PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE
C.O.
Reference :-
882
PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON
ALLY WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE BE REPRODUCED PHOTOGRAPHIC- COPYRIGHT PHOTOGRAPH-NOT TO
12
Inclosure 4 in No. 2.
Memorial.
To the Right Honourable the Earl of Carnarvon, Her Majesty's Principal Secretary of
State for the Colonies
The Memorial of the Undersigned, Members of the Hong Kong General
Chamber of Commerce,
Humbly sheweth,—
1. That the trade of the Colony of Hong Kong is, and has been for some time past, most seriously affected and injured by the proceedings of a number of armed vessels that lie in wait at the entrances to the harbour, and pounce upon all junks entering or leaving it, and upon the pretext that certain regulations made by the Hoppo of Canton have not been complied with, either extort money from those on board the said junks, or in some instances force them to proceed to Canton, where the junks and cargoes are either confia- cated, or the owners subjected to heavy penalties and fines.
2. That the armed vessels above referred to commit these illegal acts under the autho. rity, and with the sanction of the Hoppo of Canton; with reference to this individual your Memorialists beg to state that he is not, in the strict sense of the word, an officer of the Chinese Government; he is merely a farmer of the duties of the port of Canton, paying certain sum to the Imperial Government, and pocketing any surplus which he can contrive to make. This system in the hands of an unscrupulous man must be productive of great evils and extortion; the surplus is said to be several millions of taels, a great proportion of which your Memorialists have no hesitation in stating is obtained in the illegal manner stated in the first paragraph.
3. That the said Hoppo has, in the most arbitrary and illegal manner, issued regula. tions to the effect that all junks and their cargoes must be reported at his Custom-house at Canton, pay such duties as he may choose to impose, and obtain a clearance before leaving the port of Hong Kong, otherwise they are liable to be seized by his armed cruizers at the outlets from this harbour and confiscated. Your Memorialists urge that these high- handed proceedings utterly destroy the freedom of this port, which freedom was guaranteed to all Chinese traders by the public Proclamation of Sir Charles Elliott, Her Majesty's Plenipotentiary, dated the 7th day of June, 1841, .D.; that Proclamation not only guaranteed the freedom of this port, but also undertook to punish any attempts to interfere with such freedom.
4. That the regulation aforesaid, forcing vessels to obtain their clearances and pay duties at Canton, a port over ninety miles distant, has had the most injurious effect on the trade of the Colony generally, but more especially on the trade in British manufactures. Your Memorialists have been assured by Chinese merchants residing in this Colony, that a considerable trade which existed formerly between the small ports along the coast and this Colony (native produce, such as tea, sugar, &c., being imported, and British manufactures, Singapore produce, &c., being exported in return), has entirely ceased. A trade of a similar nature
ture with the Island of Hainan has very much diminished through the same
cause.
5. That in addition to the armed vessels of the Hoppo, there are many others also armed belonging to the collector of the lekin (war tax) and the farmer of the salt tax; all these vessels prey indiscriminately on the junks trading with this Colony. A case happened recently where one of these vessels was seized by the police and clearly convicted of firing shotted guns at junks within a few yards of the shore of this Island, near Cape D'Aguilar. Your Memorialists greatly regret that the crew of this vessel were Dot punished for a breach of the laws of this Colony, but were handed over instead to the Chinese Authorities at Canton, and there is every reason to believe that these men, properly amenable to a severe punishment, suffered no penalty at all, or merely a nominal one, and the impression unfortunately left on the minds of the Chinese, is that the Local Government of Her Majesty acted in this matter under coercion and in terror of the power of the Chinese Authorities at Canton. When a nolle prosequi was entered at the Supreme Court of Hong Kong by the Attorney-General, the Chief Justice remarked strongly upon this case of rendition.
6. That all the armed vessels aforesaid, viz., those of the farmer of the Customs duties, the farmer of the salt tax, and the collector of the lekin or war tax, are apparently
13
under the supervision of an armed steam-gunboat, named the “* vessel claims the rights of a man-of-war to enter and leave the harbour at any hour Peng Chao Hai;" this without reporting herself, or obtaining a clearance; and having, as is well known, a number of spies in the Colony, the movements of every trading junk are ascertained, and on such junk attempting to leave the Colony she is at once overhauled with the aforesaid results.
