Page
904
THE HONGKONG GOVERNMENT GAZETTE, 9TH DECEMBER, 1882.
The Bill is read a second time, and the Council go into Committee on the Bill. The Bill is reported with amendments.
The Officer Administering the Government moves that the Bill be read a third time and passed. The Bill is passed, and is numbered Ordinance No. 17 of 1882.
The Attorney General moves the first reading of a Bill to amend the Hongkong and Shanghai Bank Ordinance, 1865, and states the objects and reasons of the Bill.
The Acting Colonial Secretary seconds the motion.
The Bill is read a first time.
The Colonial Treasurer moves the first reading of a Bill to amend the Vehicles Ordinance, and states the objects and reasons of the Bill.
The Acting Colonial Secretary seconds the motion.
The Bill is read a first time.
The Officer Administering the Government informs the Council that a Despatch has been received from the Secretary of State, dated the 17th July last, intimating that His Lordship was unable to advise the Queen to authorize His Excellency to assent to the Tramways Ordinance (1 of 1882) in its present form, and forwarding copies of letters from Mr. PRICE and the Board of Trade, dated the 12th, May, and 17th June, 1882, respectively, on the subject of the Ordinance, which His Excellency lays on the table and directs to be printed and circulated.
His Excellency adjourns the Council sine die.
Read and confirmed this 5th day of December, 1882.
ARATHOON SETH, Clerk of Councils.
W. H. MARSH, Administering the Government.
GOVERNMENT NOTIFICATION.--No. 468.
The following Copies or Extracts of Correspondence were laid before the Legislative Council on the 5th instant by Command of His Excellency the Officer Administering the Government.
Council Chamber, Hongkong, 9th December, 1882.
ARATHOON SETH, Clerk of Councils.
GENERAL CHAMBER OF COMMERCE,
HONGKONG, 10th November, 1882.
SIR,-The attention of the Committee of this Chamber has been drawn to the following statements reported to have been made, in the course of an address recently delivered at Nottingham, by Sir JOHN POPE HENNESSY before the Social Science Congress :-
"In the little Colony under my government one million Sterling changes hands every month in "the article of Opium. But, with commercial activity and trade profits, there comes an increase of "crime from Opium, from its consumption, and from its smuggling. Hongkong wages a chronic Opium war on a small scale with China. A desperate class of men, the Opium smugglers, make "the Colony the base of their operations; they purchase cannon and ammunition there, they fit out "heavily armed junks, and engage within sight of the Island in naval battles with the Revenue "Cruisers of the Emperor of China. Sometimes the Emperor's revenue officers are killed, sometimes "the smugglers. Not unfrequently wounded men of both sides are brought into the Colony. All "this gives rise to a class of crime difficult for the Governor to repress, difficult on account of the "influence of those who profit by it whether they are local traders or the financiers of a Viceroy."
I need hardly say that the picture thus sensationally drawn offers a representation so grossly exaggerated of the relations which exist between the, for the most part, law-abiding population of this Island and the Authorities of the neighbouring mainland, and of the state of things generally prevailing in these waters as to lead to inferences in the public mind of the United Kingdom wholly untrue and likely to seriously damage and injuriously affect the interest of the Colony.