481
4.
control of the Government: and (b) That the service is or should
be a very lucrative one, and the Colonial Government derives no
revenue from it though restrictions are made in the Harbour
Regulations to protect the Cables, and trespass takes place on
Crown lands, for which the owners are at any time liable to
prosecution. It appeared to me not unreasonable that the Commer-
-cial Company which enjoys privileges elsewhere in respect of
the concessions made by the Hongkong Government should indemnify
the Colonial Revenue for the concession and the loss to Revenue.
Recent occurrences in China have made the
position still more anomalous. The Hongkong telegraphs are I
learn from the Superintendent entirely subordinate to the Shanghai Office. Sir J. Jordan telegraphed to me on the 15th. instant as
follows:- "With my concurrence and in order to avert interrup-
*-tion of through traffic, telegraph companies are concluding "provisional arrangement with the Revolutionary Telegraph "Administration. This involves de facto recognition of the "Revolutionaries where they control the telegraph system, and I *have stipulated for the exclusion of Hongkong in consequence". If Hongkong be excluded it ceases to be under the control of the Shanghai Manager and not being included in the arrangement with the Revolutionaries it occupies an independent position theore- -tically still under the control of the Board of Communications in Peking, in practice in the hands of the temporary Government
at Canton.
5.
My recent despatches have informed you of the traffic in dynamite and bombs. I have today received a despatch from the Consul-General at Canton informing me that 70 pounds of dynamite with detonators smuggled from Hongkong in one of the ordinary river steamers (crowded with passengers, and involving a most serious risk of disaster) which was seized by the Imperial Maritime Customs at Canton was handed over by them to the bomb throwing association under threat that if it were not given up the Customs House would be forthwith wrecked. The person conveying it declared himself to be an official of the
provisional