the regular dues. Moreover, the prices of high-class goods are generally far cheaper at English Centre, where the market is frequently overstocked.
are one!
The spies of Pirates, are always on the watch in Lying Harbour to report any Junk, the nature of her cargo, and the place to which she is bound, to the confederates. This is well known to the Chinese merchants, and makes them unwilling to send their boats hove.
The means of life are dearer to the Chinese in Macao than they are to the Chinese at Macao, at Canton or on the adjacent Coast. This is owing to the Mandarins heavily "squeezing" boats which bring Provisions and building materials to this Colony.
The concluding sum is it difficult to say what reason why in opinion the income a system of taxation such as that proposed in this letter would produce. In the circumstance of neither the European nor the Chinese having any fixed proprietary interest in the soil.
A very heavy ground rent is only demanded and the land is when the lease is for 75 years. Houses on which might be expected to last for a century or upwards will be compelled at the termination of his lease to surrender House and land to the Crown. The natural feeling of Chinese, as well as British, is to possess land in perpetuity; and the want of perpetuity of tenure of land will prevent any great investment of Capital in building or any fixed population attached by personal interest to the soil. Ill-constructed dwellings render the unhealthiness of this climate severely felt by all classes and must surely tend to retard the progress.