Surely Bin Brooke will notice that the "Hopps would lose by such an arrangement and unless the alleged morality or want of it of the Hong Kong Chinese changes much the argument for the presence of the cordon of cruisers would be as strong as ever.
In conclusion, I may state that all the Chinese whom I have conversed with in reference to this matter stated that they had no means of knowing what were their rights when they went to pay taxes. They had a sort of notion of the limits of the demands, but they had no fixed, definite, and universally known tariff to appeal to, and that they simply had gone to pay what they were told without any means of redress.
37. Never perhaps in the history of any country were words more applicable than are those of Adam Smith, the true father of Economic science, on the subject of taxation; and their striking aptness will doubtless justify my quoting them in full. "The tax which each individual is bound to pay ought to be certain and not arbitrary. The time of payment, the manner of payment, the quantity to be paid ought all to be clear and plain to the contributor."
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