neither from its Geographical position, nor means of access, at all fitted to be the only Channel through which the immense prospective, and vast existing trade can be carried out. At present no goods can go to any part of Hainan or the South Western seaboard, even in native craft, unless they carry a Canton duty-paid "chop" or certificate, thus compelling every buyer of Cotton or Woollen Manufactures, Opium, or other imports to go and return 100 miles each way more than there is any necessity for, practically almost prohibiting any imports from going into consumption in Hainan and the opposite Mainland except those that are smuggled. This, so far from benefiting the Imperial Revenue, positively causes great loss to it. It is of course just as easy for a Branch of the Maritime Customs service to collect Imperial duties at Kiung-Chau as at Canton, and if the port were opened the traffic would be conveyed in foreign bottoms, affording a certainty to the Customs officials of getting duties on goods which when carried in Chinese craft to ports presided over by venal and corrupt Mandarins, never contribute one cent to the Imperial Revenue. If Kiung-Chau were opened, then the true interests of China would be served, and when we know that nearly the whole of the imports would flow first through Hongkong as the natural channel between foreign Countries and the vast populations of Hainan and the mainland bordering on the gulf of Tonquin, it stands to reason that the abandonment of the Port must deprive Hongkong of a large and lucrative traffic and source of employment for her capital, her vessels and her colonists. It is well known (and admitted by the Foreign officials of the Imperial Maritime Customs) that what was formerly a large trade, has become, owing to the Edict as to Canton duty-chops, almost a nominal one, and that immediately on the opening of this Port a very spirited trade would re-appear. Indeed Your Memorialists gathered from Sir R. Alcock that the abandonment of the Port was agreed to by him under a mistaken impression that Your Memorialists were not anxious for that Port to be opened, and also because he really thought that the "favoured nation clause" in the Treaty would preserve the right to frequent the Port to Great Britain if the other Powers did not give it up; but Your Memorialists fear that where there is a positive abandonment of a specified right by one Power, it can only be for any future concessions that such Power could claim the "favoured nation" right, as it has, while having the right to open the Port deliberately agreed to abandon it; and it is therefore they urge most earnestly upon Your Lordship that to abandon the Port already conceded to us is a grave error, and indicative also of a retrogressive policy which the Chinese will readily turn to account; and they would beg most strongly of Your Lordship not to abandon the Port but to open it at once.
If abandonment ... In be regretted.
19. Having addressed themselves to the portions of the convention more immediately affecting Hongkong, Your Memorialists would also record their conviction that the proposed increase in the duty on Opium will affect this Colony, inasmuch as, by stimulating the growth and consumption of native drug, it will lessen the import of Indian drug, a trade which entirely flows through Hongkong in the first instance.
20. Your Memorialists trust their earnestness with regard to these matters will secure for their remarks an attentive consideration by Your Lordship, and that you will thereupon be enabled to advise Her Majesty that in any Revision of the Treaty the objections now put forward must prevent those clauses being agreed to.
And Your Memorialists will ever Pray.
Hongkong January 21st, 1870.
PRINTED AT THE CRONA MAGAZINE OFFICE, HONGKONG,
Page 282
Page 282
Page 282