10
10//
mo
good purpose.
112. It must
moreover
be admitted that
some grounds for at least surprise
are
afforded by the extreme care with which
apparently a British Minister weighed the
effect which
any
increased facility in
conducting business here might have
on
the
Chinese
trade of
on
certain trade
business at Canton. I presume that his apparent apprehension lest a trade to Canton might be injured and Hong Kong, a British colony, might become the great emporium of the South is the effect, rather of the injudicious form of Sir Rutherford Alcock's sentences than real wishes and bias.
113. Nevertheless, as those expressions followed up by his describing Hong Kong
as being little more than
an
smuggling depôt, as Gibraltar is to Spain, and by his stating that a grant of the privilege asked might whitewash the colony and give it a respectable name, I could not but feel that publicity
of such language in any place, where the real position of Hong Kong is understated, might needlessly strengthen the opinions which prevail here relative to the soundness of Sir Rutherford's advice on subjects
affecting this colony.
114.
To speak of Hong Kong as merely
a
great smuggling depôt is simply a
question of fact, to make a
monstrously
incorrect statement for the proportion of smuggling effected from this port...