32.
461
except the case of opium smuggled into the Colony, any farmer is the only person in Hongkong who has temptation to smuggle into China, and it is comparatively easy to keep a watch on his proceedings.
Under the bonded warehouse system it would be a temptation to every one to smuggle into China, and it would be wholly impracticable to prevent continual smuggling. The establishment of a number of licensees, again, would mean the creation of a corresponding number of centres for smuggling into China, and the abolition of the prohibition against the possession by more than one person in the Colony of raw opium in quantities of less than one chest, which would be a necessary concomitant of the change of system, would require the assent of China to the revision of the agreement.