10196.
MY LORD,
No. 480.
{Hoya KoNa.)
QUEEN'S ADVOCATE to FOREIGN OFFICE.
Temple, October 9, 1867. I AM honoured with your Lordship's commands, signified in Mr. Egerton's letter of the 3rd instant, stating that he was directed by your Lordship to transmit to me a letter from the Colonial Office forwarding a correspondence which has passed between Her Majesty's Consul at Canton and the Governor of Hong Kong with regard to the extradition of a Chinese girl from that Colony, and requesting that I would take the same into consideration and furnish your Lordship with my opinion of the case.
In obedience to your Lordship's commands I have taken these papers into considera- tion, and have the honour to
Report
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That as it appears from the correspondence between Her Majesty's Consul at Canton and the Governor of Hong Kong that the Chinese girl referred to in that correspond- ence was not charged with having committed any crime, I am of opinion that the application for her extradition from Hong Kong was not warranted by any treaty engagement between Great Britain and China; and although the representation of the Consul may be correct, that the master of the girl would have had a clear right by the law of China to demand within Chinese territory the restitution of what the Consul considers " may be termed his property in the girl," the Consul is in error in supposing that there is any obligation arising out of "the law which prevails amongst nations," which required the Governor of Hong Kong to give effect to the municipal law of China within British territory. Further, if it be assumed that Her Majesty's Consul at Canton may have intended to speak of the obligations of "international comity' when he alludes to the "law which prevails amongst nations," and that the comity of nations might have required the Governor of Hong Kong to direct the property of a Chinese subject, which had been abducted unlawfully from the Nankin territory and found in the possession of the thief at Hong Kong, to be restored to its lawful owner on the application of the Chinese authorities if such property had been a brute animal, the analogy would fail altogether in the case of a girl alleged to be a slave, and as such the property of the Chinese subject on whose behalf she is claimed, inasmuch as British law forbids all recognition of rights of property over a human being within British territory. I am of opinion, therefore, that in every view of the case the Governor of Hong Kong was perfectly justified in declining to accede to the request of Her Majesty's Consul at Canton.
The Lord Stanley,
&c.
&o.
I have, &c. (Signed) TRAVERS TWISS.
⚫ 16978.-107.
25.-5/86.
PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE
19.
Reference :--
mmc.O. 885
11 PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON
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