CO129-287 - Public Offices & Others - 1898 — Page 434

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suance of the Chefeo Convention may have minimised the

ostensible trouble, but it is open to contention that

the result has been attained at the cost of sacrificing

the freedom of the port. The maintenance of the Rule

that junks shall not leave their anchorage at Hongkong

after dark may afford another instance in point. In-

pitacy stituted, no doubt, with a view toʻqisez rather than

smuggling, it has nevertheless greatly helped the Chin-

ese Customs Authorities to prevent evasion of the cordon

which they have found it easier to draw around the is-

land than along their own coast, and has since the

original motive ceased to be cogent been regarded in

the Colony chiefly from that point of view.

That Chinese Traders and junk owners dislike these

conditions is well known. Neither are the reasons which

deter them from remonstrance far to seek, when we remem-

ber the methods of Chinese mandarins, and the facilities

which knowledge acquired in Hongkong may afford for ac-

tion on the mainland. Chinese members of the Hongkong

Legislative Council have, however, ventured to speak

freely, under cover of acquired British nationality;

and your Lordship may gather from the annexed communi-

cation (2) the state of feeling which they have found to

exist.

The junk trade between Hongkong and the mainland

is an important distributing medium. If existing ar-

rangements have prejudicially affected it, the intensity

of the resentment felt at the prospect of further inter-

ference becomes intelligible.

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