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GENTLEMEN,
12558
COLONIAL SECRETARY'S OFFICE,
4TH JULY, 1867.
42
1. I am instructed by His Excellency SIR RICHARD GRAVES MACDONNELL, to acknowledge receipt, on the 28th ultimo, of your Memorial of the 27th ultimo, urging your objections to all Emigration from Hongkong under contracts for hire.
2. His Excellency is most ready to acknowledge the humane and honorable feelings, which prompted that Memorial, and therefore willingly transmitted it to His Grace the Secretary of State when forwarding, by last Mail, the Emigration Ordinance passed on the 17th ultimo, from the discussion of which, your Memorial originated.
3. Yet, whilst fully appreciating your motives, His Excellency regrets that your Memorial should urge a request entirely beyond his power to grant. You "beseech His Excellency to enact that no Vessel whatever shall clear from Colonial "Waters with Chinese on board held to service or labor abroad by contract for a term of Years and that no such contracts no matter how or where entered into "shall be valid in the Colonial Courts." In reply it is only necessary to point out that all Chinese Emigration from Hongkong is entirely regulated under authority of an Imperial Act (18 & 19 Vict. Cap. 114) which Act if not earlier proclaimed by the Governor of Hongkong was directed (Sec. 7) to come into force here on the 1st January 1856. That Act moreover, though empowering the Hongkong Legis- lature to pass Regulations for Chinese Passengers subject to confirmation by Her Majesty's Government, was nevertheless launched complete with all necessary Regulations and Forms, and without any action on the part of this Legislature came into force by Imperial authority in January 1855.
4. Therefore His Excellency can only regard your request for a local enactment to terminate all Chinese Emigration from Hongkong of whatsoever kind, if under contracts for service, as tantamount to requesting him to repeal an Act of the Imperial Parliament, which you will admit he has obviously no power to do.
5. As to the policy of the step which you recommend, supposing it possible, His Excellency does not believe that the abuses, which you say disgrace Emi- gration from the neighboring Port of Macao, offer a sufficient reason for closing to the laboring classes in China or the employers of labor elsewhere a Port, where such abuses are not alleged to exist, and where they cannot exist without great incompetency or bad faith on the part of the Executive, neither of which charges, are brought against this Government. It would seem as reasonable to ask for the closing of a Police Station, because Pirates and lawless characters frequent its vicinity.
6. His Excellency however is prepared to go further and affirm that, so far as regards the character of the Emigration from this Port, there has been nothing to justify its suppression, though the Regulations affecting it may admit of improvement.
To
The Honorable Chief Justice SMALE.
The Honorable JAMES WHITTALL, M.L.C.
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