Sessional_Paper_1893 — Page 873

MY DEAR WHITEHEAD,

[LX]

Appendix 32.

My time was too much occupied before leaving to write you a few lines, as I promised I would, upon the Pó Leung Kuk Society, which was again prominently brought to notice by your letters to the Government on the appointment of the Chairman of the Committee to sit upon the Society. I need hardly say I cordially agree with you that the Chairman of that Committee should be entirely disassociated from the Society, and though there would be less objection to the promoter of the application for a Government grant sitting as one of the Committee, I go so far as to think he would be even better placed as a witness to be called by the Committee. The question of the contemplated Government grant to the Society, I would like to comment upon. In no analogous community in Great Britain, or perhaps even in its dependencies, I venture to think, does a similar grant exist, nor would it receive sanction if proposed. There are hundreds of rescue societies operating in the United Kingdom, having a scope much on all fours with the Pó Leung Kuk; all are supported voluntarily, none receive Government grants-in-aid. Breaches of the law they unearth are brought by them before the proper tribunals to be dealt with and we do not hear that they fail in the prosecution of their objects. Should enlarged legislation be necessary to accomplish a closer suppression of crime, Parliament is easily moved to grant what may be needed. The Pó Léung Kuk Society seeks to do much the same as the home Societies. The legal machinery also exists with us to punish offenders that may be brought to public notice, and the returns of the convictions obtained as recorded in the Registrar General's report (17 convictions out of 20 prosecutions) shew a very fair average of success. Should, however, the law be defective in any particular, there can be no objection in drawing the meshes closer to prevent as little escape as possible. Official machinery also exists to detect and bring to conviction the very class · of offences the Pó Léung Kuk seeks to control; if it needs strengthening let it be, done, but don't let the Government give an official status to a private institution or subsidise it, as is proposed, by a gift of public money. The ways of the Natives are sufficiently devious and obscure even to those who have the longest experience of them, without clothing them with an authority in a private undertaking which admittedly needs the aid of detectives and other secret influences to attain its objects. We are not many years removed from the time when the honesty of the Native Police was called in question, and I would strongly deprecate incurring extra risk in this direction by augmenting that body with a Government sanctioned private institution. Additional securities to those which prevail in the Colony of Hongkong also help to safeguard the interests watched over by the Pó Leung Kuk Society. For all emigration from the Colony has not only to filter through our own officials but emigration is permitted to British possessions solely. At those ports of disembarkation ample official protection steps in to prevent abuse and though it is possible, out of the thousands of emigrants that leave Hongkong, a few cases of injustice may occur, their number is insignificant and arise mainly from the stupidity of the Chinese themselves who do not avail of the opportunities for redress that exist. If a rescue Society, such as the Pó Léung Kuk is, becomes a recipient of Government funds, it seems to me that other societies in the Colony equally deserving should receive similar grants. Let the Pó Leung Kuk work out its ends by voluntary contributions. Chinese are those mainly benefited and if they see the Society doing good they will not be backward with their subscriptions. In these times of talked of and really necessary retrenchment, it does appear anomalous that a vote of $20,000 should be proposed almost in one breath for the Pó Leung Kuk, while a sanctioned expenditure of $32,000 on public works that would be a boon to the community is disallowed and is paraded as an evidence of retrenchment.

You can make what use you like of this letter.

Saghalien,

At Sea, 19th May, 1892.

Yours sincerely,

E. MACKINTOSH.