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"and looking at it from this side of the line" it appears to us that that would be "the simplest, least expensive, & most satisfactory way of doing the work
Sir Robert Hart then referred to the objections of the Indian Government; & stated that the Chinese Government would be prepared to meet them, by freeing the Merchant's from the financial difficulty of simultaneous collection of duties payment of the price of the drug.
"The third way of collecting the duties is co-operation, a kind of co-operation which looks upon Hong Kong as the place at which work ought to commence. what we would propose in that connection, "in a few words, may be said to be this: that China requests the Hong Kong Government to authorize the Canton Customs "Government to anchor 2 or 3 opium hulks in Hong Kong Harbour, supplemented if necessary, by Godown on shore, and make it a Hong Kong "law that every vessel entering the Harbour of Hong Kong shall go alongside one or other of these hulks. An account would then "be taken of the opium on board the vessel. "If going to a Chinese Port, - say Shanghai - "the vessel would carry her original cargo to the port of destination, accompanied by "Certificate from the hulk that opium, so "many chests, had left Hong Kong by such "a vessel for such a port. Then opium not "intended to go on by the vessel to another "port, is to be placed on board the hulk. "A deputy Commissioner of Customs would be "in charge. The opium when leaving the "hulk would be treated in one or other of three