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the tongkong lanton and macao Steamboat Company Limited renewed their application to the local Government for such an Amendment in the law as would give them the long desired protection. The correspondence is printed in the book herewith and it is therefore sufficient to say that this application was refuted.
Your Petitioners therefore humbly pray your Lordship to assist them in their efforts to suppress Smuggling on board their Steamships by causing such amendments to be made in the Hong Kong laws as may be thought necessary and effectual and so to grant to your Petitioners that protection in their business which they submit they are justified in asking for but which is denied them by the local Government.
Your Petitioners will ever pray.
Dated at Hongkong this 22nd day of December 1882.
Ur Petitioners,
Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Hong Kong, Canton and Macao Steamboat Company, Limited.
I Keswick, Director.
Thomas Arnold, Secretary.
Agents: China Navigation Co.
ORDINANCE No. 22 of 1887.
Opium Ordinance 1884 and 1887.
No. 22 of 1887.
An Ordinance enacted by the Governor of Hong Kong, with the advice of the Legislative Council thereof, for the better regulating of the trade in Opium.
[27th May, 1887.]
WHEREAS it is expedient to regulate and control the movement of Raw Opium within the Colony and the waters thereof: Be it enacted by the Governor of Hongkong, with the advice of the Legislative Council thereof, as follows:--
1. This Ordinance and the Opium Ordinance, 1884, may be cited for all purposes as the Raw Opium Ordinances, 1884 and 1887.
2. Opium in this Ordinance means raw, crude, or unprepared Opium.
3. No person shall bring into the Colony or the waters thereof, or receive therein Opium in quantities less than one chest, or any loose Opium.
4. It shall be lawful for the Colonial Treasurer on such terms and conditions as may be approved by the Governor in Council, to grant licences for the sale of Opium intended for export in quantities less than one chest, and no person except the holders of such licences shall be permitted to sell or barter within the Colony or its waters Opium in quantities less than one chest. The purchase, sale, or Barter of quantities less than one ball of Bengal Opium or three catties of Malwa, Persian, or Turkish Opium is hereby forbidden.
5. It shall be the duty of holders of licences to attach to all parcels of Opium sold by them in quantities less than one chest, a certificate in the following form:--
No.
Sold this day to
lbs. Bengal,
per ship
to be exported by him to
Date,
188.
catties Malwa or
This certificate shall not be valid after noon of the
Chop.
Sale of Opium in quantities Less than one Chest.