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(Exhibit 17) dismissing Chan Kwing Hing from the office of Governor General of the Kwong Tung Province for raising a rebellion. Witness in this case speak of Chan Kwing Xing's proclamation as a "Declaration of Independence"; and it is so described also, in the later proclamation issued by So Shun Tso on the 4th. August (Exhibit 23).
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It is useless to look in these proclamation for the accurate language of constiutional law. All that can be safely gathered from them and from the oral evidence given
in the enquiry is that after the 21st. July there ensued in
the city of Canton a time of political confusion. How far between the dates 21st. July and the 4th. August the machin- ery of Government was disturbed and reorganised, there is little evidence to show. What part the Provincial Assembly itself took is not apparent. The Canton officials seen for
the most part to have remained at their posts, waiting on
events. The population continued to pay Government dues to
the Treasury. The one act of administration which can be
claimed by the rebel Governor General is that he depleted
the Treasury.
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It is agreed by the learned Coursel on both sides
that the question whether during that period a rebel Govern-
ment did or did not establish itself in the Province of
Kwong Tung is a "matter of degree". No rules can be laid
down to guide a jury in their decision. But, for my part,
I should hesitate to find in a movement which lasted a fort-
night only and ended then in a flight (& it would seem by
the flight of a small number) which, also, while it lasted,
devoted itself to pos' ing proclamations and to the seizure
of public money, I should hesitate to discover in such a
movement a de facto Government, or even, to adopt the langu-
age of the learned Counsel for the fugitive, 'an entity con-
tatning a germ of independence to which certain rights have attached".
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