§ MR. LIDDELLsaid, he wished to ask, Whether the attention of the Law Officers of the Crown has been directed to the Report of a recent Trial before the Consular Court at Shanghai, at which a man named George White, charged as an accomplice in the capture of the Firefly steamer, was convicted and sentenced for a breach of the Hong Kong Neutrality Ordinance, No. 1, of 1855; and further, to a statement made on July 1, 1862, by the Duke of Newcastle, then Colonial Secretary, for the information of Earl Russell, to the effect that there is no Ordinance then in force enjoining the observance of neutrality by Her Majesty's subjects between the contending parties in China; and, if so, whether that statement of the Duke of Newcastle was correct or incorrect; and, if correct, whether the conviction of the said George White can be held to have been a legal conviction?
THE ATTORNEY GENERAL, in reply, said, with reference to the first part of the Question, he had received no authentic information on the subject, and it was therefore impossible that the attention of the Law Officers of the Crown could have been directed to it. He knew nothing whatever of the facts, and could give the hon. Gentleman no information on the subject. With regard to the other part of the Question, he had only to say that the statement made on the 1st of July, 1862, was this, that the first section of a Hong Kong Ordinance containing several sections had lapsed, which first section contained several provisions on the subject of neutrality— namely, for the punishment of all persons who might be engaged in war service in opposition to the Chinese Government, and some other things then mentioned. But the Duke of Newcastle also stated that other sections of the same Ordinance—3 to 8 — had been renewed and made perpetual by an Ordinance made in 1857. These sections provided for the punishment of persons who were concerned on board armed vessels carrying the Chinese flag in the waters of the colony; and also for the punishment of persons who might sell guns or munitions of war in the colony without a permissive licence. Those 1775 were still in force; and, for anything he knew to the contrary, it might be under them that this conviction took place.