8
consideration of my successor, and of the Crown side of the Supreme Court. But that is a question which does not belong to the Executive.
Nor is the Ceylon case any precedent for this.
There, the enquiry was commenced in Parliament. Here, neither Parliament nor Downing Street began to interfere until after the close of the investigation at Hong Kong.
There, the chief witnesses were in the colony, and the bulk of the documentary evidences in the archives of its Secretariat. Here, the whole of the latter, if the Hong Kong Government are to be believed, after being by that Government publicly twice produced and read at Hong Kong, are now in Downing Street;[1] and many of the former, including myself, have left the Colony and are in England.
There, no decision consequently had been arrived at. Here, the Secretary of State has arrived at a decision; has announced it in Parliament; and has carried it into effect.
And yet, even there, the recognised fitness of a partial enquiry at Ceylon before a Commission, was not allowed to supersede or even to suspend the inquisition ordered by Parliament. Contemporaneously the two enquiries went on, and the final Report of the Commons' Committee combined the results of both.
In the present case, it will be found unnecessary to adopt either proceeding.
The facts are salient on the pages of the papers, which embrace, I am glad to see, the judge's notes of
- ↑ Letters from Acting Colonial Secretary Bridges to the Attorney General (Nos. 303 and 478), dated Hong Kong, 25th May and 9th August, 1858.
