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assistant for the Governor of that colony to establish a station for maintaining persons under observation until they had completed the required ten days since they left the last infected port.
Vessels could also be differently dealt with according as they carried a medical officer on board or not.
On the other hand, whilst this or a system of surveillance is permissible in the case of suspected and healthy ships, there is no obligation under the Convention as to either measure or as to duration of surveillance in the case of these two classes of vessels.
The existing "Quarantine Regulations" in Hong Kong dated 10th April, 1897, (Sea Regn. No 6) neither require observation nor surveillance pending the completion of the "10 days"; and adoption of the terms of the Convention would in no way compel the Colonial Government to do more than is contemplated under the existing Code of Regulations.
I do not know how many plague-infected vessels have reached Hong Kong since plague has been prevalent in the East, and therefore I am unable to judge whether it is beyond the capability of the Colony, after dealing with the sick, to arrange for maintaining the Asiatics on board an actually infected vessel under observation for a period not exceeding the Convention limit of 10 days. If they would do this, they would carry out the main thing