22.
23.
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calculations of Mr. Wart and the Foreign Board had been correct, the revenue should have been as per annum ($360,000 per annum). That amount, however, is nearly half a million Taels. The latter were computed by them at about $600,000 or $700,000 per annum. We have just put down at 10,000 Taels at least $156,000 per annum, thus making the total to be collected in 1886,000. That result...
21. So far from having been obtained (I learn from a very reliable source), that the Opium duty levied at the neighboring Customs' Stations on Chinese Junks, and which formerly should have been levied and certainly was in part levied in Canton and elsewhere, amounts to only $30,000 dollars, less than was anticipated, and which would have been receivable if the previous smuggling had not been altogether miscalculated.
22. The present expenses of collecting that sum of $300,000 amounts to $160,000, leaving a profit of only $140,000 per annum instead of $900,000 as estimated by the Foreign Board and Mr. Mart. Your Lordships perceive it is very doubtful whether the general Revenue of the Empire is not losing instead of gaining, because it is morally certain that much more...