To the Editor of the "Nonru-Cmtsa Danny News.
Sir,—In reply to Mr. Ferguson's letter of the 18th, the following points appear to be worthy of consideration 1.—No adequate distinction is made in Chinese jurisprudence and procedure between civil and criminal cases. If all civil suits were to proceed as with us Mr. Ferguson's main argument would be valid." As things are, however, and as a Chinese Magistrate can and does order the summary arrest of persons against whom no criminal charge is preferred, it would be a fatal error to allow any difference to be made. The protection of native residents from abuse of authority and injustice being our aim, it would be absurd to allow a man to be arrested and taken out of the Settlement in a case of debt, and to object to snab procedure ina case of burglary or assault. The Tai Sun Chang case affords a good instance of Chinese procedure in a "civil suit."
2.—Thero is nothing either in the Treaties or the Land Regulations which gives either Consular Body or Council rights of jurisdiction over Chinese subjects on Chinese soil. Mr. Ferguson's second argument is therefore based on entirely erroneous premises. The arrangements by which the Council claims to protect the interests of native taxpayers under certain conditions, are all of purely local origin, arising from our local necessities. When Mr. Ferguson refers to a modus vivendi for the arrest of natives "capable of execution under the present Tand Regulations" he is ass" ning for those Regulations virtues th-y do not possess. They do not refer to Chinese. No regulations, definitely depriving the Chinese Emperor of his rights over his own subjects, could be made by the Powers.
3.—There is no question of "suspected cases." The Council claims the right to refer for discussion with the Consular Body any and every case where, by the issue of a native warrant for arrest, residents are prejudiced in person perty. That right has not been tin. exercised, so far as the public!s awat the past." In the event of disagreement, there exists precedent for appeal to Peking—and a higher tribunal still exists at the bar of public opinion. But the procedure of trying all cases in the first instance at the Mixed Court of this Settlement would remote any necessity for appeal. Having taken the defendant to that Court, the Council's duty is done.—For any injustice occuring at the Court itself there is machinery of remedial procedure provided. There remains, therefore, no room for any difference of opinion between Consuls and Council.
4.—Mr. Ferguson should know that under the special and provisional rules made at Peking for the Mixed Court of this Settlement in 1869 the Chinese Magistrate has jurisdiction both in civil and in criminal cases arising within his juris diction.
These Rules—defective and obsolete as they are in many ways—have ben accepted by all the Powers (except France) and by China, all these years; if the Magistrate and the Court are thus recognised, why should reference of all cases occurring within the Settlement be described as a "new proposition" or "a new method of procedure." It is nothing of the sort: on the contrary, it is reversion to the obviously right and proper procedure, originally intended, since maintained, and from which no departure should ever have been permitted. It is a procedure which has received full measure of "regular sanc-in the past. What more does it require?
As to the "precedents" of other proccdure, it now appears quite clearly from recent, correspondence ("Echo de Chine," 16th inst.) that the practice of sending certain civil suits grew out of Departmental arrangements made between the two Police Forces for the arrest and transfer of thieves and known bad characters. That such a practice should have been thus wrongfully extended is intelligible enough, but it is not intelligible that there should be any official claim for its continued validity.
5. The claims raised by the French Consulate on behalf of the Mixed Court of that Settlement are not fully capable of solution, as Monsieur Ratard has himself stated, except under instructions from the French Government. That question is therefore removed from local treatment to the realms of international politics but is it wise to refer to the French Municipality as having any voice in the matter?
is' the French Consul-General who talks, and no one else.
Tam, ete., W. V. Drusumonn.
20th May.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.