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The Chairman. That is not the regulation. You see it says no person shall engage an unregistered boat.
Witness. If there are no registered boats there, you can't get them.
The Chairman.-If it is a licensed boat, it will willingly take a passenger.
Witness.-There is great difficulty in getting a sampan if you want to go to a ship. It is not proved to me that that Ordinance is necessary.
The Chairman.-There is the presumption that the Ordinance, having been in force so long, has been a success in its working.
Witness. -No, it is not proved by that at all. Most of the Ordinances in force now had better be repealed, and every Ordinance that is repealed ought to have been repealed long ago.
The Chairman.-There is not the least doubt that for persons with good tendencies, the law is unnecessary, but we have to pass laws, not for the control of the well-disposed, but for the control of the evil-disposed. I suppose many of us have the same feeling as you have that laws are unnecessary so far as we are personally concerned.
Witness. I believe it is a fact that 75 per cent. of the laws that are passed are repealed.
The Chairman. That number may be partly repealed perhaps but re-enacted in most part. Would not the effect of registration of coolies be that registered coolies would tend to keep away unregistered coolies ?
A. Yes, I suppose it would, to a certain extent.
Q. Then, in that case, don't you think it would be very likely that the penal clause against masters would have to be enforced?
A. There are times when you can't get a registered coolie perhaps, and you have to engage an unregistered coolie. Perhaps there will be a strike, and you will have to be fined. You don't want to force the coolies to work for you.
The Chairman.-We don't want to force them, but if they don't work under certain conditions, then they can go out of the Colony. When the lolging-houses were registered we had threatened trouble, but that soon passed over.
Witness.I feel very much for the people who can't get coolies, but I think it is their own fault. There are very few houses at the Peak that have proper quarters for coolies, and coolies, I may say, like a comfortable place to live in as well as anybody else..
Mr. Wilcox. I think you will find that if all the coolies had liberty to go down town to sleep, there would be less difficulty in getting coolies.
Witness.--My coolies have perfect liberty to go down town if they choose.
The Chairman. But they go down and may sleep in plague infected places.
WALTER POATE sworn:-
The Chairman.--You are senior partner in Hongkong of Messrs. Butterfield and Swire ?
A.--Yes.
Q.And how long have you been in this Colony altogether?
A. Twenty-seven years.
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