(C O F Y)
Enclosure 1.
252
41145
Colonial Secretariat,
Hongkong, 24th October, 1904.
Sir,
In continuation of my letter dated the 10th instant,
I am directed to enclose herewith lists and statements communicated
to me on the 24th instant by Mr. M. Conan, Emigration Agent for
the Transvaal Government and compiled from information elicited by
him at the Emigration Depot at Liechick with regard to emigrants recruited by the officials of His Excellency the Viceroy and
sent from the Emigration Agency at Wuchow. These persons appear to
be criminals, many of a dangerous type, and to have been obtained
by setting at liberty prisoners from various district gaols on the
condition that they should represent themselves at the Wuchow Agency as willing emigrants and should engage to proceed to South Africa.
2. According to the lists, 21 of the persons were liberated
from the District Gaol at Kwei Yun, 28 out of a batch of thirty-five
that arrived at Hongkong on the 9th October were from the gaol at
Pheng Lo, and 10 that arrived as recently as the 23rd instant were
released from the Chiu Ping gaol.
3. In view of the expression of the views of this Government on the subject of released prisoners being taken as emigrants
which were embodied in my letter above referred to, and to the
statement contained in your reply of the 11th October that Mr.
Acting Consul Wilkinson had requested Taotai Huang, the Chinese Inspector, to allow no persons suspected of belonging to the criminal classes to be sent to the emigration depot, it is difficult to understand how, assuming the statements obtained by Mr. Conan to be substantially correct, the batch of emigrants last referred to
could have been passed by the Chinese Inspector and by your delegate.
HIS BRITANNIC MAJESTY'S CONSUL-GENERAL,
CANTON.