49
reputation of Hongkong as the best commercial centre for the great financial operations of commerce in this part of the world, is the Government Expenditure on useful and sanitary, and (within reasonable limits) ornamental works. I hope that such Expenditure will never be less than in recent years.
Strike out this or that item for next
will find they were year and you merely "stopping the way" of other items no less necessary and useful in their turn because finality in progress is a thing contrary to the law of growth in a young and vigorous Community,
The mould, therefore, in which you should cast your legislation ought to be adapted to the proportions and the form which it is the hope of this Colony to attain hereafter, and I trust that we shall not be advised again to borrow money at eight per cent to fulfil what I regard as our ordinary annual duty, loading our finances with obligations increased by heavy interest and for repayment of which, if honest, we must either impose an equivalent burden by taxation in some other form or discontinue our Public improvements hereafter.
These are some, but far from all the reasons, which should induce us to look our affairs in the face and cheerfully consent for the permanent benefit of the Community to provide funds adequate to discharge our natural, and ever recurring duties.
Possibly however, as the Estimates show a surplus on this year of about $85,000 it might be thought reasonable to wait for the Expenditure of that sum.
It may therefore surprise you to learn that although, if at the end of the current year the machinery of Government was suddenly to stop, and all expenses cease, the assets of the Colony might after collection of arrears and realising outstanding balances be found to reach some $80,000 beyond its abilities, nevertheless you cannot hope to conduct the affairs of a large concern like this Government without some capital sunk to give you a margin to turn in. The whole Civil establishment is at this moment being paid with borrowed money. The Colony has actually no funds available and has been obliged to use for its current Expenditure portions of the fund known as "Judicial deposits"--money entrusted by the Courts to the custody of the Government. The greater part of these funds, will be called in after vacation, and must be made good by the Colony, whilst if other funds now expected, but not arrived, be not available, I shall have to prove the accuracy of the Memorialists' estimate of our flourishing financial condition by appealing to them for assistance.
In proof of this I lay before you the usual weekly statement of the Treasurer, dated last Monday, the 3rd instant, and you have only to glance at it to see that--omitting the small balance of $6,426 then payable to the British Postmaster General--the Colony had only $59,200 to make good its liabilities to the Judicial deposit fund amounting to $147,249. In other words the Colony on Monday last owed that fund--which is soon to be called in--no less than $88,049. I therefore feel that you must agree with me in thinking it high time to put our finances in order.
I come now to the second great branch of the subject. Assuming that our financial difficulty is not unreal, it is said this is the worst of all measures and a Stamp Duty the most unsuitable of taxes--that it will destroy the freedom of the Port, drive away trade, banish the Chinese, who will not even live at Kowloon, according to the Protest, if the Stamp Ordinance passes. Indeed I have seen in print of late some very gloomy
Page 50
pictures of Hongkong a few years hence, when the Stamp Duty shall have converted it into a sort of howling wilderness and the tenants of its palatial dwellings shall have become refugees at Macao and Canton, and the shipping which, at this moment crowds this magnificent harbor, shall have taken refuge in the muddy shallows of Macao.
I think I am entitled to ask in what manner the freedom of the Port will be narrowed, and what Duties will be levied on goods? What Port charges be payable, or what interference with the liberty of the Port can possibly result? No special case of the kind has yet been pointed out. All is vague and declamatory prophecy.
Those results have not followed the adoption at Singapore of a policy precisely similar in principle to that of the proposed Ordinance. Yet Singapore is essentially like Hongkong in being a free Port and a Commercial depot--where produce of other countries centres for subsequent distribution.
There are no Customs Duties at Singapore any more than here--though some fees received for Registration of Shipping under the Merchant Shipping Act are entered under the head of "Customs" and might without explanations mislead on that point.
Now with this striking similarity of circumstances between Hongkong and the Straits Settlements, increased by the large Chinese population settled in the latter--why should we infer such fatal results to our commerce from a Stamp Duty only 1/3rd of that imposed in those Settlements.
The Straits Times of the 25th ultimo speaks of the Stamp Act as "working satisfactorily,"--and in his annual report, just received, I find the Governor entirely confirming that statement, and adding the remarkable fact that at Singapore, Penang and Malacca the fines and penalties recovered under the Act for the preceding year "had not exceeded in the aggregate 200 Rupees," or less than $100!
It would seem superfluous waste of your time to argue that, if a heavy and complicated Stamp Act works satisfactorily and without impediment to business in a Colony wonderfully similar to this in its general business transactions, it follows that an extremely simple application of the same principle, with a greatly lighter tariff would probably work even more satisfactorily.
Compare the Schedule of the proposed Ordinance with that of Singapore. Instead of 71 heads under which Duties are leviable in the latter place you find only 21 here--whilst the omitted items are considerable, such as Stamps on Cheques, Policies of Insurance, &c., &c. In those which are retained--as Bills of Exchange and Conveyances--the application of the Duty is greatly simplified and reduced. I therefore assert that the probable satisfactory working of the Bill here follows as a simple logical deduction from the facts ascertained at Singapore, and effectually disposes of nine-tenths of the denunciations against it--whether founded on the character of the trade here--the history of the Colony--its previous legislation, or the danger of the precedent now introduced.
Why therefore should this Council give to this vague, and I will even say, these unworthy apprehensions greater weight, than to the evident conclusions, which our Reason forces on us. I know one reply which has been given, and indeed the Memorialists do give it without any diffidence, in the assumption that they represent all the interests of the Colony and speak its unanimous voice,
Page 51