CO129-186 - Public Offices & Others - 1879 — Page 217

}

213

of wrong doing before the authority

on board

the Revenue Cruiser, to which they professed to belong, and it did not appear to me that

or more

of these.

the constant presence of--on

Cruisers in the Colonial waters,

they took no action therei ffence that it

ANOS

held

to be - Gibraltar

so long.

ad

was the serious

bij gentlemen present

was mentioned as a · port-

from which under circumstances somewhat

analagous, Cruisers were excluded. I was unable

to offirm

or

deny the statement, but I expressed.

an opinion that if such exclusion were the

Aale

it

Avas

probably in accordance with a

special understanding between the Governments.

There was a reference made to, I think, Article 244 of the Treaty of Teen-tsin as protecting British Merchants against exaction

of higher duties than those prescribed by Tariff appended to the same Treaty. Fo

the

This

this I replied that the Treaty,

in the matter

of duty payments on cargo con cerned only

cargoes carried in Pritish bottoms and taxed

in the

Treaty

Port

I believe that I have now noticed every

but repeat

pouit brought forward and I can

that while admitting with regret-the embarassment that the present state of things brings with it, I

see no

objections excape from this unless

the Colony is prepared to suggest some arrangement

which the Chinese Government will accept as an

effective substitute for the present cordon - We

do the Chinese no

ce when we assume injustice

that Native Custom-houses, as uncontrolled as

those in the neighbourhood of Hongkong

well habitually levy more than is due upon

the funk trade. If a system of collection

- operation can be devised in which, by the co- of the Colony, the amount of revenue fairly

due