CO129-339 - Acting Governor May Governor Nathan - 1907 [1-3] — Page 551

ONFIDENTIAL.

Hongkong.

My Lord,

Gov

་ ་ ་ ་

G. 0.

12240

Government House,

547

ALGE 6 APR 07/

Hongkong, 8th March, 1907.

In reply to your Lordship's Con-

-fidential Despatch of the 22nd. of January, I have the

honour to transmit the enclosed copy of a minute by the

Acting Attorney-General setting out the grounds upon

which the account books belonging to the Fuk On Firm were

admitted in evidence before the Executive Council in the

case against Sanitary Inspector Ward, and explaining why

the witness Lai Yuk-san was not called.

2.

It would in my opinion be extreme-

-ly unfortunate if hooks of account were in similar cases

before the Executive Council not accepted as evidence. In

this Colony where it is unfortunately necessary periodical-

-ly to get rid of the Chinese system of bribing Subordinate

Officials and where the Chinese who rive the bribes are

very averse to giving evidence against the recipients,

failure to make use of such evidence will accentuate the

difficulties

E RIGHT HONOURABLE

THE EARL OF ELGIN, K.G.,

&c.

8C.,

"

&C...

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