7. The Hoppo employs on board the armed vessels referred to a number of Europeans, and amongst them British subjects, notably the Captain of the gunboat just mentioned, the "Peng Chao Hai." The employment of the aforesaid British subjects is, in the opinion of your Memorialists, a most objectiortable practice, as the Chinese traders attribute a great deal of the hardship and oppression they undergo to this fact, and a feeling of bitterness is engendered which may some day revenge itself on Europeans generally in China: your Memorialists are also of opinion that British subjects serving on board these vessels, which are, to all intents and purposes ships-of-war, are acting in contravention of, and are punishable under the Foreign Enlistment Act, 59 of Geo. 3rd, c. 69, sec 2.
8. From information derived from some of the most reliable Chinese traders, your Memorialists understand that junks leaving this port for others, such as those in the islands of Formosa and Hainan, have practically to pay double duty, as the authorities of those ports, or the subordinate officers in their employ, ignore the payments to the Canton authorities, so that the unfortunate junk owners are plundered on all sides with very little chance of redress, the process of applying through the Government of this Colony to Her Majesty's Consul at Canton being most unsatisfactory; this Officer may institute an inquiry, but such is the untruthfulness of Chinese officials, that every means would be adopted to prevent him arriving at the true state of the case. As an instance of this, your Memorialists beg to narrate the case of the Chinese trading junk "Kum Hop Sing." This vessel having completed a lawful voyage from a port in the Island of Formosa, her papers being in perfect order, in accordance with the custom of the port she had left was entering the harbour of this Colony when she was boarded, and, on the plea of her not having a document called a "grand chop," was seized, towed to Cauton, condemned, and sold, together with her cargo. Her owners sought redress through the British Consul at Canton; the reply of that official, which was translated to them by an officer of this Colony, was to the effect that the Consul had made a searching inquiry into the case, and had come to the conclusion that the junk was lawfully seized in Chinese waters, and under Chinese law, on the following ground that "she could not produce an export duty receipt for some tea, sugar, and other produce which she had on board." The Consul mode these further state- ments"that she was captured by the revenue cruizer in command of Captain Palmer (the Peng Chao Hai);" that the owner and master appeared at the office of the Superintendent of Customs at Canton, and having acknowledged the attempt to smuggle the goods into Hong Kong, paid a fine for the release of junk and cargo. So far from these statements being true, the captain and owner have assured your Memorialists that they can prove them them to be entirely false, and that the real facts are as follows: "that they paid all the duties that were demanded in Formosa; that their papers were in perfect order, and such as they have been trading with for years; that their junk was not seized by the revenue cruizer commanded by Captain Palmer, but by a Chinese-built war junk; that they never appeared at Canton and acknowledged the attempt to smuggle goods into Hong Kong; that they never paid a fine and obtained the release of their junk and cargo, but, on the contrary, the junk and cargo were sold by the Canton authorities, who have converted the proceeds to their own use. Your Memorialists trust that the above narrative will convince your Lordship of the difficulty experienced by Chinese traders in this Colony when they endeavour to obtain restitution of their property through the efforts of Her Majesty's Consul at Canton. Your Memorialists regret to state that this official seems to accept the state- ments of the Canton Customs authorities as true, and to throw discredit on assertions made against them.
9. That in consequence of the continual complaints of the English and Chinese mer- chants residing in the port of Hong Kong, a Commission was issued to inquire into the alleged grievances; but, notwithstanding the great importance of this inquiry with regard to the interests of a mercantile community such as that of Hong Kong, the Government of this Colony has, to the extreme regret of your Memorialists, considered it advisable to withhold from them a copy of the Report of the Commission, otherwise your Memorialista would have been enabled to enter more fully into the grievances set out in this Memorial. The correspondence which passed between the Colonial Secretary and the Chamber on this subject is as follows:-
1
[218]
E