could, in fact, be offered so long as no officiel status vaa kamined, nor official action unduly obtruded.
*
It is quite another thing, however, when the Govern- ment is asked to formally recognise the presence in Hong- kong of an Imperial Chinese Customs official and a Customs Office and Staf
gloff. It is still more serious when the Government is requested to authorise the collection, in Hongkong, of duties (lchin included) on all goods and merchandise quæried from or to any Chinese ports in Chinese Yassol J. Tá concede so much would be to place Hongkong on the level jor a Chinese Treaty Port, and to accept for it the posision of a fiscal dependency of Canton.
The first admission would injure its status as a free port; the second wquld injure its prestige 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 to retain their existing stations (twe of which are in the wory harbour, and others on islands in the immediate vicinity on the Fast and West) might almost angrest the presence of en underlying purpoen to render impossible the accept- ance of capital requests which it had appeared desirable, for some reagon, to prefer.
Grievances which had heon, hitherto, in some degr sentimental would then indeed assume a practies) form If the presence of Customs stations on the adjacent and and at the entrance to the harbour, apå of -
rs in the waters surrounding the ocI
192
No comments yet.
Private notes are available after approval.