CO129-255 - Governor Sir Robinson - 1892 [5-7] — Page 234

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the Governor considers that there is no little force

in their objections.

It is not for one unacquainted with Hong k

to hazard an opinion in opposition to that of the

Governor, who is on the spot and who from his offici

position has the best means of making himself

And therefore in answer

acquainted with the facts. your letter I am under the disagrecable necessity of either abstaining from any discussion of the matter being one upon which my very partial knowledge unfi

or if I make observation to offer any observations,

or suggestions drawn from such general information experience as are at my command I shall certainly i

the charge of presumption.

In this private letter to you, however, 'shall state what occurs to me irrespective of the charges of this nature which might be brought again me if I gave official utterance to them.

I will take the objections as summarised by

Sir W. Robinson. The first one is the question of

expense

the Harbour Master estimating the cost of

compiling the statistics at 20.000 dollars a year.

Assuming that to be a fair estimate, one is led to look

at the trade of the port and when I see that vessels

use the harbour to the extent of over 6 million tons

a year and that there are ng port charges whatever I

cannot help asking whether short of imposing a, Customs

duty, there are no means of obtaining this slight sum

from so great an aggregate of shipping amongst which it

would surely not be felt.

In France a statistical fee is payable for

the very purpose of defraying the cost of statistics of

Commerce and Shipping, and glancing again at the shipping

figures of Hong Kong (I have no later ones than those of

1888) I see that if spread over all the vessels entering

the port, about 28.000 a year,- the fee would be less

than 1 dollar per vessel.

Or, if the payment were

confined