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establishment was doomed they at once lowered the rate to $70.
The Opium dealers in expectation of this fall have imported large quantities of the drug, as 1000 chest's having arrived in 3 days.
The price having fallen to about $70 a chest, thereby securing a large profit to the direct importers from Hongkong.
Some opium has been sold here and has been transhipped to the Formosan ports, but the bulk of it is still held in the hope of a further fall in the import levies.
The new Regulations will, I trust, put a stop to the smuggling which has been so prevalent at Amoy, and to the unauthorised exactions and lawless behaviour of the roughs and rowdies employed.
The records of this Consulate show a series of acts of interference with British subjects, assaults on Chinese in foreign employ, and affrays by armed men in the harbour, and on Amoy and Kulangsu Islands.
On the other hand, I have little doubt that a system of smuggling at places at a distance from the Treaty Ports will spring up which will require...