CO129-285 - Acting Governor Major Gen Black - 1898 [9-10] — Page 311

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present. If the Govt.were to offer 5 or 10 times the present

salaries paid to Chinese Police it would not get men of higher

social standing than it gets at present.

As long as the men are of the low class that

they are, they will always be more or less corrupt.

That being so, if these men are sent away, the

men that take their places will be no better. Every Chinese Po-

liceman who could find an excuse for getting bribes from the Wa Lane House got bribes from it, and these two men are no

worse than many others who are allowed to remain in the Force simply because they have not confessed.

There are 28 Chinese Policemen and 2 Chinese

Interpreters still serving whose names are on the list. Of these

2 in addition to P.Cs Au Hing and Hau Hang have confessed to me that they received bribes. They are the only two, besides Au Hing and Hau Hang, to whom I have put the question to them because, being in prominent positions on the detective staff they are in daily communication with me, and I could not allow such intimate relations to subsist unless the men acknowledged their fault.

There are 10 other men on the detective staff whose names were on the list, and I have not the smallest doubt that if I sent for them to-morrow and put the question to each of them, not one would have the effrontery to deny his guilt.

As mentioned in paragraph 33 of my Confidential Report of the 27th.of July, 1897, after the dismissal of the old detective staff I organised a new one composed of Police

whose