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12. I am bound to add that I believe the Legislative Council is unanimously of opinion, that if Her Majesty's Government is determined to enforce the demand it would, under the circumstances which I have explained, be better and more constitutional if legal effect were given to such a decision by a permanent Order in Council, as nothing can be more calculated to bring the function of legislation into contempt than to require the Local Legislature from year to year to enact a measure which by a majority of eight to one it concurs with the entire community in pronouncing to be both impolitic and unjust.
I have, &c.,
The Right Hon.
Edward Cardwell, M.P.,
&c., &c.
HERCULES G. R. ROBINSON.
10th September 1864.
P.S.-With reference to paragraph 5 of this despatch I beg to add that, Inclosures while the mails are being made up, the accompanying letter from the Chamber F. to G. of Commerce has reached me, which I beg to submit for your information.
A Chinese deputation also, composed of 12 influential and wealthy native residents, has just waited on me, begging me to forward by this opportunity the accompanying memorial addressed to you by 540 Chinese merchants, shopkeepers, and landowners in the colony. The deputation informed me that, if time had permitted, the memorial would have been far more numerously signed, as it conveyed the sentiments of the entire Chinese tax-paying community. Observing from the translation of the memorial, which was handed to me by the deputation, that it was simply a petition against any further taxation being imposed for the maintenance of troops, I enquired of the deputation why, if troops were necessary for the security of the inhabitants, they should not contribute their fair share to such expenditure. The members of the deputation explained that the memorialists considered that the mainte- nance of a garrison here was unnecessary for local purposes as the people were quiet and submissive, and not addicted to acts of turbulence or revolt, but they felt it would have been unbecoming in them to say so in their memorial, as it was contrary to Chinese custom, and rules of propriety, for humble suppliants to extol themselves. Meaning thereby, as I understood them, that reasonable exception might have been taken to a memorial against the maintenance of a garrison from the very people against whom only, the troops could ever, by possibility, be locally used, and that they had accordingly thought it better taste in dealing with the question to content themselves with showing that the expenses of living here were already very large, and that further burdens would seriously interfere with the growth of the place.
H. G. R. R.
Inclosure A.
MINUTES of a public meeting held at the Court House, Hong Kong, this 23rd day of August 1864, in pursuance of the following notice :--
Sheriff's Office, Hong Kong,
19th August 1864.
A requisition having been lodged with me to convene a public meeting as stated in the said requisition:
"For the purpose of considering whether steps should be taken in reference to the demand which has been made upon the colony by Her Majesty's
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