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458 in Council and memorialized the Secretary of State (July 27, 1867) to the effect that contract emigration from Hongkong should be entirely prohibited, on the ground that the Macao coolie trade, conducted under emigration laws similar to those of Hongkong, had developed into a veritable slave trade. Sir Richard opposed the two enthusiasts, and stated that the Hongkong Council could not run counter to Imperial legislation (18 & 19 Vict. ch. 104) under which the local Chinese Passengers Act of 1855 had been framed. The whole mercantile community considered this agitation against the local coolie trade extremely ill-judged, as no one pretended that coolie emigration from Hongkong was conducted in any sense on slave-trading principles. Fresh discussions arose when Sir Richard published (July 4, 1867) a refutation of the arguments advanced by those two Members of Council, and especially when the horrors connected with numerous mutinies on Macao coolie ships filled the public papers and engaged, in a few instances, also the attention of the Government and the Supreme Court of Hongkong in connection with the ships Marie Therese (March 21, 1868), Frederic (October 19, 1869), and especially in connection with the above mentioned Kwok Asing case (February 15, to April 5, 1871). The net result of all these discussions was the general conviction that the methods by which coolies are collected in the interior and brought to Hongkong for shipment, though free from the evils attaching to the crimping system of the Macao coolie trade, necessitated the strictest surveillance of all contract emigration, and some thought that even the new Hongkong Emigration Ordinance (12 of 1868) was insufficient, though it provided for the punishment of persons improperly obtaining emigrants, as long as contract emigration to non British ports was allowed. More stringent regulations were made by the Governor in Council (July 6, 1869), but on 19th October, 1869, Earl Granville informed the Governor that he concurred with Earl Clarendon and the Emigration Commissioners, that contract emigration from Hongkong should be strictly confined to emigration to British Colonies. Sir Richard