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do not come up in all respects to a standard we think desirable.
We cannot prevent the indenturing of the coolies, nor can we prevent them being taken to, or improve their condition in, the countries to which they are to be taken; all we can do is to say that they not be taken in British ships although their condition on British ships would be the best available.
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It is no doubt not only justifiable but right for His Majesty's Government or for the Government of Hong Kong under its direction to lay down rules which will ensure not only the proper accommodation and treatment of the emigrants on board ship but also that the contract entered into in each case is fair in its terms and fully understood by the coolies.
Further, it may be desirable in certain circumstances to allow the local authorities to exercise discretion as to disallowing shipments of emigrants in specific cases or in classes of cases, but I submit that no case is made out for continuing to absolutely prohibit all shipments of contract emigrants in British ships from Hong Kong and China ports. No such absolute prohibition is contained in the Imperial Act of 1856 from which the Hong Kong legislature obtains its powers in this matter.
I do not think that a close analogy can be drawn between the Witwatersrand case and this. In the former the coolies when landed came under the jurisdiction of His Majesty's Government which ultimately decided that it was desirable to terminate the system under which