Tus British Government, in directing measures to be taken such as are contained in the " Chinese Emigrant Ship Fittings," and the "Chinese Emigrant Ship" ordinances, lately under discussion at Hongkong, shows that it is in earnest in its denunciations of the coolie traffic carried on from Macao. We are quite willing to acknowledge that those ordinances are clunisy, and that they sanction interference with the rights of foreign flags not usual in the comity of nations; but while doing so we are ready to acknowledge their necessity, and look on them as the precursors of a policy which may lead to still more active measures being taken to repress hateful traffic. It is, we hold, no disgrace to Hongkong that there are people within the colony interested in the Macao coolie trade. The proximity of Macao, and the opportunities offered by a great commercial centre, replete with every convenience for the repair and fitting out of ships, would naturally attract to it men whose natures were little susceptible to the enormities of the trade. We owe it to Hongkong however to add that, notwithstanding the temptation afforded, the colony has always, hitherto at least, been bold and outspoken in its condemnation of the traffic in human flesh. We add the words, "hitherto at least," because, whether from the proverbial desire of the ordinary Englishman to take the weaker side in a quarrel, or from a dread of the most ordinary responsibility, which seems in this latter half of the nineteenth century to be a prevalent disease, feeble efforts to stay the hands of the executive, and to gloss over the coarser iniquities of the traffic, may be noticed. However much we desire to agree with Messrs. Whittall and Ryrie, we certainly cannot, with them, imagine that the passing of the ordinances is intended, or likely, to cast a slur on th2 good name of the colony. We are unable also to sympathise with the reasoning of the Daily Press, that the proposed ordinances may interfere with the rights of foreign ships, and may entangle Great Britain in difficulties with other States. That is a question which, wwe may well imagine, has been carefully considered by her Majesty's Goyernment before passing such laws as the " Kidnapping Act" of 1872, on the model of which it directed the Colonial Law Officers to prepare an ordinance suited to the peculiar requirements of Hongkong. That law, intended to guard against a very similar state of affairs in the South Seas, the mission of Sir Battle Frere to Zanzibar for the suppression of the slave trade on the east coast of Africa, and the conduct of the Secretary for the Colonies in regard to the present ordinances, are proofs that in this matter, at least, the Government of Great Britain is in earnest, and is prepared to take on itself the responsibil lity of its acts. The Attorney-General, in the "Hongkong Government Gazette" of the 3rd of May, states very clearly the objects of the ordinances. They are, the rendering it impossible that any overt act connected with the equipment or despatch of coolie ships should be committed in the Colony, The Governor says that it is in the last degree unlike. ly that any prosecution will ever take place under the ordinance, and we may add that it is its deliberate' intent to make offences' so dangerous or vexatious that, rather than ran the risk of entanglement, those interested in the traffic will confine their overt acts, at least, to more congenial localities. There are signs that even the Government of China is gradually becoming alive to its duties in the matter. At the present moment we believe a little extra vigilance is rendering the traffic less profitable than usual, and an unprecedentedly large number of vessels are lying in Macao Roads unable to complete their cargoes. And a few of the mew gunboats might perhaps be more profitably employed in the neighbourhood of Macao than lying idle in the Hwongpoo or the Min. Defective as is the Emigration Convention entered into by Prince Kung, it would become the Chinese Govern-met to take care that some reasonable conformity with its provisions shall become the order of the day.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.