Home Government, on the independence of vote formerly allowed to official Members. A set of standing orders and rules bad been framed (July 12, 1858) and, using these as a curb rein. Sir Hercules ruled his Council as with a rod of iron, confining its functions strictly to legislation, allowing no criticism of the acts of the Executive, and reducing public influence upon the deliberations of the Legislative Council to the lowest possible minimum. He acted on the principle that legislation should not be influenced by the opinions of irresponsible parties outside the Government. The only point in which he allowed much latitude to the unofficial Members was the discussion of questions of expenditure and taxation.
As to the legislative enactments of this period, the regulation of commercial transactions received a large share of attention. Hardly any other Governor bestowed so much care on commercial legislation. Eleven Ordinances were passed bearing on exclusively commercial matters, such as Chinese passenger ships (6 of 1860), fees to be taken under the Merchant Shipping Ordinance (10 of 1860), exportation of military stores (3 of 1862), protection of patents (14 of 1862) and trade marks (8 of 1863), the law of debtor and creditor (4 of 1863 and 5 of 1864), bills of sale (10 of 1864), bills and promissory notes (12 of 1864), commercial law (18 of 1864) and finally the incorporation, regulation and winding up of Trading Companies (1 of 1865). The Ordinance empowering the Governor to prohibit the export of military stores was caused by the abandonment of that attitude of neutrality which the British Government had occupied in relation to the Manchu Government and the Taiping Rebels until February 21, 1862, when (as above mentioned) the Taipings threatened Shanghai once more. The subsequent issue of a proclamation prohibiting the export of arms and ammunition was intended to stop the supplies which the Taipings had been drawing from Hongkong, but was bitterly complained of as unjust because no similar prohibition was extended to ports in England and India. The consequence was a partial derangement of the operations of firms hitherto connected with this trade in
