COPY.
C
Sir,
Enclosure.
609
33630 HongKong General Chamber of Commerce,
Repo C
HongKong, 11th.September, 190000
I have the honour to acknowledge
receipt of your letter of the 30th.ultimo (No.1618) trans-
mitting for the information of this Chamber, copy of cor-
respondence between the Colonial Office and the Treasury
on the question of the Colonial contribution to the sub-
sidy for the Eastern Mail Service and copy of an award
given by the Earl of Morley as arbitrater upon the ques-
tions which arose as to the perportion of the cost of
the service to be borne by the Government of India, and
asking whether this Chamber desires to supplement the re-
marks made on the subject in their letter of the 5th.
June, 1897.
3
This correspondence has received the
attention of my Committee, who instruct me to say that
they simply tish to reiterate and emphasize the remarks
made in the letter above alluded to.
They protest now, as then, most emphat-
ically against a mileage basis being adopted to estimate
the proportion of this Colony's share of the mail sub-
sidy: and they would point out that, since that letter was
written, Imperial interests north of HongKong have large-
ly developed, not alone by the growth of British trade in
China but also by the acquisition of the port of Wei-
hai-wei.
The arguments used in paragraph 6 of
the letter have since been strengthened by the fact that
the German' mail steamers now run fortnightly instead of
monthly as formerly and that the Nippon Yusen Kaisha
maintain a regular service to London, via Marseilles.
he ionourable,
The Acting Colonial Secretary.
Mo
The