With regard to the Indemnity Ordinance: Mr. Burkill asks why, when the owners brought their action in December, 1919, did not the Hongkong Governor non-suit them by defending the action and proving that it should have been brought against' the Imperial Government. This is exactly the -course which the Hongkong Government proposed, but the Imperial Government decreed otherwise. Mr. Burkill' was personally informed at the—Colonial Office that "the Indemnity Ordinance was not a device of thd Hongkong Government to meet. their own special difficulties, bub was passed on the instructions of His Majesty's Government, as similar Ordinances were passed in Colonies similarly situated, and) were intended to carry out the deliberate intention and decision of His Majesty's Government that shipowners in Hongkong and elsewhere in the Colonies must not be placed in any way in a more favourable position than shipowners in this Country It was-only for technical reasons, not specially affecting Hongkong, that it had been decided not to apply the Imperial Indemnity Act to the Colonies... The Hongkong Ordinance was a piece of Imperial- policy... and it was inconceivable that it should be disallowed."
Mr. Burkill objects to the use of the Wollowra on the Singapore-Rangoon run at $110,000 a month and he states that the right course would have been to hand the ship back to the original rice charterers at $51,000 a month. But, in accordance with the Imperial Government's instructions, the owners were to run the-ship as if for themselves: the owners introduced and pressed for acceptance of the $110,000 charter, wishing no doubt to get their 5 per cent. commission on the larger instead of on the smaller sum: other arrangements had been made for the necessary supply of rice: and the Singapore-Rangoon charter enabled tha Hongkong Government both to comply with a request from the Singapore Government to supply coolies to mine tin for war purposes, and also to keep open the important Rangoon connexion.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.