540
THE HONGKONG GOVERNMENT GAZETTE, 16TH NOVEMBER, 1878.
HIS EXCELLENCY.-I should not like to put anything of this kind on the Estimates without first putting it before Her Majesty'a Government. All I have been asked to do is to express my own opinion and the opinion of Mr. PRICE. I was not asked to lay the despatch before the Council. As you are aware, everything connected with prison discipline rests with the Governor, who is responsible to the Imperial Government. I make no proposal, nor shall I next Thursday; but I hope to elicit an opinion. When I receive that, and not until then, shall I frame any recommendation of my own. Remembering the figure I mentioned to you, 574, as the number of prisoners in Gaol in November, 1876, it is important to consider what changes have been made that might lead, you would suppose, to our having a larger number of prisoners in November, 1878. We have, of course, as you know, more distress in the neighbouring Provinces of China; we have since then also had other causes, such as the long continuance of the cheap fares from Canton, and the really considerable increase of population. The increase of the Chinese population since November, 1876, has been very great, far greater in these two years than in any preceding two years. Therefore you might fairly say the number in Gaol at the present time must be greater than in the time of Sir ARTHUR KENNEDY. But also, you might say the number must be still greater because the Governor, soon after he came here, pointed out to the Magistrates that it was very desirable to send repeated old offenders to the Supreme Court instead of giving them two or three months' imprisonment, where His Honour the Chief-Justice Sir JOHN SMALE, or the Honourable Acting Chief Justice could give a longer sentence. And I may tell you that Sir JOHN SMALE the first time he came to see me said, “Since the time of Sir HERCULES ROBINSON, I never know what sentence I give a prisoner. Then a man received a sentence and was never let out until he served two-thirds of that sentence, except, of course, under exceptional circumstances." But since Sir HERCULES ROBINSON's time the sentences of the Supreme Court have been interfered with in this way, that, as my Honourable friend (Mr. HAYLLAR) said, when the Gaol gets crowded the Superintendent was in the hahit of sending up a list, saying "Here is a number of men who have served one-third or one-half of their sentences; let them be deported," and that accordingly was done.
That system, Sir JOHN SMALE pointed out, interfered with his sentences and it had the effect, as the Honourable member (Mr. HAYLLAR) points out, of accumulating in the neighbourhood of the Colony many persons who ought to be serving their sentence of imprisonment. Therefore, you might fairly say, as I have returned to Sir HERCULES ROBINSON'S system, which was never reported to the Secretary of States as having been altered—I have returned to it, and no man is let out now before serving two-thirds of his sentence-therefore you might naturally say there must be a larger number in the Gaol than in 1876. Well, in spite of all these facts, the number of prisoners in Gaol at this moment is less thau at the corresponding date of 1876. That supports the view of my Honourable friend on the right (Mr. RYRIE) that the separate system will tend to diminish the ratio of the increase of crime as compared with that of the population, and I do not believe that, if we succeed in establishing a proper Gaol, though the population will increase with the prosperity of the Colony the number of criminals will increase in the same ratio. It is my duty every day to ascertain the number of prisoners in Gaol, and I have a return sent to me every morning. I have received over 500 returns of the number of prisoners in Gaol, how they are distributed, and what they are doing. These returns give me a certain amount of anxiety and thought, and it is from a study of these returns, as I mentioned to you before, I have seen the necessity of introducing a far more severe scale of dietary. I don't say it is owing to the short commons I have given to the large mass of prisoners that pass through our Gal that the number of prisoners is less. It may be accidental. These things are very difficult to trace and it takes a long time to bring a scheme into operation. But whatever scheme you may be disposed to suggest you wal of course bear in mind that my disposition is to carry out the scheme of Sir HERCULES ROBINSON as to the remission of sentences, namely, not to let any man out before he has served two-thirds of his term, to let every prisoner know he must serve his two-thirds, and that as regards the remission of the other third he can only earn it by good conduct. I think I am also justified in asking you to favourably consider the question of sending repeated old offenders to the Supreme Court. With respect to what has been mentioned incidentally by most of my Honourable friends who have spoken, that is deportation, I may tell you in a word or two briefly how that stands. I arrived here in April and shortly after received a despatch from Lord CARNARVON. His despatch was dated in May, and in it he told me he was unable to give his sanction to an Ordinance passed by Sir ARTHUR KENNEDY entitled the Consolidation Branding and Deportation Ordinance. In the despatch in which he gave me instructions on the subject, he expressed the opinion that deportation should be employed only when unavoidable, that it should be used only when dealing with persons accused or suspected of things likely to imperil the security of the Colony, and that it should be used with caution. Well, you will perhaps be interested to know how I have acted on that despatch. You are aware that the Magistrates recommend occasionally prisoners for deportation. Further- more the Superintendent of the Prison can make a recommendation to that effect, and such recommendations always receive the attention of the Executive. With respect to the Magistrates, in every single case in which a Magistrate has recom- mended a prisoner to me for deportation, and when the sentence was, according to the rulling of the Attorney General, a legal sentence, and the Executive Council thought the man should be deported-he has been deported. There have been cases in which the sentences passed have not been legal sentences-the papers are referred to the Attorney General, and the moment he says "This is not according to law," my plain duty, as the head of the Executive, is not to act on that sentence. Again, soon after I came here, a question arose about the form of warrant or conditional pardon that had been issued by Sir ARTHUR KENNEDY, and it was held by the Supreme Court that for certain reasons given in the judgment of the Chief Justice these warrants were sometimes illegal. The result is that a man who has been deported and who has returned to the Colony, which is a common event, if he were to be brought up and tried for returning from deportation, the judgment of the Court would be that he should be discharged, inasmuch as the particular form of warrant I refer to has been held to be illegal. At that time the Chief Justice called on me and said he would-be sorry to have continual collisions on this subject, and therefore, he said, where a man returns from deportation, it would be very well before he is brought up to be tried for this that the opinion of the Attorney General should be taken as to whether the warrant was legally good; of course, where the opinion was that it was not legal I have not been able to order the man to be tried for returning. With respect to the Superintendent of the Prison, there have been only three prisoners recommended since I have come here, whom I have not deported, and those cases are briefly these:-The first is the prisoner LEE LUM KWAI. He was recom- mended for release by Captain DUCAT for his services at the time of the Yesso explosion. Subsequently he proved very useful as Interpreter in Captain DEMPSTER's time, and he was again recommended. Well, in that case I have not been able to discharge the prisoner from Gaol, and therefore cannot deport him. That is the first of the three. With respect to
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