Copp
C. O.
4512
RECR & 186
Pre 21 FEB 19
With regard to the letter 4th February, 1899, from the Colonial Office I would observe as follows:-
Sections 2 & 3. The inability to comply with the Convention is stated to be due to the fact that, as set out in Sir William Robinson's letter 8th September, 1897, "there is no quarantine station in Hong Kong "where the passengers and crews of infected vessels can "be kept under 'observation', and the alternative 'surveillance' is impracticable here owing to local conditions and the large Coolie traffic". Hong Kong does not stand alone in respect of its having hitherto had no place where 'observation' could be maintained.
But, in so far as the maintenance of passengers from either infected vessels either under 'observation' or 'surveillance' is concerned, those who represented the civilised nations of the world at Venice, and at the preceding Conferences, where the same conditions were laid down, did not contemplate the existence of a country where neither practice could be adopted, and no representative of any nation even suggested that any such country, having regular communication by sea with other countries, did, as a matter of fact, exist.
As regards the crew, the Convention only requires, in the case of infected vessels, that the hitherto healthy persons shall be landed, if this be