to
meant and were understood mean that the plaintiff had impro- perly and corruptly used his in- fluence as a Government official to enable the Yan Seng Company to acquire the opium monopoly in Macao; that the plaintiff had been guilty of gross misconduct in the discharge of his official duties; that he had been guilty of bribery and corruption; and had connived at bribery and corruption.
was signed and issued by Lu Kin Butt, whose signature was known to and recognised by the defendant. Defendant interviewed Fung Cheung shortly after the receipt of his letter and examined him care- fully upon the sources of his in- formation and the statements made in his letter.
The Opium Monopolist.
re-
Defendant had no means of prov The document which contained ing, conclusively the truth of the said statement, but he was satis- the words in question was sent to fied that the signature of Lu Kin H.E. the Governor of Macao and
Butt on the receipt was genuine. his private secretary, by the defen- The statements relating to the Yue dant. The document and petition
Seng Company corroborated were printed by the Victoria Print- ing Press, of 3, Duddell Street, ports that defendant had heard in Hong Kong, on the instructions of Hong Kong to the effect that Lu Kin Butt, who was at that time the defendant. A thousand copies, serving the Government of Macao or thereabout (defendants now said
as the adviser of the new depart- 300), were printed and many had
ment operating the Macao Opium been sent by the defendant to pro-
Farm, was issuing receipts for minent persons in Hong Kong and Macao. Defendant threatened, and subscriptions to the capital of a firm which was reported to be intended, to continue publication : the Macao Opium Monopolist. of the same or similar charges This appeared to the defendant to against the plaintiff. Plaintiff had been greatly injured in his credit be a matter of grave irregularity and reputation and had suffered which required the immediate in- damage. He claimed damages and vestigation of the Macao Govern- an injunction to restrain the de- nent, and, further, that it was de- fendant from publication of the fendant's duty to report the matter words complained of, or any of immediately to H.E. the Governor them, or of any similar words.
The Defendant's Position. Counsel added that pleadings on behalf of the defendant claimed that the words did not hear the interpretation alleged in the state- ment of claim, nor did they con- tain any defamatory meaning. Defendant had for many years been a leading merchant and citizen in Macao and one of its principal benefactors. He had been con- tinuously and actively associated with public life and on numerous occasions had been called on by Governors and Government to ad- vise and co-operate in the solution of administrative and public pro-
blems.
The petition (said the pleadings) was printed and circulated without any malice towards the plaintiff or at all, but with the purpose of securing, in the interests of the Colony, a Governmental enquiry into the facts which had come to the knowledge of the defendant through the medium of the said letter and in the honest belief that the statements therein contained were true. In so doing, the de- fendant acted bona fide in a mat- ter in which by reason of his long association with Macao, he had an interest and duty. Save as was therein stated, there was no fur- ther publication except to the de- fendant's legal advisers.
Defendant further stated that in- cluded with the letter to him from Fung Cheung was a receipt in Chinese issued by the Yau Seng Company for $100, being the amount subscribed by one Miss Tin Fo to the share capital of the Yau Seng Company. The receipt
of Macao.
Defendant also stated that he had three hundred copies printed be- cause the Victoria Printing Press stated that as he desired the docu ment as quickly as possible, they would charge him for three hun- dred copies no matter how many he actually needed.
"Actuated By Malice."
The defendant did not attempt to say that the statements were true. He said they were not de- famatory. On the contrary, the plaintiffs said that they were, and that they were clearly read in a defamatory sense by those who read them. Defendant claimed that they were privileged. further
But the plaintiff claimed that even if they were privileged, that privilege was destroyed because plaintiff was actuated by express malice. Defendant, up till the end of June of last year, was acting with a Company called the Yue Sing and Company which managed the opium farm in Macao (prior to that date it had been let out to tender for three years at a time, the Yue Sing having been the successful tenderers on previous oc- casions).
The Yue Sing and Company was a somewhat nebulous institution, a sort of Jekyll and Hyde. It was sometimes represented as a busi- ness of a single individual, Yue Sing, of whom the defendant claim- ed to be an attorney, and some- times as a syndicate partnership which had a considerable number of shareholders and which issued scrip and of which the defendant claimed to be a managing director. The petition in which the libel was contained represented Yue Sing in the first of his two capacities.
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