MY LORD,
No. 74.
(Hoya KoNG.)
LAW OFFICERS to COLONIAL OFFICE.
1875.
Lincoln's Inn, 22nd October 1875. We are honoured with your Lordship's commands, signified in Sir Julian Pauncefote's letter of the 4th instant, stating that he was directed by your Lordship to transmit to us a copy of an Ordinance recently passed by the Legislative Council of Hong Kong Hong Kong, "For licensing small passenger steamers, and for other purposes," and Ordinance to request that we would favour your Lordship with our opinion as to whether the No. 8 of provision contained in section 6 might be properly sanctioned. That, under that clause, if any unlicensed steam vessel of less than 100 tons burden "arrives" in the waters of the Colony carrying more passengers in proportion to her size than she would be licensed to carry under the Regulations for the time being in force under the Ordinance, the master was to be liable to a penalty not exceeding 100 dollars. That that provision was probably aimed at a class of Portuguese or Chinese launches which might bring native passengers into the Colony from Macao or from neighbour- ing towns and villages on the mainland of China.
"T
That it appeared, however, to your Lordship, that while it was very desirable to regulate the carriage of passengers in vessels of that class belonging to residents in the ('olony, the enforcement of a penalty against "any" such vessel which might "arrive' in the Colony with a greater number of passengers than the local law permits was hardly consistent with international practice, and might be considered as a measure of doubtful legality.
In obedience to your Lordship's commands we have the honour to
Report
That vessels of every nationality arriving in the waters of a British Colony may properly be required to obey the municipal law of that Colony; and that if the 6th section of the Ordinance before us is allowed to become the law of Hong Kong no nation will have any right to complain of the enforcement of its provisions, unless the restriction thereby imposed upon the navigation of small steamers is an infringement of some subsisting Treaty.
The Right Hon. the Earl of Carnarvon,
&c.
&c.
&c.
We have, &c., (Signed) RICHARD BAGGALLAY.
JOHN HOLKER.
▲ 19916-74. 95.-12/94.
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