428
The
their verdict vide paragraph 3 of the finding "not only do we
exonerate Er. King from all blame in the matter, but we consider
commendation is due to him and to the police and military immediate- ly concerned for their conduct and patience under most trying cir-
cumstances, and for their personal courage.
5. Your Excellency, being a British-born subject and, if I am correctly informed, having at one time occupied a seat on the magisterial bench in Hongkong, must know that under no other judicial system in the world are life and liberty so secure, as under the protection of British law, and that no-where have there been devised more stringent safeguards against the unwarrantable taking of human life on the part of police or military authorities than throughout the British Empire. Whereas in other countries, and notably, as Your Excellency from personal experience can confirm, in the United States of America that Great Republic, which China has chosen as
her prototype - when a mob gets out of hand and defies the law,. fire ia immediately opened, not low on to the fround, as happened at Shatien,
but into the crowd.
6. The Deputy Superintendent of Police and those under him were merely subordinates, carrying out the orders issued to them by their superior officers. Had they failed to execute these, they would have rendered themselves liable to reprimand and punishment. The responsibi- lity, therefore, did not lie with them, but with the Government of Hongkong, who instructed them not to allow any Chinese not provided with regulation passes to leave the Colony. As to whether or not the Government of Hongkong acted ultra vires is a question solely for His kajesty's Government, to whom all the facts of the case have been sub- mitted, to decide. Once having issued their orders, however, they could not allow them to be flouted by those under their jurisdiction.
7. If Your Excellency be of opinion, as is to be inferred from the last paragraph of the communication under acknowledgment, that they
acted in contravention of International Law or exceeded their powers, it is always open to Your Excellency to bring a test action in the British Courts, or to appeal to the League of Nations. The fact remaine
that,
that, whoever may have incurred responsibility, it certainly was not Fr. King.
8. Having said so much on one side of the case, I will now permit myself a few observation on the other side, and, as an imparial looker- on, offer my own opinion as to who was, in the last resort, responsible for this unfortunate occurrence. In offering it, I am not singular, as it has been confirmed by other independent investigators. Those who are in reality responsible are the Kuo in Tang in Canton, their leaders
and agents, who instigated, aided and abetted a moverent, whereby it was sought to ruin industrially the neighbouring Colony of Hongkong.
9. The seamen's strike was mainly factitious. There was no universal grievance amongst the man, inasmuch as last summer of their own accord,
the leading coasting steamship Companies had raised mnges to meet in- creased cost of living, and on the Pacific and European lines wages were high and men were paying anything from X100 to $1000 to secure a
job, as on those routes wages are a trifle compared with other oppor-
tunities of making money, which offer themselves. It is not foreigners
who "sweat" Chinese: it is the Chinese themselves. Take for instance
the lowest pre-strike wage on a British coasting steamer for an ordin-
ary seaman – an individual who cannot steer a ship at sea, but at most
can haul a rope, sweep up a deck or wash down a deckhouse. This wage
wan 820 a month. Allowing 85 as his contribution towards the seaman's
mess for food, he was left with 815 a month for the support of his
family. How many ordinary Chinese Government soldiers and sailors receive $20 a month? The model lunicipality of Canton only pays its street sweepers 28 to 39 a month.
10. There being no real hardship, an unreal agitation had to be
famented, and this was taken charge of by Ch'en Ping-sheng, who, I have
reason to believe, is no senman at all, but was used even before the
Mevolution as a travelling agent for the Kuo in Tang, distributing
literature and smuggling ams - a record which no doubt earned him him
his recent pardon. The demands put forward by him were so impossible,
that they could not be entertained and negotiations broke down. All
seamen were then, nolentes volentes,ordered under threat to leave
their vessels and come to Canton, where they were entertained and
supported by the Kuo Min Tang. Had the agitation been confined
Kuo Hin T.