CO129-018 - Others - 1846 — Page 504

64

HONG KONG AND

CHUSAN COMPARED.

497

65

No. IV.—To C. E. Trevelyan, Esq., Assistant Secretary to the Lords Commissioners of Her Majesty's Treasury.

Sir,

H. M. Treasury, Hong Kong,

November 14, 1844.

I HAVE the honour to transmit herewith a copy of a letter which I addressed to you on the 20th September, 1844, accompanying my Report on the Island of Chusan. The maps explanatory of that report, were not then copied; and I have now the honour to forward them in this inclosure.

The necessity for the retention of Chusan as a British colony is now being fully acknowledged by all persons whose judgments are not biassed by their individual interests.

Moreover, it has been recently shown that the Chinese have the power, in twenty-four hours, to cut off all supplies from this barren rock, and to stop all labour here.

For forty-eight hours no work was done in Hong Kong, and the markets were empty.

It was only by rescinding the Registration Ordinance (No. 16 of 21st August, 1844,) that labour was resumed, the shops re-opened, and the markets again supplied with the daily food required by the inhabitants of Victoria.

I adhere to every statement which I made in my Report on Hong Kong, which has been transmitted by Mr. Davis to Lord Stanley.

The mortality is still very great: of the troops, six men died in one day last week; the Chief Justice (who has lost his eldest daughter) was at the point of death, and is now slowly recovering; the Colonial Secretary (Hon. F. W. A. Bruce) has with difficulty been saved, and is still an invalid on board Her Majesty's ship "Castor;" the Auditor, Mr. Shelley, has also had fever, and is gone to Macao for conva- lescence; the Colonial Engineer is just recovered from fever. I have had two chief clerks since my arrival, ---one is dead, the other dying.

There is no perceptible commerce but that of opium; very few vessels in the harbour, and the tea trade at Canton is as perfectly independent of Hong Kong as if the island did not exist.

I yesterday furnished Commissary-General Coffin with an estimate of the sum of money which I will require from him for the ensuing

year, viz., 150,000l.; this is independent of the expensive outlay now being incurred by Major Aldrich, of the engineers, on various works. I would again respectfully intreat their Lordships' consideration of the inutility of this large expenditure of the public money on Hong Kong, and of the necessity of diminishing its establishments to a scale com- mensurate with the wants and circumstances of the island..

No money, talent, or energy can ever make Hong Kong worthy the name of a British colony. Its decided insalubrity, incapability of forti- fications, precarious means of supply, distance from the scene of any future belligerent operations (the Yang-tze-kiang), and powerlessness

any

efficient check and control over the Chinese Government, render the island utterly worthless for military purposes.

of

The absence of trade is now beginning to make the few merchants who have built houses here repent of their outlay, and some have even said they would cheerfully undergo the loss of their capital invested in buildings if the seat of the British Government were transferred to Chusan. Unfortunately, several gentlemen who have been in China, and who are now in England, hold land and houses here, and it is to be expected that their opinions will be given adversely as regards the transference of the seat of the British Government from Hong Kong to Chusan.

There is no possibility of raising a revenue in this barren rock exceeding 12,000l. per annum, and several years must elapse before this sum can be permanently obtained; the question then naturally arises, what advantage does England derive from expending 100,000l. per annum here for mere civil disbursements, irrespective of the cost of military and naval establishments ?

I am ready to prove, on the most incontrovertible evidence, to Her Majesty's Ministers, that neither commercially, financially, politically, or socially, can there be any justifiable grounds whatever for this expenditure.

Whatever public character I may possess, I am prepared to stake it on the issue of this subject; and should Her Majesty's Ministers deem my views erroneous, I am also prepared to incur the sacrifice of my position as one of Her Majesty's servants.

I cannot conscientiously continue to receive the salary awarded to my office and remain silent, when I perceive that a great error has been committed, and that England is under the delusion of being engaged in founding a colony on the frontiers of China which will be a permanent

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