There are other, and, from a business point of view, equally cogent reasons, which could be brought forward against such a system, among which might be adduced the following:-
No medical inspection would presumably be made of the enormous number of fishing and trading junks which are daily entering the waters of this Colony, and Your Petitioners would therefore venture to submit that it would be unjust to attempt to control the Chinese traffic by foreign vessels while native craft are exempt from such supervision.
To hold a shipowner or shipmaster liable for expenses incurred through unwittingly bringing a Chinese lunatic into the Colony under the existing conditions of the passenger traffic would, Your Petitioners submit, be inflicting a great and unmerited hardship which if enforced would result in seriously crippling that branch of commerce upon which the prosperity of this Colony and every component part thereof most vitally depends.
Your Petitioners, even assuming the onus of proof that a certain imbecile or lunatic arrived in the Colony by a particular vessel would rest with the Government, regard with concern the responsibilities which may be thus unjustly forced upon vessels, in consequence of the ease with which Chinese evidence can be produced and the impossibility of the shipowner or master controverting such evidence, owing to the want of any record or photograph by which to identify the passengers actually carried. To establish and maintain such a record would be a most expensive if not absolutely impracticable measure. Your Petitioners therefore respectfully urge upon Your Excellency that under the existing Merchant Shipping Act and the local Vagrant Act (No. 25 of 1897) the Government of the Colony is fully protected against the unlawful introduction into Hongkong by shipmasters of prostitutes and undesirables, and submit that the present proposed legislation is not required in the interests of the taxpayers of the Colony, while if carried into effect it could not fail to seriously injure the untrammelled Chinese passenger traffic on which Hongkong so greatly depends.
Your Petitioners consider that, if it be decided that it is absolutely necessary to legislate in the proposed direction, the public interest would be sufficiently safeguarded by the institution of a fine, say of $500, against the master or owners of a vessel importing a lunatic, idiotic or imbecile person other than of Chinese nationality into the Colony without permission of the Government. Your Petitioners also consider that Chinese should be excluded from the scope of the Bill altogether, as it is manifestly impossible to deal with them, and they further understand that the Hongkong Government have any difficulty in arranging with the Chinese Government to receive such persons of that nationality as it may be desirable to deport.
Your Petitioners would venture to remind Your Excellency that the care of the destitute insane is one of the duties of a Government, and would with all due respect submit that if by chance an isolated case occurs and a non-resident thus becomes a charge on the rates, on the other hand it should be borne in mind that large sums are annually spent in the Colony by visitors whose presence here so largely conduces to its prosperity.
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3
There are other, and, from a business point of view, equally cogent reasons, which could be brought forward against such a system, among which might be adduced the following:-
No medical inspection would presumably be made of the enormous number of fishing and trading junks which are daily entering the waters of this Colony, and Your Petitioners would therefore venture to submit that it would be unjust to attempt to control the Chinese traffic by foreign vessels while native craft are exempt from such supervision.
To hold a shipowner or shipmaster liable for expenses incurred through unwittingly bringing a Chinese lunatic into the Colony under the existing conditions of the passenger traffic would, Your Petitioners submit, be inflicting a great and unmerited hardship which if enforced would result in seriously crippling that branch of commerce upon which the prosperity of this Colony and every component part thereof most vitally depends.
Your Petitiouers, even assuming the onus of proof that a certain imbecile or lunatic arrived in the Colony by a particular vessel would rest with the Government, regard with concern the responsibilities which may be thus unjustly forced upon vessels, in consequence of the ease with which Chinese evidence can be produced and the impossibi- lity of the shipowner or master controverting such evidence, owing to the want of any record or photograph by which to identify the passengers actually carried. To establish and maintain such a record would be a most expensive if not absolutely impracticable men- sure. Your Petitioners therefore respectfully urge upon Your Excellency that under the existing Merchant Shipping Act and the local Vagrant Act (No. 25 of 1897) the Government of the Colony is fully protected against the unlawful introduction into Hongkong by shipmasters of dostitutes and undesirables, and submit that the present proposed legislation is not required in the interests of the taxpayers of the Colony, while if carried into effect it could not fail to seriously injure the untrammelled Chinese passenger traffic on which Hongkong so greatly depends.
Your Petitioners consider that, if it be decided that it is absolutely necessary to legislate in the proposed direction, the public interest would be sufficiently safeguarded by the institution of a fine, say of $500, against the master or owners of a vessel im- porting a lunatic, idiotic or imbecile person other than of Chinese nationality into the Colony without permission of the Government. Your Petitioners also consider that Chinese should be excluded from the scope of the Bill altogether, as it is manifestly impossible to deal with them, and they further understand that the Hongkong Government have any difficulty in arranging with the Chinese Government to receive such persons of that nationality as it may be desirable to deport.
never
Your Petitioners would venture to remind Your Excellency that the care of the destitute insane is one of the duties of a Government, and would with all due
respect submit that if by chance an isolate:1 case occurs and a uon-resident thus becomes a charge on the rates, on the other hand it should be borne in mind that large sums are annually spent in the Colony by visitors whose presence here so largely conduces to its prosperity.
75
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