No.813.
Sir,
201
20015
RECA
6:
Rea 7 AUG 19
Col. Secretary's Office.
Hong Kong. 19th May, 1899.
I am directed to transmit for your information copy of a letter from the Secretary to the Hongkong Chamber of Commerce and of its enclosure relative to the system of rewards obtaining at Saigon for the discovery of smuggled opium on board vessels arriving at that port.
As the representatives of the several shipping firms point out, the system is one that leads to considerable abuse on the part of unprincipled informers, and I am to request you to be good enough to represent the matter to the Authorities with a view to the adoption of a system that will bear less hardly on Shipowners.
I have, &c.,
(Sgd.) J.G.T. Buckle,
Col. Secretary.
Her Britannic Majesty's Consul,
SAIGON.