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Colonial Office and the Foreign Office and also between the former and the Board of Trade, respecting the erection by the Chinese Authorities of Custom Houses in the vicinity of Hongkong.
2. Unquestionably the subject matter of that correspondence is of extreme moment and interest to this Colony, and it is therefore important to consider what points have been decided by the correspondence submitted to me.
3. I find however that little has been effected to settle the questions referred by me to the consideration of Her Majesty's Government, till an answer be given to Sir Henry Pottinger's letter of the 8th December to the Foreign Office. That letter clearly still requires a solution of the question whether Opium owned by British Merchants and on its way in a Chinese vessel to a Treaty Port can even be subject to the Likin or any other tax to a greater amount than that specified in existing Treaties.
4. I think, however, whatever may be finally regarded as the extent of actual British Treaty rights, it is desirable to invite Your Lordship's attention to the mode in which the question of Chinese aggression, or as some might regard it, development, has been placed before Her Majesty's Government.
5. It is quite evident and is admitted that I am correct in regarding certain Rules established by the Viceroy's Proclamation