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Q.-Why?
A.-The Registrar General is the one Officer in the Government service who not only knows the Chinese language but is supposed to be in perfect sympathy with the Chinese. The Chinese look to the Registrar General not merely as their protector but as their friend. The leading merchants of Hongkong do so, and they would never have the same feeling towards the Superintendent of Police. The Superintendent of Police is not generally an Officer understood among the Chinese, or in sympathy with the feelings of the Chinese; on the contrary there are always many things which will cause natural friction between the Superintendent of Police and the Chinese Community.
Q.-Then if you constitute the Registrar General a detector of crime, you are practically having what you condemned two minutes ago, namely two heads for the detection of crime here ?
A.-The detection of crime is not a function for which the Superintendent of Police has ever been noted. The detection of crime--I am speaking without any desire to cast any reflection on any personal head of the Police-is at a very low rate. The detection of crime, the prevention of crime--is there any such thing in Hongkong as a rule? I should say speaking as a mere citizen that the prevention of crime amounts to nil.
Q. What little we have is aided and assisted by the Pó Léung Kuk and therefore this low rate of intelligence among the Police and the low rate of detection of crime on the part of the head of the Police is assisted directly by the Pó Leung Kuk detectives ?
A.-I did not ascribe the absence of detection to any low rate of intelligence on the part of the Police. I think the odds against the Police are frightful. I do not blame the Police for being unable to prevent or detect crime. The best London Police would be equally ineffective in Hongkong.
Q.-Then the Pó Léung Kuk carry out Police functions as well as charitable and benevolent?
A.--They are not Police functions but functions of detection.
Q.-Police detection?
Q.-The detection of crime of a particular nature which the ordinary Policeman does not understand at all.
Q.--And could not carry out as effectively as the detectives of the Pó Léung Kuk ? · A.-Certainly not.
Q.-Why not?
A. In the first place this crime is one which is almost exclusively committed by Chinese.
Q.-There are Chinese detectives in the Police Force.
A.-I doubt if the detectives in the Police Force would be employed by the Committee of the Pó Leung Kuk.
Q.-Then you mean to say that the detectives of the Pó Léung Kuk are a superior body of men as detectives ?
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A.-I do not say that, because I do not know the detectives of the Pó Léung Kuk at all.
Q. Do you know those in the Police Force?
A.-I do know a little about them.
Q-From hearsay?
A.-No, I have had to do with them. But I merely say this. Kidnapping is a very vague term, and, if you enquire how kidnapping arises, you will find that in nine
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