Sessional_Paper_1893 — Page 916

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bring it within the shadow of such an imputation. I intended simply to convey my and belief that it carried on its work of detection and enquiry privately and not publicly, that its officers were of private appointment and not responsible to any public authority, and that while the Society appeared to exercise semi-judicial functions, its researches and enquiries were carried on in places not open to the public as our Police Courts arc, and not subject to the control of public opinion.

I am sorry that I made use of a phrase liable to misconstruction, and I apologise to the members of the Pó Léung Kuk for having spoken without full consideration of the meaning and the possible effect of my words. I cannot believe, however, that any one can have seriously misunderstood the sense in which I used the phrase.

Indeed, it is quite clear from the speech of His Excellency the Governor in the Legislative Council on the 25th April 1892, (Appendix 29), that he did not misunder- stand me.

His Excellency said,—

(:

I may say that had the Bill come on for the second reading to-day, I was perfectly prepared to modify it in certain particulars. I should have struck out the "last clause; I should have amended the Bill so that the meetings of the Society and "the buildings and establishment should be open at all times to any Justice of the "Peace, and so have removed it from the odium of the charge brought against it by "the member for the Chamber of Commerce, namely, that it was a secret society."

Hongkong, 20th March, 1893.

T. H. WHITEHEAD.