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says they are still looking for written proof: and it is not till 21st March that it is submitted to the Consul General as proof. It seems that the members of the Consulate were divided in opinion as to the inference proper to be drawn from it.
Before considering the final question as to what is to be the fate of the verdict on this point I must allude to one minor matter: where were the books of the Cheong Loong? They were not forthcoming; had they been it is possible that they would have thrown some light on the question who were partners. It was of course suggested that the absconding partner Woo Yiu Nam who had not scrupled to make off with $7,000, had carried off the books with him. If any of the plaintiffs could be legitimately held to have participated in their disappearance they could not have expected the verdict finding them partners to be set aside. But if any inference is to be drawn from their disappearance it is the opposite, and that Mok Kun knows more about it than he chooses to admit. He sent, for some reason which is not apparent, Lo Tak To, one of his assistants to a meeting of the Cheong Loong creditors, and this young gentleman finding this letter appropriated it: in other words stole it; and Mok Kun continued the theft: for obviously if it bore the interpretation now put upon it, it ought at once to have been handed over to the Official Receiver as Trustee in the Cheong Loong Bankruptcy.
But Lo Tak To was obviously not speaking the truth when he said that there were some account books on the counter but no cash book; I therefore asked him a few suggestive questions. There were, he said, a great number of creditors present, but they did not talk to Leung Tsin Pang. Then he said they did say "where are your cash books?" - he had forgotten that; and that there was angry discussion about the cash books not being there. Of course there would have been had the books not been there, and if there had been such a discussion he would have told Mok Kun, and the most would have been made of it. I am therefore of opinion that these books were there and that Woo Yiu Nam did not run off with them, so that no inference adverse to the plaintiffs can be drawn from their absence.
I am now in a position to give my opinion on the question whether the verdict of the jury on this 2nd question should be set aside: applying to the consideration of the question the test laid down in the decided cases.
The facts are, in my opinion, that the so-called knowledge of Mok Kun that these 3 men were partners was nothing approaching knowledge, but the merest suspicion: that much of his evidence on which this knowledge professed to be based was unworthy of belief: that what he did at Canton was merely an attempt to reduce his suspicion into facts, and that much of his evidence on this point is also unworthy of belief: that he kept Mr. Schluter in the dark both as to his alleged knowledge or suspicion, and that his evidence on this point also is unworthy of belief; that the letter (Exhibit 2) although by itself it might have supported a not unreasonable verdict adverse to the plaintiffs, when coupled with all the other facts cannot do so, and that even this or rather the suggested inference from it was not communicated to Mr. Schlüter. In view of these facts I am of opinion that the finding that these 3 men were partners in the Cheong Loong was unreasonable, and one which no reasonable men could, might, should or ought to have found: and therefore should be set aside as against the evidence and against the weight of the evidence. I am very strongly of opinion that a great deal of Mok Kun's evidence was rank perjury.
I am disposed to think that the question whether the opinions expressed in what we have called the rider influenced the jury in finding as they did on this point cannot be answered so certainly in the affirmative as in the case of the first question.
The consideration of the third question does not require so elaborate an analysis of the evidence. Had Mr. Schluter or any of the representatives of Reuter, Brockelmann & Co. in Hongkong, when they gave the instructions to the Canton branch to write to the Consul General on 21st February, reasonable and probable cause for believing that the 3 men were partners in the Cheong Loong?
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