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No. 184.
THE HONGKONG GOVERNMENT GAZETTE, 31ST JULY, 1880.
GOVERNMENT NOTIFICATION.
DEPORTATION OF CHINESE CRIMINALS FROM HONGKONG TO AUSTRALIA. The following documents are published for general information.
By Command,
Colonial Secretary's Office, Hongkong, 20th July, 1880.
FREDERICK STEWART,
Acting Colonial Secretary.
TELEGRAM FROM THE PREMIER OF NEW SOUTH WALES TO THE COLONIAL SECRETARY-
HONGKONG.
SYDNEY, 17th June, 1880.
It is reported here that the Hongkong Government is promoting some scheme for the deportation of Chinese convicted of criminal offences to Australia. Kindly inform me what foundation there may be, if any, for this report.
HENRY PARKES.
[No. 689.]
COLONIAL SECRETARY'S OFFICE,
HONGKONG, 19th June, 1880.
SIR-I have the honour to acknowledge the receipt, on the 17th instant, of your telegram stating that it was reported in Sydney that the Hongkong Government was promoting some scheme for the deportation of Chinese, convicted of criminal offences, to Australia, and enquiring if there was any foundation for the report.
2. In reply, 1 informed you by telegraph that no such deportation is now allowed from Hongkong. as Governor HENNESSY had stopped it three years ago, and I added that I would write by mail.
3. I now enclose for your information some extracts of despatches on this subject from His Excellency to the Secretary of State, together with a report of some observations made by the Governor in November, 1879, in the Legislative Council, on Chinese Emigration from Hongkong to Australia.
4. You will observe from the enclosed papers that Sir JOHN POPE HENNESSY is not disposed to encourage Chinese Emigration to Australia, and that he has long since put a stop to the deportation of Chinese criminals to your part of the world.
5. You will also see that, as the Governor points ont, this system had been carried on without the knowledge of Her Majesty's Government, and that His Excellency is of opinion that but a small proportion of the Chinese criminals liberated in Hongkong from 1866 to 1877 on conditional pardons were actually put on board the Australian steamers by the Police.
I have the honour to be,
Sir,
Your most obedient servant,
FREDERICK STEWART,
Acting Colonial Secretary.
SiP HENRY PARKES, K.C.M.G.,
Premier and Colonial Secretary,
SYDNEY, NEW SOUTH WALES.
SER
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EXTRACTS FROM DESPATCHES OF GovernoR SIR J. POPE HENNESSY, K.C.AG. TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE SIR MICHAEL HICKS-BEACH, Br., M.P.
*
發
*
GOVERNMENT HOUSE, Hongkong, 29th April, 1879.
In considering the policy of getting rid of old offenders by deporting them to other parts of the world, I have been unable to approve of a system which existed in Hongkong before my arrival. I refer to that which is described by the Police Officers in their evidence at the recent Coinmission. At page 37 of the evidence, the Captain Superintendent of Police mentions the fact that some of the deported men go to Australia: and at page 77, Mr. GROUES, the Inspector who had charge of the harbour, said he saw as many as fifty deported men, some being old offenders, shipped off in Emi- grant Ships in 1876 to Queensland.
I have, &c.,
J. POTE HENNESSY."
SIR,
THE HONGKONG GOVERNMENT GAZETTE. 31st JULY, 1889.
*
非
GOVERNMENT House, HONGKONG, 18th May, 1880.
581
"In paragraph 5 of your Despatch, you express a doubt as to whether I can be right in saying that some of the deported Chinese criminals were shipped off from Hongkong by the Police Authorities to the Australian Colonies, and you seem rather to think that the deported criminals were men who **bad returned to Hongkong for the purpose of emigration, and that under such circumstances, thongh What I reported in they were seen by the Police Constables the latter did not interfere with them. my despatch was, however, a correct statement of the facts.
+
"The question of reinitting one-half or two-thirds of the sentences of Chinese criminals under
· Conditional Pardons, by which they agreed to quit the Colony, had attracted my attention soon after I assumed this Government (April 1877), and from time to time, both in the Legislative Council *und in despatches to the Secretary of State, I pointed out its impolicy. It seemed to me to be in- consistent with a proper administration of justice and with a strict system of prison discipline. 1 also felt that it was not quite fair to our neighbours in Australia or in the Straits Settlements. The following is a copy of a minute by Mr. DEANE, the Captain Superintendent of Police, on the subject :-
• MINUTE BY the Captain SUPERINTENDENT OF POLICE,
I have the honour to report that on deportation, or receipt of a Conditional Pardon, the ex-pri- soner was allowed to go where he pleased, and that if he selected Australia, Singapore, Shanghai or The Coast Ports, he was seen on board the vessel bound thereto by a Coustable.
'If a man who lud been deported had returned to the Colony for the purpose of emigration and had been seen by a Constable, it would have been the duty of that Constable to have arrested him, and 1 think he would have done so. for there was a standing reward of $5 for the arrest of any such *man; I can recall no case where it has been made known to me that a deported man had been seen - on board a vessel and allowed to leave uuarrested, because he was emigrating.
22nd October, 1879.7
(Signed) W. M. DEANE,
Captain Superintendent of Police.
That a Chinese criminal who had served only one-half or one-third of his sentence, was, on
· receipt of the Governor's Conditional Pardon, allowed to select, with the exception of any part of Hongkong, the country where he desired to live, and that when he selected an Australian Colony, he was then seen sately on board a vessel bound to Australia by a policeman, was a system of rather "modern growth in Hongkong. I cannot find any record of its being reported to Her Majesty's
Government. It sprang up after the departure of Governor Sir HERCULES ROBINSON.
"
"I feel confident you will not disapprove of my having taken the responsibility of putting a stop to this system, and of having taken the responsibility also of not sanctioning, since my assumption of this Government, a single case of branding.
"In accordance with your instructions, I enclose a copy of Chief Justice Sir JOHN SMALE's judg- ment on the invalidity of certain Deportation Warrants; and I take the opportunity at the same time of laying before you
the concluding passages in a statement. I had occasion to make in the Legislative
·Council on the 6th of November, 1879, in which I referred to the Chief Justice's sound views on this
· subject, the assistance I have always received from him in dealing with deportation cases, and to the
· political consequences outside this Colony of transferring half punished criminals to other countries.
On this latter point, I also enclose an extract from a report of some observations I made in *Conneil, on the 22nd of November, on the effect of our Deportation and Conditional Pardon system upon Chinese Emigration to Australia. Though some evidence was obtained by Mr. MAY's "Com- "mittee on Police and crime that as many as fifty old criminals were seen off from Hongkong to
· Australia by the Police in the year 1876 and early in 1877. Jam inclined to think that but a
• small proportion of the Chinese criminals libcrued on Conditional Pardons were actually put on board the Australian steamers by the Police: I believe the following statement of the Chief Justice in his Report of the 19th of April, 1880, is correct, in which he says that most of these criminals ̈returned to Ilougkong and created the comparatively large criminal class that I found here :---
In 1866,' says the Chief Justice, the Executive, in order to avoid the expenses of a second gaol. gave Conditional Pardons, without reference to myself as Chief Justice, to hundreds of prisoners after having served very short portions of their sentences, the condition being that they should leave th Colony, and this practice was followed subsequently. Most of these men returned to the Colony, and to that I attribute the formation of an enlarged criminal community, from which the Colony has
• never since been freed.'
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