549
This case ventured to place myself in opposition to the learned Judge of His Majesty's Supreme Court in Hongkong, who has, I understand, made the subject of the jurisdiction of the British Crown in foreign countries a special study.
But after a careful consideration of the clauses in our Treaties with China relating to judicial proceedings in mixed cases and after an attentive perusal of the correspondence relating to the execution of civil judgments of the Hongkong Courts in China (published by the Hongkong Government as a Confidential Paper in July 1906), I have come to the conclusion that in this particular case it would not be right or expedient for me to request a Chinese Magistrate to serve a summons issued by a foreign court of law on a Chinese defendant resident in China, and that in general the views of the Chief Justice of Hongkong with regard to the extent of the jurisdiction of his Court in China are not views that the British Consul General at Canton can accept and act on without reference to His Majesty's Minister in Peking.
I have the honour to submit the action I have felt