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the Colony;
it
and secondly, how, if injurious, may be advantageously altered, and still yield to Government the same or nearly the same amount of revenue as at present.
The questions whether the revenue derived from land bears a pernicious proportion to the whole revenue of the Colony, (the wealth of the community consisting not of land and houses but of movable stock), and whether the whole revenue be disproportionate to the means of the contributors and to the necessary expense of an efficient government, though not unworthy of consideration, do not appear to fall well within the limits chalked out for your inquiry.
I shall therefore restrict my remarks in conformity with this view of the case.
The end and object to be steadily kept in view during your deliberations is, it is conceived, the welfare and prosperity of the Colony; to this standard all things be applied, and the welfare and prosperity of the Colony must undoubtedly consist in the individual welfare and prosperity of its inhabitants.
Hongkong is a collection of hills, in the valleys between which may be occasionally found a few patches of arable land. Sensibly under certain circumstances much more than these few patches might be brought under cultivation, and even yield a rent, but for all practical purposes the island may be considered barren.
The Colony must therefore be exclusively commercial. Its wealth and prosperity must consist, not in its natural productions and the labor applied to them, but in the productive capital and labor of honest, industrious and frugal inhabitants, applied to commercial purposes.
If it rise into importance at all, it must importance at all