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and set out the facts referred to in the preceding paragraph, asking His Excellency at the same time to grant an interview to
Dr. Ho Kal.
Before this letter was sent I received a note from Sir F. Lugard asking me to dine at Mountain Lodge on the following evening, and suggesting that we should discuss the question. I think I
had requested an interview.
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15. The question was very fully and amicably discussed:
The basis of the discussion was the reason given in His Excel- lency's letter referred to in paragraph 12, but it was somewhat amplified. The Executive Council it seemed had always desired to include The Eyrie property in the purchase of Mountain Lodge in order to make the Governor's residence secluded: in parti- cular they desired # to exclude Chinese, as owing to the Eyrie garden being above the Mountain Lodge grounds, it would have a bad effect for Chinese to look down on the Governor's grounds, and that the Chinese themselves took this view. I pointed out
the diferral of the orgbuuptim muthuis ground, that in my view was illegal, as the Ordinance although it provided for exclusion, allowed exemption to be made, and this discretionary power should be exercise and reasonably. The
result of the decision was to make the exclusion absolute in
the case of The Eyrie. I pointed out further that there was nothing in the Ordinance to prevent Mr. Ho Tung buying the house, which he was quite rich enough to do, and then living in: it; to which His Excellency replied that there was such a strong feeling against Chinese generally and Mr. Ho Tung in particular living in that house that other persons would stop in and buy it first. It appeared that a variety of facts had been discovered in the Colonial Secretary's Office, which made the case of Mr. Ho Tung being a Chinamen complete in the opinion of the Executive Council: facts of which I was of course in complete ignorance. It appeared also that Mr. Ho Tung was very unpopular. On my alluding to the Ordinance and the 11logi- cal and incomplete way in which it had been drafted His Excel-
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