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Peking, which have nothing to do with Hongkong, and for which they make no return to this Colony, though they have enjoyed them for the past 26 years. It is to be noted also that Mr. Dresing deprecates disturbance of the Chinese "Company's" privileges in Hongkong whereas the point which gave rise to my Despatch was that there is no longer to be a Company, and the Chinese Government itself proposes to take over control of the telegraphs.
2. Your Lordship will, I think, concur with me that this Government has some ground for dissatisfaction with the arrangements entered into by the Eastern Extension Telegraph Company with the Chinese in the past without its knowledge, and that the position will become impossible by the substitution of the Chinese Government for a Commercial Company. The arrangement was based upon a continual trespass on Crown Land by carrying telegraph poles over it without permission, and involved the location of a Chinese Official under formal agreement with the Eastern Extension Telegraph Company in an office in Hongkong. It is conceivable that in time of strained relations with any other Power in the Far East, the Chinese Telegraphs under control of an Official who is independent of supervision, might be put to an improper use at the instigation