LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL No. 20.
FRIDAY, 18TH MARCH, 1887.
PRESENT:
HIS EXCELLENCY WILLIAM HENRY MARSH, C.M.G.,
Administering the Government in the absence of His Excellency SIR GEORGE FERGUSON BOWEN, G.C.M.G.
His Honour the Chief Justice, (SIR GEORGE PHILLIPPO, Knt.)
The Honourable the Acting Colonial Secretary, (FREDERICK STEWART.)
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the Acting Attorney General, (EDWARD JAMES ACKROYD.)
the Colonial Treasurer, (ALFRED LISTER.)
the Surveyor General, (JOHN MACNEILE PRICE.)
HENRY GEORGE THOMSETT, R.N.
PHINEAS RYRIE.
WONG SHING.
JOHN BELL-IRVING, (vice the Honourable WILLIAM KESWICK, on leave). ALEXANDER PALMER MACEWEN, (vice the Honourable THOMAS Jackson,
on leave).
CATCHICK PAUL CHATER, (vice the Honourable FREDERICK DAVID SAS-
SOON, on leave).
The Council met pursuant to adjournment.
The Minutes of the last Meeting, held on the 11th instant, are read and confirmed.
THE OPIUM CONVENTION.-Read the following Minute by His Excellency the Officer Administer- ing the Government:-
W. H. MARSH.
The Officer Administering the Government is now able to lay before the Council a copy of the Memorandum of the basis of Agreement arrived at by the Commission which met in Hongkong in June last in pursuance of Article 7 Section III of the Agreement between Great Britain and China, signed at Chefoo on the 13th September, 1876, and of Section 9 of the Additional Article to the said Agreement, signed at London on the 18th July, 1883.
The Joint Commissioners for China laid before the Commission three alternative plans for the collection of Opium Revenue for China which may be briefly described as follows:-
The first plan proposed that the Opium Revenue should be collected for China by England in India, and this plan was regarded by the Chinese section of the Com- mission as the one of the three best calculated to secure a full collection at the least cost, and as less likely than either of the others to embarrass either Government or Commerce. By a system of deferred payments of duties in India it was alleged that interference with capital could be avoided, and by freeing Opium from taxation in China, smuggling and its attendant evils would, it was thought, be brought to an end.
The second plan proposed that China should do her own work, that is, collect her own Revenue on Chinese Territory, and take her own preventive steps all along the Chinese sea-board; a plan which could be made thoroughly effectual, but would necessitate large expenditure, and it was feared that it would cause much friction, and that the more thoroughly it was done the more heavily would it press on all affected by it.
The third plan under which it was proposed that there should be a sort of co-operation between England and China, was somewhere between the other two; it would be more expensive than the first, and it probably would not press so heavily on any interest as the second. It was called the Hulk plan. Its general outline was as follows:-
1. The Chinese Customs were to provide two or three Opium Hulks to be anchored at Hongkong, supplemented if required, by a Godown on shore, and the Hongkong Government was to enact an Ordinance directing every vessel entering the
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