CO129-254 - Governor Sir Robinson - 1892 [1-4] — Page 605

HONGKONG GENERAL CHAMBER OF COMMERCE,

foxgKore, 12th March, 1892,

SIR,-I am directed by the Committee of this Chamber to acknowledgo receipt of your letter No. 195 of the 2ad ultimo, enclosing for the consideration of the Committee, copy of a letter addressed by His Excellency Admiral Sir FREDERICK RICHARDS, K.C.B., to His Excellency the Governor, justifying and explaining his refusal to despatch one of Her Majesty's ships in search of the missing Steamer Somdetch Phra Nang and commenting on the Committee's letter on the same subject, to the Right Honourable the Secretary of State for the Colonies, sent to the Government for transinission to London ou the 28th January last, and copy of which was sont by my Committee to the Admiral for his information. You say in the lotter now under acknowledgment that His Excellency the Governor will forward the Committee's letter to the Secretary of State if, after perusal of the Admiral's letter, the Committee still wish him to do so, and you add, by instruction, that His Excellency the Governor coneurs in His Excellency Sir FREDERICK RICHARDS' views as to the correspondence in question.

II. E. Admiral Sir FREDERICK RICHARDS charges the Committee of this Chamber-

(a) With having entered upon the question involved in this correspondence in a manner "go improper" and "mislead- ing" as regards the spirit in which it is treated;

(b) With having deliberately raised false issues; and with having.

deliberately prejudiced the question ;

(c) With having cast unworthy personal imputations; and (d) With having indulged in a "scurrility" worthy only of anonymous seribblers, and unbecoming a Committed of gentlemen representing this important Merenutile Community. The Committee earnestly and sincerely hopes that His Excellency Sir WILLIAM ROBINSON does not concur in these charges, and that His Excellency's concurrence is simply limited to an approval of the Admiral's reasons for his refusal to despatch a vessel in search of the Somdetch Phra Nang.

The Committee has given the fullest and the most careful, as well as the most earnest, consideration to His Excellency the Admiral's despatch,. and has reconsidered its own letter to Her Majesty's Principal Secretary of State for the Colonies.

The Committee respectfully requests that its letter may be transmitted to Lord KNUTSFORD in due course, with copy of the correspondence men- tioned in our further letter to flis Lordship of this date.

The Comunittee did not enter into the correspondence in any improper spirit, or with any desire to mislead or deceive, nor did it make any false or misleading statements, or use any words or expressions which can be looked upon as unreasonable or personal.

The Committee conceives it to be its duty to take cognizance of, and to bring to the notice of the Authorities, any matters by which the interests of Commerce may be adversely affected, and the Committee is of opinion that Admiral RICHARDS should have sent a vessel to search for the Somdetch Phra Nang, either from Hongkong or Singapore, and it is further of opinion that

To the Honourable G. T. M. O'BRIEN, C.M.G.,

Colonial Secretary.

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