10
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Chinese might be in the abstract legitimate; and yet the policy of conceding their mode of operating those rights might at the same time be most injudicious and unstatesmanlike; and that I believe is what has occurred, except by myself;
very important part of the question has not been presented at all to H.M's Government.
144. What makes the recent extortions and robberies by the Chinese, the revenue buisers the more deplorable is that the Vice Roy's scheme, which was frankly illegal as seems now to be admitted, was also wholly injudicious as it involved the letting loose of legitimate traders, the chartered Corsairs, on the customs, a scheme, which it was in Sir Rutherford Alcock's power to have rejected or caused to be modified if he had pleased, and in the interest of this Colony. He had been told that the Viceroy was most anxious to do nothing that did not accord with his views. The opportunity for making a good statesmanlike arrangement with the Viceroy, and by the aid of the authorities here to extend legitimate trade whilst suppressing contraband, was a good one.
145. What Sir Rutherford Alcock has actually effected is just the reverse. He has not put down smuggling of opium but he has actually converted the old legitimate export trade of English manufactures to the Mainland from here into contraband trade. Mr Robertson's prophecy uttered with