CO129-152 - Lieut Governor Whitfield - 1871 [9-10] — Page 75

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To the Right Honorable

Sheweth

The Earl of Kimberley,

Ber atesty's Principal Secretary of State for the Colonies.

The Memorial and Humble Petition of the Sababitants of the Colony of Hienghong,

1. That for many years pest the inefficiency of the Police Force of this Colony has been a fruitful source of discontent to the Inhabitants and less given rise to repeated representations to the local Govertonent through the median of the newspaper press, in the Legislative Council, from the Judicial bench, and otherwise.

2. That various attempts have been made at different tires by successive Governors of the Colony to increase the efficiency of the Police and satisfy the well grounded requirements of the Colonists by extensive changes in the constitution and composition of the force, by increasing its strength numerically, by raising the pay and improving the position of the officers and men, by legislation of an exceptional character directed against the criminal and dangerous classes, and by the enrolment of a corps of Chinese Watchinen appointed and partly paid by the Chinese konseholders and placed under the immediate suthority of the Registrar General.

3. That although the uninorical strength of the Force luas been thus bereaved from a grand total of 363 men in 1961 to a total of 628 men in 1871, and the Police expenditure has been augmented from 875,413.96 in the farmer your to $172,395.20 in the latter year, not only has no adequate improvement been effected in the value of the Police us & detective and preventive force, but it is a matter of notoristy, confuse:l and lamented equally by the Authorities and by the Inhabitants, that the state of the Police as regards efficiency is much worse now than at any former period.

4. That Your Memorialists would respectfully point out for Your Lordship's consideration that while the Police expenditure has increased 17 per cent since 1841, and the numerical strength of the Force has nearly doubled, the popu- lation of the Colony is but Herde, if at all, in excess of the population in 1861. And further dat the above increase in the cost of the Police does not represent the total expenditure, hrge sums being unnally spent in buildings, &c., which appear in the Colonial accounts under the head of Works and Buildings.

5. That at no former period in the history of the Colany, not even during the years 1857 and 1858 at the crisis of the last war with China, have life and property in Hongkong kann so frightfully insecure as at the present time, and that the inability of the local Government to affor I adequate protection to Your Memorialists, mud to check the late enormous increase in the crimes of burglary and highway robbery and of all crimes accompanied by viclonce, has become so manifest that Your Petitioners, having totally failed to obtain from the Lieutenant-Gorer of the Colony and his Executive Council that attention to their complaints and representations which the urgency of the case imperatively demands, have no resource but to memoralize Your Lordship.

6. That in the first place Your Memorialists would assure Your Lordship that the amul returns published in the Finagkong Government Gazette, and doubtless on record in Your Lordship's office, are of little value as a means of judging of the real nature and extent of the crimes committed in this Cology. Burglaries, larcenics in dwelling houses, break- ing, entering and stealing from warehouses and godowns, and robberies from the person with or without violence, are the offences of most frequent occurrence. They are and have been of daily occurrence, and in many, if not in the majority of the eases, no report is made to the Police, especially on the part of the Chinese, from the conviction that the Force is useless for detective purposes. Where the offenders have not been taken in the act, or where there exists no grave cause of suspicion against particular persons and the assistance of the Police nced not, therefore, he specially invoked for their immediate arrest, no coinmanication is as a rule, molc to the Central Station. Of the cases reported, not a tenth part are ever heard of again. There are few arrests eud still fewer convictions, and the recovery of stolen property is simply hopeless.

7. That Your Memorialists would in the next piace, subject to what has been said in the last paragraph, call Your Lordship's most serious attention to the Report from the Captain Superintendent of Police in Tongkong for the year 1870. This was published in the flangkony Government Gazette, No. 25 of the 24th June, 1871, and then only, although dated on the 30th of the previous January. That Report condeins the Dongkong Police Force as hopelessly faulty in its composition, as numerically weak despite of the enormous annual experalitare, as tocally worthless, the Europeans, the mainstay of the farce, beg given to excessive drinking, the West Indians being stupid and otherwise ill qualified for their duties, and the Sikhs and Indims, kuowing no English, being of little use, except where mere bodily strength and activity were required. That She Report called for an early and best serious consideration of the state of the Police Force, and if any thing further had been needed to induce the Govermnent so give the promptest and most paruest attention to Mr. DLASE'S recommendation, it was to be found in the Beturns of Crime appended to the Report. imperfect as they were, and in the conclusions drawn by the Chief of the Police from the figures given in those Returns.

8. There were reported to the Police in 1870:

3 cases of murder,

192 cases of rohbery from the person with violence.

240 cases of burglary and forcible entry into dwelling houses.

A cases of ussault with intent to rob.

13 cases of piracy.

In all 456 cases of violent offences of the gravest nature, in addition to M3s eases of larceny, and 147 cases of a felonious nature not otherwise described. Of the first mentioned class of cases, as appears from the Abstract of Cases under the Cognizance of the Police Magistrates' Court during the your 1870, published in the Government Gazeite No. 7 of the 18th February, there were only forty-seven in which arrests were made by the Police, and if there were convictions in each of the forty-seven cases, a result not clearly ascertainable from the returns the adves, the strong probability is that they were convictions more property returnable under the Ordinances providing for the punishment of suspicious characters, than consictions for the offences themselves obtained on the evidence of reliablo witnesses. Mr. DEANR's Report on the Police Force for 1868, published in the Hongkong Government Gazette of the 17th April, 1869, is in its fifteenth paragraph, crainantly suggestive on this point.

9. Your Memorialists again assure Year Lordship that the figures given in the Report for 1870, do not accurately disclose the amount of crime commuitted in that year. It was much greater. Neither can Your Memorialists concur in Mr. DRAKE's assertion that there had been an increase of 78.8 per cent in serious offences during that year over the previous year. The amount of crime was undoubtedly less in 1869, but not to the extent indicated by Mr. Daxe's figures. The difference was in the nature and extent of the meords kept by the Police. Until 1870, as Your Memo valists gather from Acting Superintendent Conan's Report of the 30th March, 1870, published in the Hongkong Gavern- ment Gazette, No. 16 of the 16th April, 1876, so reliable record had been kept of the number of cases, but he stated that forms were in course of preparation for that purpose.

10. Whatever improvement there was, or appeared to be, in 1869 over previous years was the result not of any improvement in the organization of the Police Force or in its effective strungth, but of the deterrent effect of the Ordinances providing for Corporal Punishment passed and enforced by SIR RICHARD GRAVES MacDowvera; the disaliow- ance of which by Her Majesty The Queen. Your Memorialists regret most sincerely.

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