CO129-186 - Public Offices & Others - 1879 — Page 218

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lue, agreed to be due, upon that trade, can

be othervise secured to the Chinese Government,

a

first step, at all events, will have been

made towards abatement of the evil complained

now

of It does not follow that it would al- once be abated, for, constituted' as they are, the Collectrates of the Empire have thair oron reasons for preferring measures by which

they may

be puvately advantaged, to measures that will only advantage the Revenue. Pout

negotiation would at least become possible. Tell

Some

such arrangement be arrived at, it can scarcely be said to be so, and, frankly, should despair of obtaining the extinction of the three Revenue Stations so obnoxious, and,

humiliating to the Colony,

in a certain sense, so

if it could not be

An additional reason that I have for

koubling you

with this letter is that I allowed

the

the meeting to dissolve without an

assurance

that I shall feel the sincerest pleasure in advocating any · measure of the character I suggest,

that the Mercantile Community of Honghong.

I have no faith in

may bring forward.

improvement that will be recognized as such

until the three Custom houses disappear, but

the essential condition of their disappearance),

once more, is the existence of some equally

good security for the collection of Chinese Revenue.

I am fo

P.S.

(d) Thomas Francis Wade!

Since this letter was written I have

seen in a Hongkong paper a letter apparently from some gentleman present, to the effect

that I avvided an answer to the observations made

at the Meeting regarding Gibraltar. What I

I imagine, I have recorded here

said

If