He regarded the strike as a Bolshevik plot headed by Dr. Sun Yat-sen to overthrow the colonial government, without any attention to the pressing economic grievances at stake.

Stubbs took a conservative stance, in line with his Chinese elite advisors, on the issue of mui-tsai, a form of child slavery then prevalent in the colony.

[5] Both Stubbs and his Colonial Secretary Claud Severn were replaced in 1925, having failed to quell the disorder and leaving behind a seriously damaged Hong Kong economy.

[6] British Consul General in Canton James Jamieson criticised their leadership, seeing them as out of touch and out of date, unable to converse in Chinese and ignorant of republican China.

After his stormy tenure as Governor of Hong Kong, Stubbs was made Captain-General and Governor-in-Chief of Jamaica a year later, in 1926.

In 1933 Stubbs was appointed to his last position in the Colonial Service: Governor and Commander-in-Chief of Ceylon (Sri Lanka).

On 5 May, in the State Council, the LSSP members Dr N.M. Perera and Philip Gunawardena moved a vote of censure on the Governor for having ordered the deportation of Bracegirdle without the advice of the acting Home Minister.

They managed to arrest him a couple of days later, but a writ of habeas corpus was served and the case was called before a bench of three Supreme Court judges presided over by Chief Justice Sir Sidney Abrahams.

A year after his retirement, Stubbs became the vice-chairman of West India Royal Commission (until 1939) and Chairman of Northern Division Appellate Tribunal for Conscientious Objectors from 1941 to 1947.