The fifth was already covered by section 10 of Ordce 21
}
of 91 & the sixth by section 11 of Ordinance 22 of '87.
With regard to the question of stamped labels
& slips, and the reporting & remitting of the opium duty, these being matters of detail could be subsequently dealt with under rules & regulations made by the Governor in Council,-provision for powers to make which, would be inserted in the Bill.
Finally it was urged that it was quite impossible that fines levied by the Hongkong Courts for breaches of the Ordinance, and confiscated opium, should be handed over to the Chinese Government: or that the Chinese Government should control appointments to the Collecting Staff. The Hongkong Government was prepared however to defray the cost of any rewards paid to informers.
The reply of the Chinese Government, embodied in
two letters to the Tsung li Yamen from Sir Robert Hart,
was forwarded to Hongkong by the British Minister on the
13th of January 1900.
Adverting to his previous six suggestions, Sir Robert tart
was willing to forego their adoption: that with respect
to boiled opium, owing to the necessity for the guarantee,
& the others, as the Hongkong Government did not
consider them necessary, & on them lay the duty of
carrying out the new arrangements. As to the question of
the labels, & his other two suggestions at the end of his
previous despatch, he had not pressed for their being
incorporated in the Ordinance, but merely wished for a
mutual understanding with regard to them.
In his second despatch to the Tsung li Yamen,
however, he pointed out that as the new Kowloon Customs
Stations
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