N°
No 5
10733
GOVERNMENT HOUSE,
HONGKONG. 7th January, 1920.
f
My Lord,
I have the honour to report that the services of Denis Lavender, one of the European Police Con-
-stables recently selected by the Crow Agents, have been
dispensed with in view of the facts stated in the enclosed report by Inspector Macdonald.
2.
On the conviction being reported to me I
informed the Captain Superintendent of Police that if he could
arrange for Lavender to be given a passage to Canada, where he
desired to go, at an early dete I would remit any unexpired
portion of his sentence and he was accordingly released and
given a passage to Canada on the 25th December, 1919.
3.
4.
My reason for taking this course, apart
from a general disinclination to keep a European in a tropical
prison except for a sericus offence, was that I considered that
his detention in Gaol or his presence in the Colony after
release would have a bad effect on the discipline of the force.
The men recently recruited by the Crown
Agents have given a good deal of trouble. They appear to
include, in addition to two drunkards, a syphilitic and an immature youth unfit for hard work in the tropics, an unusually large proportion of men of the "barrack-room lawyer" type, who
have been discontented from the first with the conditions of
their employment. Several of them have asserted that the Crom
Agen ta THE RIGHT HONOURABLE
VISCOUNT MILNER, G.C B.,
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