1841-1886
599
1
pros comme Harbou ill bring in balance here, Mr. LISTER, and accordingly we have devised a scheme by which there has been agency for the sale of stamps to the Chinese. This has been in operation for a short time, and we are now applying the law strictly to Chinese traders in insisting that they must use stamps under the Ordinance. I don't know whether this is the first time any such prosecutions have taken place under the Ordinance, but the Chinese are now fully alive to the fact that stamps must be used. The Collector assures me that by this policy we will be able to add $25,000 a year to the revenue. It has been usual to estimate it at $100,000. The Collector says it will be quite safe to put it at $125,000 next year. Since I established the Chinese Agency, and enforced the use of stamps, you may have seen from the returns published in the Gazette, that the revenue derived from stamps has been increasing every month.
Water, fire, and police rates are also increasing in amount. They increase with the population of the Colony. There are other licence fees that constitute a good source of revenue, such as those derived from the licences for junks under Ordinance No. 6 of 1860 and other Ordinances. That source of revenue was estimated at $16,000 last year, and this year $18,500, and I have no hesitation in estimating it for next year at $20,000. The fluctuations in the junk trade are intimately connected with the prosperity of the Colony. I was supposed that the junk trade was declining, and the general shipping trade also, but actually it is not so. The junk trade has maintained a certain figure; in 1875 it was higher; in 1876 it was still greater; in 1877 the increase continued, and the revenue from documents issued under that Ordinance will be greater this year than it has been in this Colony. Therefore, I think, looking to the progress of the Colony, we may estimate a prosperous revenue next year, and on the whole, I think it perfectly safe to estimate the revenue for 1878 at $1,004,240. My Honourable friend Mr. MAY, the Treasurer, who is a capital man of business, anticipates receiving a revenue of nearly a million dollars this year, and he agrees with me in thinking it perfectly safe to estimate our revenue for next year at over a million of dollars.
Seen, this is the first time I believe in the history of Hongkong that any Government has made a calculation of estimating the revenue at a million of dollars, and I believe it is also the largest balance that has been in hand, inclusive of the old gambling fund. Here I have a list of the balances of various years, and this year's is in excess of any previous year in the history of the Colony. You will bear in mind that this is on the basis of a revenue of over a million dollars. When we come to available assets for the next year, we have to add our balance of $277,000 to the $1,004,240, and that will give us $1,281,240. This gain is independent of the special fund. The special fund amounts to $380,000.