What was Augen own
2.
28
It was decided that they could not be sent back to their
own countries, as such return might have been deemed to be
equivalent to irregular extradition for a non-extraditable
offence, and would have made a banishment warrant mean much
more than compulsory absence from the Colony. No other
nation would accept them, as being notoriously dangerous, and
only the door to China, which is but loosely guarded if
guarded at all, remained open.
where they wished as far as this Government was concerned,
except back to the Colony.
3.
From China they could go
Both prisoners felt however, and one very clearly
stated, that there was no safer place for them the world
over than just where they were, in the Gaol in Hong Kong.
Nguyen was sure that his life was in danger elsewhere. Until
however they had been seen out of the Colony in accordance
with the law, and had returned in contravention of it, nothing
worse could happen to them than the provision of board and
lodging at the Gaol in absolute security at Hong Kong's
expense. They were merely under detention awaiting deportation
proceedings, and in the circumstances and in violation of the
spirit of the Deportation Ordinance terms of detention were
added one to the other until the total exceeded twelve months
in one case to suit the prisoner's convenience.
This process
might have gone on indefinitely as no Ordinance other than the
Deportation Ordinance could be made to apply, but that Ordinance
itself had never contemplated difficult cases of this kind.
4.
Conditions have in fact changed radically during the
last decade and we have no longer to consider primarily and
almost solely the Chinese undesirable who can always be fairly
sent away to one part or another of his native country; nor
is it possible to consider red communistic agitators as
political offenders against their own country only the class