384
73
make the running of opium from distant ports so difficult that it would neither pay ordinary vessels to take such freights with the attendant risks of delay, capture, &c., nor make it worth while for any smuggling confederacy to create special vessels for any such venture. As for what might be done on the Kwangtung seaboard by vessels starting from Tonquin and Macao, special preventive measures taken along that seaboard, and the water communications thence leading inland, could be made thoroughly effectual. Hong Kong once arranged for, no other places from which vessels clear for China offer smuggling facilities that cannot be controlled, or presents revenue difficulties that cannot be surmounted.
7. The proposal that only the flags which accept the Additional Article shall carry opium from India and the intermediate ports to China lost much of its importance when France and Germany—the principal Powers concerned—accepted that Article; but were it made law, it would complement and in certain ways well fit in with the Hong Kong part of the hulk plan.
8. The history of the course trade has taken during the last forty years, and the circumstances of to-day, establish the fact that Hong Kong's position—so close to the mainland, surrounded by islands, and at a convenient distance from wide entrances to inner waters, and Hong Kong's circumstances—originally intended simply for careening ships and godowning their stores, but now a free port and important trading centre, with a large native population, and in constant communication with Chinese ports and places, open or not open to trade, constitute a serious difficulty for China's Revenue Administration to deal with; armed junks and armed bands have thence carried opium in bulk into China, in defiance of laws and the officials detailed to enforce those laws, and daily smuggling of opium in small quantities by hundreds of passengers constantly running to and fro between Hong Kong, Macao, and Canton, by steamers allowed to ply under a most privileged treatment, are the result; the loss thus caused to revenue, and the premium thus set on lawlessness, are facts that are felt, and Hong Kong's history looked at upstream from the point where we are to-day affords full demonstration of the foresight, comity, and justice with which Lord Palmerston penned his instructions of the 31st May, 1841, for the guidance of Sir Henry Pottinger, the negotiator of the Commercial Treaty.
[Quotation from Lord Palmerston's despatch: "It is understood
Her Majesty's Government have reason to suppose
China. and illegal duties."]
trade with exorbitant
The three plans from which we had to choose—the Indian, the Chinese, and the hulk plan—having now been laid aside in favour of a fourth, the colonial plan, this fuller
nation of the hulk plan is put on paper for record.
R. H.
[257]
X
V
384
73
make the running of opium from distant ports so difficult that it would neither pay ordinary vessels to take such freights with the attendant risks of delay, capture, &c., nor make it worth while for any smuggling confederacy to create special vessels for any such venture. As for what might be done on the Kwangtung seaboard by vessels starting from Tonquin and Macao, special preventive measures taken along that seaboard, and the water communications thence leading inland, could be made thoroughly effectual. Hong Kong once arranged for, no other places from which vessels clear for China offer smuggling facilities that cannot be controlled, or presents revenue difficulties that cannot be surmounted.
7. The proposal that only the flags which accept the Additional Article shall carry opium from India and the intermediate ports to China lost much of its importance when France and Germany-the principal Powers concerned-accepted that Article; but were it made law, it would complement and in certain ways well fit in with the Hong Kong part of the hulk plan.
8. The history of the course trade has taken during the last forty years, and the cir- cumstances of to-day, establish the fact that Hong Kong's position-so close to the mainland, surrounded by islands, and at a convenient distance from wide entrances to inner waters, and Hong Kong's circumstances-originally intended simply for careening ships and godowning their stores, but now a free port and important trading centre, with a large native population, and in constant communication with Chinese ports and places, open or not open to trade, constitute a serious difficulty for China's Revenue Administration to deal with; armed junks and armed bands have thence carried opium in bulk into China, in defiance of laws and the officials detailed to enforce those laws, and daily smuggling of opium in small quantities by hundreds of passengers constantly running to and fro between Hong Kong, Macao, and Canton, by steamers allowed to ply under a most privileged treatment, are the result; the loss thus cansed to revenue, and the premium thus set on lawlessness, are facts that are felt, and Hong Kong's history looked at up- stream from the point where we are to-day affords full demonstration of the foresight, comity, and justice with which Lord Palmerston penned his instructions of the 31st May, 1841, for the guidance of Sir Henry Pottinger, the negotiator of the Commercial Treaty.
[Quotation from Lord Palmerston's despatch: "It is understood
Her Majesty's Government have reason to suppose
China. and illegal duties."]
trade with exorbitant
The three plans from which we had to choose---the Indian, the Chinese, and the hulk plan-having now been laid aside in favour of a fourth, the colonial plan, this fuller
nation of the hulk plan is put on paper for record.
R. H.
[257]
X
V
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