been undertaken by permission of Mr. Belilios and carried out through Mr. Belilios's agent. The counsel for Ali Hok in that case was the Acting Attorney-General and the solicitor for Ali Hok was the Crown Solicitor.
The case came before me at a moment when the pleadings were changed. The pleadings were changed in this way—that the Public Works Department were inserted in them as the agents of Mr. Belilios. I had at the time as Acting Colonial Secretary Mr. Sercombe Smith, who was also a barrister. Mr. Sercombe Smith was very strongly of opinion that the Government were not liable in any way, but the result of the change of pleadings practically would be that in the event of the case being decided in favour of Mr. Belilios the Government would be the defendants, and in the face of this advice and under those circumstances I really did not know who the Government were to look to.
The gentleman at that time engaged as counsel for Ali Hok would either be engaged for Ali Hok or for the Government, having first of all decided from the pleadings that practically the Government were liable. I say distinctly that no one has a higher opinion than I have of the Acting Attorney-General, and that no one realises more fully than I do the enormous care he takes in all his cases and his anxiety to do his work faithfully and honestly, but what I felt was that human nature was human nature, and that it was almost impossible for any man to judge both sides of a question when that man is engaged and has been engaged for some time on one side of that question.
That was my own view; I may have been perfectly wrong. Having looked over the papers and much correspondence I shared the opinion of my Acting Colonial Secretary, who was, as I have said, a barrister, that the Government were not liable and should not be held liable, and I held furthermore that if the Government were liable then Mr. Belilios ought to be paid and that if they were not liable I would not pay him a fraction.
That was the position I took up, and I declined to interfere in any way. I said if the court of law decides that the Government are ultimately liable for this money then the colony can pay the money; if the court of law does not decide in this way then we do not pay anything. The case went before the court, and a jury of seven decided by a narrow majority of one that Mr. Belilios was not liable.
There is a phase of this question which I think it as well you should understand. At the meeting of the Finance Committee it looked as if the Colonial Secretary knowing certain circumstances was positively concealing them. A great part of the correspondence which had taken place, including a very strong recommendation from the Acting Attorney-General that I should compromise this case, and my observations in answer to his minutes, I put by on a confidential file. It was not put with the other papers and was not seen by the Colonial Secretary, who knew practically nothing at all about the matter.
As you know he was engaged in the New Territory, and that will explain the fact that, not having had the papers before him, he had not seen this phase of the matter. But there is the case. Members will see that so far as I am concerned I declined to pay anything we were not obliged by law to pay.
When the present Acting Chief Justice, Mr. Goodwin, but who was then Attorney-General, came back in April, I put the whole of the matter before him. He looked closely into it and he said we might possibly succeed in the event of Ali Hok bringing a case against the Government, but in his opinion the Government would not succeed. But if we did succeed the position would be that a contractor who had honestly done what he was ordered to do, either by one of the Public Works employees or the Assistant Director of Public Works, and had done it faithfully, would be placed in the position of not being able to recover either from the Government or from Mr. Belilios, which would be a scandal, and on the whole he strongly advised that the man should be paid.
I ordered that he should be paid, and in doing that I was wrong. I ought to have put the matter before you for your vote. It did not strike me at the time, and I am sorry it did not. That is the whole case so far as this matter is concerned at the present.
I think the advice given by the Acting Attorney-General was sound advice, but I was in a peculiar position at the time, and, as I have said before, I felt that if Mr. Belilios had a right to be paid he should be paid in full—it was not a matter to higgle over—but that if he had not I did not feel justified in paying any public money until the court of law had decided the point.
On the question of bringing this matter before the Council I confess, as the honourable member has pointed out, that the money ought not to have been paid before it had been brought before the Council, and I regret it very much (Hear, hear.)
Does any honourable gentleman second this amendment of the honourable Mr. Whitehead's?
No one seconded the amendment, and the motion was put and carried.