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Q. Do you think you could supply private chair and ricksha coolies to the non- Chinese population of Hongkong?
A. If your Honour can protect me, I think I can.
Q.-What do you mean by being protected?
A.-In Hongkong, I have been helping Captain May and Inspector Hanson for over ten years.
The members of the Triad Society are very numerous, My plan is that when you want to engage a private ricksha coolie or private chair coolie, you have his photo. taken. If he refuses to have it taken, then banish him from the Colony.
Q-Before he goes into private employ?
A.--Yes.
Q-Do you think you could supply private chair and ricksha coolies to the Euro- pean community?
A. If your Honour wants me to do it then I will engage between ten and twenty subordinates to help me.
Q.-And you think
you could do it?
A.--If your Honour is so kind to me I think I could do it properly.
Q.-And do you think you could do it all right?
A. Yes. I would do it to the best of my energy.
Q.--And do you think you could do it successfully?
A.--Yes, a man of my experience could do it successfully.
Q.-Could you give us an outline of your scheme?
A. There are 23 rickshamakers' shops in Hongkong and they can make 500 rickshas a year. When the new rickshas are issued, the old rickshas are condemned and sold by auction. A coolie can buy one of these old rickshas for three dollars, and when he leaves his master's employ, he asks him for a recommendation or certificate and then goes on the street and plies for hire. When he is arrested, he says: "No, I am a private coolie. I am not plying for hire.” When this kind of business can be stopped, the coolie has got no other business to look for and he is bound to go into private employ.
Q. What you mean is that a private coolie can buy up a disused public ricksha and can paint it up to look like a private ricksha and then goes on the street with it?
A. Yes.
Q.--You said just now that you thought you could provide private chair and ricksha coolics. How do you think you can get them? How many could you provide? Do you think you could supply the non-Chinese community of Hongkong with 1,000 ricksha and chair coolies?
A. Yes.
You could do it?
A. Yes. [ can do at least 1,000.
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The Chairman. What is the largest number you think you could get? Suppos- ing we were to put the whole thing into one man's hands and you were that man, how many coolies do you think you could get? Do you think you could supply the Colony ?
A. One thousand I think I can get easily.
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