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THE HONGKONG GOVERNMENT GAZETTE, 16TH NOVEMBER, 1878.
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nine months to which I am now referring $90,416. But I am happy to say that the rent-roll of the Colony is increasing, and that in the nine months instead of having only $90,000 we have $105,000, and I look forward to having at the close of the year from that important source of revenue $135,000, instead of the $120,000 we had last year. In passing I should say to you that in the return of our rent-roll I do not include that which really would be an item of capital, namely, premiums on the sale of the land. I am dealing now with the rent-roll and that alone. We may receive before the end of the year considerable sums of premium on the sales of lands, but I prefer to take no notice of it because it is eating into our capital. What I am now dealing with is healthy revenue. Next, taking the item of stamps, the amount actually received last year was $118,488; in other words, that ought to give us for the nine months of the present year $88,866; but instead of that it has given us $95,603, and the total sum to kisherived from stamps this year I calculate at $127,000. I am bound here to say that, to whatever source may be traced the increase in the rent-roll, it would not perhaps be proper to assume that the whole increase in the revenue from stamps is derived from a similar source, for it has been my duty to institute, since I have come to the Colony, certain prosecutions under the Stamp Ordinance. I have been favoured by the Collector of Stamps with a return for the last three or four years, from which it appears that in 1874 there was one prosecution under the Stamp Ordinance against one defendant. In the year 1875 there were no prosecutions. In the year 1876 there were no prosecutions. Last year there were six prosecutions against nine defendants; and up to August, which is the date of the return this year, there were ten prosecutions against nineteen defendants. In all cases the defendants were Chinese. As you are aware, I am enforcing the Stamp Ordinance against them. They were not called upon to pay in former years-at least, such is my opinion-their proper proportion of the Stamp revenue. They are doing so now, and no doubt a portion at least of the considerable increase which has taken place in the revenue from stamps is due to the cause I have indicated. I may say before leaving the subject that in the opinion of competent authorities there were more evasions by Chinese of the Stamp Ordinance in the years 1875 and 1876, when there were no prosecutions, than in 1877 and 1878 when there have been prosecutions.
In my statement to the Council last November I mentioned what every Honourable Member considered one of the best tests of our prosperity, and that is the junk trade. Our revenue from that source last year was $19,051. That ought to give us for nine months $14,289. In fact we have received in the nine months $15,551. From the registry of cargo boats we received last year $2,347. The actual receipts for the first nine months of 1878 were $2,581. I need not remind you that the increase probably represents nearly the whole increase of the year, because in the case of cargo boats few are registered in the last quarter of the year. In the item of light dues I find that last year the sum total was $14,984. That ought to give us in round numbers for the nine months $11,000, whereas we have got $13,928, and I expect to receive altogether from light dues not far short of $18,000.
There is another item of some importance, and that is the item in the Estimates called Interest. Now, at the close of 1876, there was a sum of $20,000 in the Chartered Banks at 5 per cent. On the 31st March, 1877, that sum amounted to $80,000. $80,000 at 5 per cent. gives $4,000 per annum profit. On the 30th June, 1877, it was increased to $160,000, and on the 30th September, 1877, it was still further increased to $210,000. On the last day of the year 1877, it amounted to $270,000, and at this date we have in the Chartered Banks of this Colony, earning interest at 5 per cent., the sum of $360,000, a sum not only exceeding any investment of that kind heretofore, but more than,double any sum hitherto saved On this item the Colony is pow from revenue, independent.y of the gambling fund, and lodged in the Bucks at interest. making $18,000 per annum profit.
Now, gentlemen, those facts no doubt you will say are of importance, but the importance they have for the public becomes very practical if they can enable us to do something in the way of reducing taxation.
There are, however, two items-comparatively small items-which we can no longer include in the revenue of the Colony, and of which I shall have a word or two to say. We have been in the habit of making considerable sums by what is called the profit on subsidiary coins. Towards the early part of the year 1877, the profit on subsidiary coins exceeded $20,000. Well, it is, to my mind, a nice question to consider how far this Government ought to make a profit on subsidiary coins. We don't coin them; they are coined in England. They are sent to us by the Imperial Government. Of course we pay for them in England, but when we get them here we get them for the convenience of the community, and I cannot believe that it is a sound policy for this Government to make a profit out of subsidiary coins. I had taken that view of the matter and communicated it to Mr. AUSTIN before I received a despatch from the Secretary of State in which Lord CARNARVON adverted in pretty strong terms to the practice of making a profit out of the subsidiary coins in Hongkong; and the result, as you know, is that now any one can get coins from the Treasury. We make no profit on them; they are supplied at the rate we have obtained them at ourselves.
The next item that will no longer figure in the revenue returns of the Colony of Hongkong amounted last year to On that subject I have received some despatches from Her Majesty's $7,023; it is the item for brothel licences. Government. A question was lately asked in the House of Commons, and a copy of that question was sent to me by Sir MICHAEL HICKS-BEACH, in a despatch in which he said
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"I have the honour to inform you that a question, of which I enclose a copy, has been asked in the House of Commons as to the revenue derived under Ordinance 10 of 1867, from houses of ill-fame in the Colony under your Government.
"It has been alleged that the balance of the fund now in hand amounts to $50,000, and though I can scarcely think "that such is the case, I should wish to have full information on the subject.
"If, therefore, this point has not already been dealt with by the Commission, I request that you will either invite them "to include in their report a statement of the condition of any fund that has been formed under the 66th section of the “Ordinance, together with any recommendation on the subject that they may think proper to make: or that you will obtain “this information from the records of the Treasury and report to me at an early date the result of your inquiry."
I sent this despatch at once to the Commission,-two of the members of the Commission are now sitting at this table -and they lost no time in ascertaining the facts Sir MICHAEL HICKS-BEACH wanted to know. Going back only as far as Ordinance 10 of 1867-which came into operation in April, 1868—from April, 1868, to April, 1877, the Colony received from brothel licences $74,404. During the same period hospital fees from prostitutes amounted to $9,849; fines of prostitutes and brothel-keepers, $11,362, making a sum total of $95,616. Adding to that the sum that had been obtained