5. 11786.
275
To The Right Honourable The EARL OF CARNARVON, Her Majesty's Principal Secretary of State for the Colonies.
The Humble Memorial of the undersigned, Residents of Hongkong-
Sheweth:
THAT a Memorial against the Proposed Stamp Ordinance signed by nearly the whole of the Community of Hongkong (exclusive of Chinese) was presented to His Excellency the Governor on the Fifth day of September last.
THAT on the Tenth day of September the Committee for preparation and presentation of the said Memorial received from His Excellency SIR RICHARD GRAVES MACDONNELL, a Communication commenting upon the said Memorial, and upon the Protest lodged against the Ordinance by the non-Official Members of the Legislative Council, and which professed to answer, or deal with, the said Memorial and the subject thereof.
The Memorial and His Excellency's Communication or Reply having been forwarded to Your Lordship, Your Memorialists now proceed to beg, that Your Lordship will give to that Memorial, that careful and dispassionate consideration to which they consider the expressed wishes of the Community are entitled, upon a question so vital to their interests, as the mode in which the amount of all necessary expenditure for the Colony of Hongkong is to be raised, in the event of the existing Revenue being insufficient, and would here ask Your Lordship to assure yourself, that they do not object to any necessary expenditure being made, or to pay for it, but they do object to additional taxation for items of expenditure not strictly required by existing circumstances, and they protest against any such amount being raised in a manner likely to be prejudicial to their interests.
Your Memorialists will not reiterate the arguments advanced by the Memorial already referred to, as they conceive they have not been, except in the single instance of the Sum of $4,000 for roads at Kowloon, answered or weakened, but they purpose respectfully submitting to Your Lordship some considerations arising upon the Reply of His Excellency The Governor.
His Excellency, in that Document, asserts that the Original Memorialists did not represent the Community, and to this Your Memorialists beg to say, that it was signed by the whole of the Banks, the entire Mercantile Community with the exception of one American and one German firm, and (excepting of course Government servants) by nearly all other residents who, either as professional men, large landholders, or in other ways, have any stake in the prosperity and welfare of the Colony.
Since His Excellency's assertion that the Asiatic residents who pay 4-7ths of the existing Ordinary Revenue did not assent to the Memorial was made, His Excellency has received a Memorial against (amongst other things) the proposed system of taxation, signed by all the important Chinese residents of every class, and the fact of the principal Chinese traders in the Colony being desirous of paying any required sum in any other manner than by Stamp imposts is indisputable.
In opposition to the Memorial, His Excellency appears to have received "urgent remonstrances from several gentlemen" whose names however are not disclosed. Your Memorialists feel certain that Your Lordship will judge rightly of the status of those few persons, who, even in defending a Government Measure, withhold their names, when contrasted with the conduct of that enormous majority of the Community, who give their names and positions as guarantees for their public acts, and for the sincerity and honesty of their motives.
His Excellency seems to find his strongest, if not his sole, argument for the Stamp Tax, in an alleged analogy in position and circumstances between Hongkong and Singapore, but Your Memorialists emphatically deny the existence of any such analogy. Singapore, it is true, is a Mart or Emporium for the purchase of the products of the surrounding Countries, but there is this significant fact in addition, that purchasers are not likely to go anywhere else in the Straits or adjacent Parts because the same (or in the case of Java, larger) taxes exist wherever they could go, and also because there is no other place where the business could be carried on with so many advantages and facilities of every kind, while a considerable portion of the business transacted at Hongkong was formerly carried on at Canton, and could be carried on in most instances at two or three other places with equal facilities. Again, at Singapore the Chinese population have settled and become Colonists, the great majority of them being by birth British Subjects, and all having their families resident there, while the Chinese in Hongkong are, with a few marked exceptions, entirely a migratory and shifting population, who have no ties, either of family or birth, to connect them with the Colony, a most important distinction when analogy of circumstances is used as the main argument for one mode of taxation over another.
That His Excellency has failed to conceive the meaning intended to be expressed by the Memorial, is obvious from the fact of his not, in the slightest way, alluding to the grave reason advanced as the ground of the objection, and though Your Lordship may as well, if they point out specifically, that it is not the levying of $120,000 for this year by a Stamp impost that is announced, in fact, that all existing modes of taxation have failed, and that, to raise even this comparatively small sum, no local taxation can be devised, and, as a consequence, that in future all monies required, for whatever purpose or object, cannot be raised except by means of Stamps, or in other words, by taxing Trade. It did not want His Excellency's assertion to convince Your Memorialists that the present Ordinance could not be extended beyond its legitimate extent, but it is self-evident to them that once the principle of the taxation is admitted, it is a much easier matter to pass a supplemental, or new Ordinance, with an amended, or additional Schedule.
His Excellency's intimation that the present Ordinance could not be extended beyond its legitimate extent, will rather enhance than lessen the dread of increased Stamp imposts, which is what they believe will decrease the existing trade, and prevent its growth or increase. Your Memorialists think that the expenditure "will never be less than in recent years," because, judging from the bitter experience of past years, the expenditure of the Surveyor General's Department has been so improvident that, in too many instances, the expenditure of the one year has entailed an additional outlay or charge on the Revenue of the succeeding years, and if this new principle of taxation is to be introduced solely to spend a certain sum per annum, Your Memorialists may well pray for "mality in progress" in this direction, as even without such a class of expenditure, it is clear that in the event of any unforeseen exigency, demanding expenditure either large or small, it will have to be made up by increased Stamp imposts if the present Policy is persisted in.