CO129-288 - Public Offices & Others - 1898 — Page 194

and waters were Chinese, the annoyance would be less en- durable still when they assumed the character of Foreign establishments within territory under British control - Great allowance has been made for the position of

Hongkong, and greater allowance still for the inefficiency

of the Chinese Administration. The British Government

does very much more for the Chinese fise than ang Furopean

Government would do for another pover; and the Chinese

Government responda by a degree of intrusion which no

Airopean Government would adait. It is no exaggeration

to say that the entire native junk trade with the mainland

is controlled by the Staff attached to the Chinese Customs

Office in Hongkong; for the edony is supervised by Chi-

nese native employes, while its waters are patrolled by

Customs armed steam launches, and wo may be sure that very

little escapes such a system under European supervision.

The arrangements made in pursuance of the Chefeo Convention

may have minimised the ostensible Grouble, but it is open

to contention that the result has been attained at the

cost of sacrificing the freedom of the port. How far we have stretched our goodwil) may be inferred from the fact

that junks are forbidden to leave their anchorage in Hong-

kong after dark, lost they should evade the cordon which

the Chinese Authorities hero found it easier to draw

around the colony than along their own const.

That Chinese Traders and junk owners dislike these

conditions is well known. Neither are the reasons which

deter then from remonstrance far to sack, when we remember

the methods of Chinese mandarins, and the facilition

which knowledge acquired in llongkong may »*

sion on the seinland. Chinese Nem

Legislative Council have-

191