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5. With regard to the suggestion that the present time is inopportune for forwarding any such Petition (which suggestion seems rather like an echo of the utterance of His Excellency the Governor, in the Legislative Council, on the 23rd December last when I first raised the question) I would beg leave to state that it is fully and clearly recognized, that under the war conditions at present prevailing, no definite answer can be expected to this Petition until after the lapse of some months, but it is nevertheless earnestly and respectfully hoped that the consider- ation of this Petition will not be shelved until the end of the present War, because it is felt that increased Un-official representation on the Councils is desirable before that time arrives, in order that a Government, more representative of the wishes of the business men of this Colony, may be established for the purpose of dealing with any trade and shipping problems which may arise in anticipation of the close of the War.

6. I would also beg leave to draw your attention to the enclosed letter which I addressed to the four local British newspapers, enclosing a copy of the Petition, in which, in consequence of suggestions made to me, I promised that I would bring to your notice, in the covering letter forwarding the Petition, the desire expressed for a more comprehensive electoral body than the Chamber of Commerce or the Non-official Justices of the Peace.

I may add that it was deemed advisable to limit the signatories to those of British Race, and that no members of the Indian, Portuguese or Chinese com- munities have been asked to sign, though (as above stated), a few Indians and Portuguese have signed the Petition, presumably because they considered that they were interested as possible prospective voters, in their capacity of Jurors.

7. The Chinese Un-official Members of Council have not signed the Petition, (no Chinese being invited to sign, as above stated). In connection with this latter point, it may be observed that, if two additional Chinese Members were to be added to the Legislative Council, in addition to the 10 Un-official Members suggested in the Petition, the present proportion of Chinese Members to the rest of the Un-official Members would be preserved. It should also be noted that the present Petition does not ask, as did the 1894 Petition, for a British Un-official Majority, and consequently whether the number of Un-officials be 10 or be increased to 12 by the addition of two Chinese Members, it would be impossible to get an Un-official Majority otherwise than by the combined European and Chinese Un-official Vote. There would, therefore, be no risk whatever (as there might have been if the prayer of the 1894 Petition had been granted) of the wishes of the important Chinese community in this Colony being overruled by the vote of the British Un-official Members outweighing the combined votes both of the Official and the Chinese Members. The power of the Governor to suspend legislation and of the Secretary of State to veto it are additional safeguards to the rights of the native population.

8. I also enclose for your perusal articles by the four Local British news- papers on the Petition when it was first published in the Press, and the comments of the leading British newspaper in Shanghai, the North China Daily News (as copied into our Local Press) and also a Leading article of the Hongkong Daily Press upon the documents connected with the l'etition of 1894, which documents were sent by the Hongkong Government to the Press for publication, on the 25th January, 1916, apparently in the hope that they would adversely affect the signing of the Petition.

9. It is probably superfluous to point out that the solid Official Vote has constantly been employed for the purposes of voting down the Un-official Members, and their wishes, and I will content myself, therefore, with citing two instances from the Hongkong Hansard for 1914:--

(i) On the 23rd April 1914 (see p. 39 of Hansard) the Motion of the late Mr. Hewett, in Finance Committee, in which he was supported by all the other Un-officials then present, for the adjournment of the Law Courts vote for one fortnight only, was defeated by the Official Vote.