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I have carefully considered the Governor of Hongkong's
despatch, in consultation with Fr R. W. Black, the Marine
Surveyor for this port.
It must be remembered that vessels which carry
emigrant coolies from this port carry them direct to the
Straits Settlements. Isolated cases may occur in which
the vessel oalls at Hongkong en route; but such cases are
very rare, and for all practical purposes emigration to
the Straits Settlements from Amoy ignores Hongkong entirely.
It is therefore difficult to see why Hongkong should conoern
itself at all with this route of emigration. The regulating
ordinance 19 of the Straits Settlements Government, which is
solely concerned. No complaint has been made by that
Government regarding the working of emigration under the
ordinance; and it may be noted that no instance has occurred
in which the measurement of vessels under that ordinance has
sated prejudicially to the safety of the ship or to the health
of the emigrants.
Measurement at Hongkong is under Board of Trade
regulations for migrant ships, ships, be it understood, which carry European emigrants. It will, I venture to think, be generally admitted that such regulations are not of necessity
applicable to ships carrying Chinese goolie emigrants.
I have looked into the reasons for the differences
in the numbers allowed by the Hongkong and Amoy certificates,
and I find that the reasons are as follows --
(1) Amoy measurments are rade from the skin of the ship on
one side to the skin on the other; while Hongkong measurements
are made from the inside of the waterways on each side. This
causes the Amoy certificate to give a considerably larger
deck area, for a correspondingly larger number of passengers,
The
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