CO129-287 - Public Offices & Others - 1898 — Page 432

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Revenue than for the alternative purpose of obviating

the Customs blockade.

The Kowloong Commissioner is, as a matter of fact,

located in Hongkong, where he has an Office and a staff.

His presence is not, howevr, recognised officially;

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thanks in a great measure, no doubt, to the dis-

cretion of the officers who have held the post has

their presence been seriously resented. No very defin-

ite objection could, in fact, be offered so long as no

official status was assumed, nor official action unduly

obtruded.

It is quite another thing, however, when the Gov-

ernment is asked to formally recognise the presence in

Hongkong of an Imperial Chinese Customs official and a

Customs office and Staff. It is still more serious when

the Government is requested to authorise the collection,

in Hongkong, of duties (lgkin included) on all goods

and merchandise carried from or to any Chinese ports

in Chinese vessels. To concede so much would be to

place Hongkong on the level of a Chinese Treaty Port,

and to accept for it the position of a fiscal depend-

ency of Canton. The first admission would injure its

status as a free port; the second would injure its pres-

tige as a British Colony.

Subsidiary demands that wharves and jetties shall

be placed at the disposal of the Customs Authorities to

facilitate their operations; that the Customs cruisers

and launches shall retain, in the waters of the newly

ceded territory, the rights of seizure and search which

they now enjoy; and that the Customs shall be allowed

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