But it is not to be forgotten all through that the charge upon which Attar Singh believes himself to have been dismissed is that of "giving a loan to DaRocha" except DaRocha's statement, which Attar Singh says was given in a manner open to the gravest suspicion, and which was contradicted by the testimony of Ganda Singh himself.
I suggested to you in my letter of March 28th that it is essential that the argument herein given should be properly placed before the Colonial Secretary.
I am,
&C:
(2) folderen III A Eveloma to hulen st Above 1895 I Les Mt. Jh. 284
Extract from a letter from Sir W. Stanton, late Inspector of Police, Hong Kong.
DaRocha was a telephone clerk in the Civil Service and not amenable to the Police Ordinance nor to the rules & regulations made under the Ordinance for controlling the Police Force. Ganda Singh was an Excise officer in the service of the Opium Farmer. There was no law or Police regulation forbidding DaRocha or any other clerk in the Police department from borrowing or lending money, therefore there was no breach of Police discipline in DaRocha borrowing money from a man who had a right to lend it, and there could have been no reason for Attar Singh interfering to stop it.
If the Captain Superintendent had been present, he could only have complained on the ground that the Police station was not a proper place for carrying on money-lending transactions. He would have had no legal right to forbid DaRocha borrowing. There was never any attempt made to punish DaRocha for borrowing the money, and he has been transferred to another department of the Government and twice promoted since then, and is now receiving about three times as much salary as he was when a telephone clerk.
It was not Agar Singh's duty to report DaRocha for accepting a loan. I, or any other Inspector then in the force, witnessed the transaction. I am sure that I, or he, would have done would have been to tell Ganda Singh to leave the station and transact his money-lending elsewhere.
To Sir Mancherjee Bhawnaggree
The Police Ordinance is Ordinance 14 of 1886, amended by Ordinance 10 of 1890.