CO129-281 - Governor Sir Robinson & Acting Governor Major Gen Black - 1898 [1-3] — Page 37

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Enclosure 1.

3327

14 TE 98

THE RIGHT HONOURABLE

MR. JOSEPH CHAMBERLAIN, M.P.,

Her Majesty's Principal Secretary of State

for the Colonies,

THE PETITION OF CHEUNG HO, OF No. 366 QUEEN'S ROAD WEST, VICTORIA, IN THE COLONY OF HONGKONG, LATE SERGEANT INTERPRETER IN THE POLICE FORCE OF THAT COLONY,

RESPECTFULLY SHEWETH :--

1.-Your Petitioner joined the Police Force of Hongkong, as Sergeant Interpreter, on the 27th. February 1879, and was promoted to first class Sergeant Interpreter in 1887, During the whole of his service up to the time of his resignation, hereinafter mentioned, his conduct was uniformly good.

2.---On account of ill health on the 31st August 1897, your Petitioner applied to the Captain Super- intendent of Police, the Honourable F. H. May C. M. G., to be allowed to resign his situation in the Police Force on the pension to which he was entitled after 18 years and 6 months' service. Your Petitioner's application was approved of by the Captain Superintendent and he resigned accordingly.

3. As your Petitioner had heard nothing further about his pension, although he was daily ex- pecting to be informed that it was granted by His Excellency the governor, he, on the 8th. October 1897, wrote to Captain Superintendent May inquiring about the matter. The precise words of Captain May's reply are set out in schedule A hereto, and are to the effect that he regetted that he was un- able to recommend that your Petitioner be granted a pension, but without assigning any reason what- ever for his refusal.

4.--On the 22nd, November 1897, your Petitioner through the Honourable Regir General, petitioned His Excellency the governor to grant him the pension which he has earned and to which he is legally entitled, under the Police Pensions Regulations, made under the Police Force Consolid- ation Ordinance. No. 14 of 1887.

5.-Your Petitioner received an oral answer to the petition on the 3rd. December 1897, when he was called before the Registrar General, the Honourable J. H. Stewart-Lockhart, who referred him to the Assistant Registrar General. That gentleman informed your Petitioner that His Excellency the governor refused to grant him a pension because he had not completed his term of service for which he had last enlisted. Your Petitioner assured him that he had served 18 years and 6 months and was entitled to a pension on the completion of 10 years' service. The Assistant Registrar General then in- formed your Petitioner that the government accused him of having received bribes from gambling houses.

6.--That was the first your Petitioner had heard of any such charge having been made against him. If the Captain Superintendent had any evidence of receiving bribes, or of any dereliction of duty, on the part of your Petitioner it was his bounden duty to have charged him with the offence before a ma- gistrate. Your Petitioner is perfectly willing to submit himself to any fair trial and to meet his accusers, if there be any, face to face. But he denies, most emphatically, that he has ever received any money from gamblers; he is totally ignorant of any grounds for the government charging him with such an offence; and he submits that before punishing him, by depriving him of his pension, your Petitioner should have been informed of the offence he was alleged to have committed, and been given a fair trial and every opportunity of defending himself.