CO129-018 - Others - 1846 — Page 532

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BRITISH POSITION

appointing the Consul at Canton Consul-General, with an efficient secretary; a saving would thus be effected on the Consulates and Superintendent or Diplomatic department, of about 15,000l. a-year.

If in January next Chusan be evacuated, and it be the determination of Her Majesty's Government to await circumstances, and retain Hong Kong as the only British settlement in China, then the present civil and military expenditure on this coast is perfectly unnecessary. The establishment ought to be reduced to the above-mentioned extent, and the existing civil officers be removed to equivalent situations in other

colonies.

By the early adoption of the proposed minor establishments, and leaving Hong Kong as free as possible from legislative ordinances (which frighten the Chinese, and render the Europeans discontented), the British Government will give this island some chance of rising above its present depression, and thus ascertain whether, in the course of some years, it may have any trade. I have gathered the opinions of many of the leading merchants connected with the island, and they are unanimous in recommending the reduction of the Government establish- ments, and the abstinence from excessive, superfluous, and constant legislation for a small, intrinsically poor, and hard-struggling infant colony.

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In suggesting this reduction I beg to observe, that the views I am now expressing are in unison with the opinions expressed to his Excel- lency the Governor of this colony, in my Report on Hong Kong,- report which has never yet been refuted or proved incorrect, and in which I have endeavoured honestly and faithfully to fulfil my duty as a servant of the crown, irrespective of my personal interests.

Sir,

I have, &c.,

R. M. MARTIN.

No. IX. To the Right Hon. Sir R. Peel, Bart.

H. M. Treasury, Hong Kong,

April 25, 1845.

Ar the risk of being deemed importunate or pertinacious in my views, I venture to entreat your perusal of a "Minute on the British Position and Prospects in China," which I recently laid before Governor Davis, and which has been transmitted, along with my accompanying

AND PROSPECTS IN CHINA.

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letter, by Mr. Davis, to the Earl of Aberdeen. In fulfilment of what I deemed my duty, I have transmitted a copy of this Minute to the Lords of the Treasury, with an explanatory letter. Although much debili- tated by the noxious climate of this island, I could not remain passive on perceiving the great mistakes we have committed in our Anglo- Chinese policy, and the more so because some of those mistakes may

be remedied before we propose evacuating Chusan in January next.

There is not now, I believe, in China one disinterested individual who does not most fully acknowledge the great value of that beautiful, healthy, and highly-important island.

The American Consul and merchants in China are very desirous of our occupation of Chusan; for if we do not retain the island they assert that it will be taken possession of by the French, or be ceded to them privately by the Chinese Government, and that it will become a focus for political intrigue and machinations very detrimental to peace and to commercial pursuits. These opinions are also entertained by the British community.

I do not hear a second opinion in China on the imperative necessity of our retaining Chusan.

The island is of no intrinsic value to the Chinese Government, neither as regards its extent, population, or productions, especially when compared with the vast empire to which it is appended; and in the hands of an unwarlike nation and Government like the Chinese, as a post of military defence, it is perfectly useless to them. To us, one of its chief points of value would be the complete power of permanently preserving peace on the most economical scale of expenditure of life or of treasure, and in the most effective manner, as shown in my Report on Chusan.

One of the modes by which the Chinese Government may be induced to offer us the island is, by requiring the permanent establishment of a British Minister at Pekin. This, in reality, is indispensable if we do not occupy Chusan; and I am assured that the Chinese Government would far prefer our retaining Chusan to conceding the point above mentioned, and which, by the law of nations, we have a right to demand and to obtain.

Trained in the political school of that truly great statesman, the late Marquis Wellesley, I was ever taught by my lamented and revered friend to attend to the future as well as to the present; and in all my thoughts and actions, to consider the permanent, although distant. as