Hongkong.
8301.
220
In 8948/654
COLONIAL SECRETARY'S OFFICE,
25th June, 1868.
SIRA
1. I am directed by His Excellency SIR RICHARD GRAVES MACDONNELL to acknowledge receipt of your letter of the 18th instant, covering copy of a Report of the Committee of the Hongkong General Chamber of Commerce for the half year ending May 1868.
2. The following Paragraph occurs in that Report:
GAMBLING LICENSES.
The system of Licensed Gambling, and its alleged evil effects on the trade of this Colony, has received the consideration of your Committee, also that of the body of the Chamber-indeed, it would have been hardly possible for this Chamber to ignore the strong opinions adverse to the Gambling System which were being expressed by Members of the Foreign Mercantile Community, and by the most respectable of the Chinese traders. A General Meeting of Members was called to discuss the subject, and at the Meeting resolutions were passed, embodying the opinion of this Chamber, that the system is one which is injurious to the trade of the Colony. Since the Meeting, your Committee have taken no further steps in the matter, nor are they aware of the intentions of the local Government with reference to the system-it is pretty well understood, however, that the Home Government are averse to it, and it is to be hoped that Her Majesty's principal Secretary of State for the Colonies will send out orders for its suppression. Your Committee hope that, should this not happen soon, their successors in office will not slacken in their endeavours to remove from Hongkong a system which is doing much mischief, and is discountenanced by every respectable government.
3. However excellent the motives which prompted the Resolutions to which the above observations apply it will appear on examination that they are based on singularly incorrect notions, but being vouched by a body having a title so respect- able as that of a Chamber of Commerce, they may be regarded as acquiring thereby a right to a Public Refutation.
4. This object will be in a great degree attained by annexing hereto in a revised and more complete form the explanation given to the Legislative Council on the 23rd May by the Governor, who then entered into details as to the position of the Licensed Gaming Ilouses, and their apparent effect, so far as the experiment bad then proceeded, in diminishing crime, more especially Larceny amongst Servants.
5. The Governor might append a still more powerful condemnation of the action taken by the Chamber of Commerce, by simply reprinting the report of the meeting of the 3rd April last, at which the resolutions of the Chamber were adopted to which the above paragraph of the last half yearly report refers. The reasons then given and the arguments then advanced by some members would
Το
J. W. Woon, Esq.,
Secretary of the
"6
Hongkong Chamber of Commerce."