12
216 13
1
Now
very different purpose may be quoted prophecy nearly fulfilled because the Export trade had fallen into the hands of a speculative clique "legitimate one".
and ceased to be a ... one and would so have continued but for the pressure which I brought to bear on the Chinese Authorities and the gross outrage which their Piratical Customs had committed too gross in fact to admit of defence.
1. Nevertheless to have sought the consideration of this Government for the revision of the whole position, and the establishment of a sounder system based on the conception of greater protection to a legitimate Export trade from Hongkong, constitutional on the assistance of this Government to suppress the smuggling of opium hence, would have required the abandonment of those cherished theories on which the opinion of the Foreign Office as to this Colony being merely a smuggling depôt appears to have been formed.
17. It would have soon appeared that this Colony is not correctly described when Sir Rutherford Alcock designated it little better than a Smuggling depôt as Gibraltar is to Spain. I have elsewhere shown how little consequential the contraband trade is here, and that immense as is the importation of opium to this place viz: about 80,000 chests or in value Eleven millions sterling per annum, not more than 1500 chests
Vide lost to Secretary of State No? 1625. Jany 1869. 2258