would approve. The acquisition of the ground by negotiation would be hard to accomplish, and the ground, if acquired, as I have argued above, of no value towards our end, we have one means of avoiding such a contingency, the adoption of which, upon other grounds, I have before recommended.
In the Memorandum upon the Revision of Treaty submitted to Ld Clarendon in December 1868, I laid much stress upon the advantage of restoring the island of Hongkong to the Chinese under certain conditions. The sum of my case at that time was this, that the Chinese Government, deeply concerned at the loss inflicted on its Customs Revenue by the Free Trade of south coast Junks with the Colony, was about to protect its revenue by the formation of a steam cruising fleet; the operations of which, though we could not complain of them, would frighten the junk trade away from the Colony.
To keep up this junk trade, I suggested that Hongkong should be restored to China, which in return for the concession should concede us commercial advantages within the Empire. My chief conditions were that the freedom of the port, so far...
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