CO129-284 - Acting Governor Major Gen Black - 1898 [7-8] — Page 373

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sent by the Hong-Kong Government in safeguarding the Chinese

revenue. The present system of licensing an Opium Farmer leaves

much to be desired, and the Committee would suggest that the

Government should give its consideration to the formulation

of some other scheme which will not only provide an effective

check on the import of the drug but will trace it also to con-

sumption or exportation.

While, however, the Committee are prepared to

sanction some sacrifice in revenue in order to secure in per-

petuity the freedom of the port, they would point out that in

addition to, and apart from, the objections already named to

the proposals of the Chinese Imperial Maritime Customs, the

damage to British prestige in China, and in the Far East gene-

rally, by the practical conversion of this Colony into a Chi-

nese treaty port would be most serious, and in the eyes of the

Cantonese, at any rate, would reduce Hong-Kong into a dependen-

cy of the Chinese Empire. Rather than accept an arrangement

so humiliating, so derogatory to Great Britain, and so detri-

mental to the Colony's best interests, the Committee would be

disposed to recommend the abrogation of the Convention and

a reversion to the previous conditions.

I have, &c.,

(88. R. CHATTERTON WILCOX,

Secretary.