2. With regard to your suggestion that evidence of witnesses should be taken in writing at Canton before the Bri- tish Consul in extradition cases I beg to draw your attention to section 9 of the Hongkong Ordinance No. 7 of 1889 of which I enclose a copy. I think you will find that what you wish is already law. You also suggested that if a British subject is arrested in China, for offences committed in this Colony and ia extradited, a Chinese official should be allowed to attend the trial and sit on the Bench boside the Polios X Magistrate to listen to the case but take no part in the trial. His Excel- lency said that he would consult the law officers on the sub- ject.
3. His Excellency explained to you that he was exceedingly anxious that every possible safeguard should be in- stituted for the welfare of Chinese emigrants who embarked from Hongkong, and that the Registrar General had for the last two years been constantly enquiring and endeavouring to ameliorate their position. His Excellency disliked contracts but is of. opinion that they were often beneficial to the Emigrants by binding the employers to just tema. license had been cancelled because the
Only today a boarding house/licenses had forcibly detained two youths who were unfit for emigration. We shall welcome any suggestion which you may have to make on this subject.
4.
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His Excellency asked whether the Viceroy had written as he had promised, to urge the Peking authorities to treat the Canton Kowloon Railway as a business concern for pro- fit, and generally speaking to support our terms in the Working Agreement. You said you did not know if he had yet written but that you would remind him.
5.
His Excellency pointed out that, if the proposed currency reform is effected, and dollars are made the standard coin there would be a great redundancy of 20 cent pisces.
THE
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