Page:Europe in China.djvu/551

Rh captain, mates and Chinese crew on the high sea; and by a Club case (April 8, 1881) testing the right of the Committee of the Hongkong Club to expel members. In May, 1879, the Chief Justice decided a question of considerable importance to commercial men, by laying down, in the strongest terms, that a comprador, receiving no wages directly from his employer but remunerating himself out of commissions paid by customers, is essentially a servant, no matter how he may receive an equivalent of wages. For the benefit of journalists, the Chief Justice defined (December 12, 1879) the rights and liabilities of newspaper proprietors. As to the exceptional status claimed by the French mail-steamers, an important decision was given (January 7, 1880) by the Chief Justice, when the local Opium Farmer applied for a search warrant against the S.S. Anadyr. The Chief Justice ruled that the French mail-steamer was not a vessel within the meaning of the Convention concluded (September 24, 1856) between England and France, but the property of a private Company; that even if she was a national vessel, no legislative sanction had been given to the terms of the Convention, and that it was not competent for the Crown to deprive a subject of his right as against any vessel without legislative sanction; that, assuming the vessel was within the terms of the Convention, that Convention only applied to vessels carrying the mails between the ports of England and France, and Shanghai being neither a French nor an English port, a vessel on a voyage between Shanghai and Hongkong did not come under the terms of the Convention until the mails were put on board in Hongkong; that, finally, the vessel covered a breach of a fiscal Ordinance, that is, covered smuggling which is contrary to the comity of nations and an abuse of international immunities. A search warrant against the Anadyr was accordingly issued, but the French Consul declined to give any assistance, and the vessel sailed for Singapore without any search having been made.

The population of Hongkong increased, during this period, from 130,168 Chinese in 1877, to 150,690 Chinese in 1881, whilst the non-Chinese population increased during those same