:
:
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that there shall be no interference with the trade of
Foreign Merchants. Neither of these regulations ever came
into force and neither of them finds any place in the new
regulations actually brought into force on the 30th.
ultimo. It is true that the new regulations provide that
the time within which opium must be boiled should be
extended from 3 days to one month. But it has been repeated-
-ly shown (vide pages 11 to 17 of Mr. Clementi's precis)
that such a concession is futile: while the British pro-
-test is directed against the tax, as such, on the ground
that it is illegal and an interference with foreign trade.
Apparently, however, Mr. Jamieson construes Sir John
Jordan's telegram as an instruction to make no protest
against the new regulations, and I therefore telegraphed
to Sir John Jordan on the 7th. instant as follows:-
"Regulations referred to in your Consular Telegram to
"Jamieson never came into force and they are not included
"in Regulations which came into force January 30th. My
"protest has been based on grounds same as those on which
"Government of Hongkong protested against original
"regulations, namely that, as a matter of fact tax which
"is admittedly on financial grounds and not anti-opium
"falls to the lot of Foreign Opium Merchants, that
"extension
t