CO129-355 - Governor Sir Lugard - 1909 [1-3] — Page 415

9

defendant's letter to the German Consul-General. Also if they are true they would have formed the basis of the informa- tion given to his principals by Mok Kun.

What are the facts to which Mok Kun deposes?

In April 1903 Woo Yin Nam asked Mok Kun to become a partner in the Cheong Loong which was then being started: but he refused as he had no available money. Subsequently he met the 8 men” at Cantou and told themt that they had written to tell Woo Yiu Nam to ask him to join. There was a conversation, and Cheung Tsz Yuen said there was no necessity to pay any money at once; he also urged him to join as, being in Hongkong, he could render assistance to the new firm. The Cheong Loong was started 3 months after, and going to the shop on different occasions he saw the 3 men there, sometimes one, sometimes another, and there they sat talking and eating and drinking by request. Also he saw Wong Hiu Tung tasting (a word which almost slipt into 'festing') the sugar, inspect- ing its quality. Also he asked Cheung Tsz Yuen if he was doing good business: he said they would get along if only Mok Kun would help them." Then there was a Cheong Loong feast at a restaurant in September or October 1901, at which Cheung Tsz Yuen and Wong Hiu Tung were present, and he remembers that they both sat at his table, Cheung in the east or master's seat, Wong in the west or assistant master's seat: and he remembers a certain amount of friendly partnership talk, and always that request that he Mok Kun should render assistance to the firin; and then they fell to drinking, and the rest was silence. And then, strange to say, there was another feast on the 8th or 9th November that same year; it was Mok Kun's birthday, and a certain soy firm gave the feast, at which all the three were present. Then there was speech-making; quite short and to the point. Woo Yiu Nain stood up, and proclaimed oracularly, and apropos de bottes as the French say, that these 3 men were masters of the Cheong Loong, and be said it in the hearing of the 3; and one of them, Leung Lai Sang, said pathetically Render assistance, Render assistance"; that same appeal to Mok Kun for help, which seems not to have been answered till towards the end of 1906. As these 3 men are admittedly wealthy men, Mok Kun on his own showing does not seem to have had a very keen eye for business. Mr. Wong Long Hing, broker to the defendants, corroborates the story of the birthday feast; and from his evidence it appears that Woo Yiu Nam's announcement of the 3 being masters of the Cheong Loong was made by way of introducing them to this gentleman, who only knew two of them: and that Leung Sang remarked with becoming modesty "It is not worth mentioning"; but Cheung Tsz Yuen said boldly "Yes I started it with the others." Wong Hin Tung's story is this-Woo Yin Nam had been a shop assistant of the silk shop for a long time, and when he started his sugar business he asked his former master to join him that when he went to Hongkong he frequently went to the shop and sat down in the first floor room; that seeing sugar about he had tasted it, as many others had done: that he had met Mok Kun at a dinner given by the Cheong Loong at their starting: he was asked according to the Chinese custom because he had sent a present; he had been asked every year, but that the con- versations spoken to by Mok Kun are imaginary. Leung Lai Sang says that he was not at Mok Kun's birthday feast, and had never been to the restaurant where it was alleged to have taken place: and that being a Canton man he did not know Wong Long Hin the broker.

Cheung Tsz Yuen says he went to the inaugural feast of the Cheong Loong, but that the conversations related by Mok Kun are imaginary.

Now, had I been judging this case by myself I should have said that all the material facts of Mok Kun's story are "not worth mentioning" as evidence: they awaken in my mind memories of similar stories I have heard in this Court in similar circumstances, and there is much of it that will not bear analysis. But there was a jury in this case, and the fact that I am dissatisfied with the verdict is not of itself sufficient to set that verdict aside. Moreover the moment has not come when I can propound the necessary

412