430
consumption. In point of fact the Viceroy in his telegram
to Teking states that 300 chests of it per annum goes to
Kwangsi Messrs. Sassoon can prove that the figure is
1,000). The quantity is immaterial to the argument. They
illegally detain and tax the amount (whatever it is)
destined for Kwangsi, and are equally ultra vires in impos-
-ing an annual restriction on the quantity. In the case of
Toreign prepared opium (e.g. imported as Prepared Opium)
it has on more than one occasion been settled by the
British Consul-General and the Viceroy at Canton that
taxes on it can only be imposed with the sanction of the
Wai-wu-pu and the consent of His Majesty's Minister at
Peking (Mr. Fox 25th. August, 1909.) and that any restrict-
-ion by way of Monopoly or impediment to free purchase
direct or indirect in a Treaty Port is an infraction of
the Treaty.
It has been pointed out that
Merchants who for half a century or more had been engaged
in a legitimate trade safeguarded by special Treaty
stipulations were now in the position of seeing their
entire trade wiped out within 7 years, that they had
loyally accepted this decision in furtherance of the
Imperial policy and in the moral interests of China, and
that