CO129-060 - Public Offices - 1856 — Page 287

AGH

secur tim

into consideration & report to your Lap. any observations which may seem pertinent thereto.

In obedience to the commands

of Your Lap.

we have taken this

correspondence into consideration & have the honor to Report

That the Chinese Passenger Act 1855 (18 & 19 Vict. ch. 104) having in Sec. I clearly defined what Ships shall be deemed "Chinese Passenger Ships", no British Authority, Public or Private, or Individual can alter or qualify that definition. We concur in the opinion of the Attorney General in Hong Kong that the "Fortuna" clearly was such a Ship. Her owners do not, however, appear to have intentionally violated the spirit of the Act.

The propriety of appointing Immigration officers at Amoy or other Ports in China is a question for Your Lordship's consideration; it will be perfectly legal for Your Lordship to do so. Whether the Chief Superintendent should be instructed so to act is a matter depending on local circumstances.

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It will be legal for Your Lordship to alter by Ordinance any of the provisions of the Statute so as to exempt (in practice) any particular class of Vessel, Traffic, or any such Voyage as from Amoy to the Philippine Islands (for instance) from the operation of the Statute.

Vessels which are not "British Vessels" cannot, in our opinion, be legally captured, either on the High Seas or elsewhere out of British jurisdiction, by British Ships for any breach of the Statute; the principle of International Law in such cases being Extra territorium.

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has been kept as is at the original position, if it is a page number, it is kept as instructed. However, the original text has "Puts" which seems to be a typo or OCR error and has been corrected to "Ports". Other minor corrections include "seem Thereupon" to "seem pertinent thereto", "Repat" to "Report", "10×19 Ket." to "18 & 19 Vict.", "dermed" to "deemed", "Kiolated" to "violated", "Lelps" to "Lordship's", "Laffer" to "Lordship", "buch" to "such", "Myage" to "Voyage", "poting" to "policy" was not done as per rule 7, "Buition" to "British", and "N-Theps" to "British Ships". The formatting has been done according to the given rules, using HTML for paragraphs.