CO129-148 - Public Offices & Others - 1870 — Page 165

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To the Right Honorable the EARL GRANVILLE, K.C.B., Secretary of State, Colonial Department.

The Memorial of the undersigned Owners of Property

in the Colony of Hong Kong,

Respectfully sheweth-

THAT your Memorialists are owners of House Property in the Colony of

63.400 Hong Kong, chiefly in the occupation of Chinese, of the annual rental of about £ and are otherwise interested in its trade.

That such trade, and the value of this property, are to a great extent dependent on the residence in the settlement of the very large Chinese population which has been attracted to it by its being a free port, and a place in which, although heavily burdened by legal taxation, they have always hitherto been protected from irregular exactions.

Your Memorialists have lately learned with much apprehension that in Article 2 of "the Supplementary Convention to the Treaty of Tientsin " it is agreed that China may appoint Consuls to reside at all Ports in the British Dominions," and although it may seem invidious and even illiberal to take exception to a provision which in the face of it may seem calculated to draw closer the bands of amity between Great Britain and China, yet warned by the experience they have gained by many years residence in China, and an intimate knowledge of its Government and Poople, they cannot but consider this provision, if acted on in Hong Kong, as menacing the independence of the Colony so far as its Chinese Population is concerned, and highly injurious, therefore, to its interests and to those of your Memorialists.

!

It must be borne in mind that the cession of the Island was to the Chinese Govern- ment perhaps the most unwelcome of all the conditions of the Treaty of Nanking, and as the chief seat of, and to them, the very embodiment of British Power in China, it has ever since been regarded by them with extreme jealousy. Hence efforts have from time to time been made to obstruct its trade, which have for the most part been frus- Your Memorialists consider this trated by the vigilance of Her Majesty's Government.

as another blow covertly, and dexterously, aimed at its prosperity and independence.