attempting at least to control the evil which cannot be repressed, arguing that the Government is bound rather to ignore the existence of the vice than to control what is irrepressible. There was much truth in this remark.
Meanwhile, however, the protest of the moral six had aroused public opinion at home, stirred up the Social Science Association and made itself heard in the only place where Colonial protests, if based on a genuine grievance, produce a tangible effect, viz. in Parliament. As to the action of the Social Science Association little need be said. That Society disgraced itself in the matter by becoming the unconscious tool of the two men who, in Sir J. Bowring's time, had poisoned the social life of the Colony, viz. the former Attorney General and the former editor of the Daily Press. These two men, having learned that the victim of their animosities, the Registrar General of Sir J. Bowring's time, was the officially recognized agent and adviser of the licensees in Hongkong, receiving from them a handsome salary ($20,000 during the first year), managed to renew their persecution by assailing Sir Richard's policy under the aegis of the Social Science Association. At an interview which Earl Granville granted (March 27, 1869) to a deputation of that Society, the former Attorney General, who actually introduced the deputation, and the former editor of the Daily Press were the principal speakers. They suggested, as if Sir Richard had not tried this very principle and failed, that the only way to enforce any laws against gambling houses was by enforcing the Chinese laws of collective and mutual responsibility by means of the tithing (Kap) and the hundred (Pao), institutions which had been recognized by the Hongkong Legislature in Ordinances passed between the years 1844 and 1857, but never put into execution. However, this interview and the several Memorials presented by the Secretaries of the Association (August 1, 1868, and January 14, 1869), as also Sir Richard's official reply (October 20, 1868) which the Secretary of State declined to forward, as immaterial, had no effect whatever. The remarks of the Duke of Buckingham on the subject are rather
