CO129-295 - Public Offices - 1899 — Page 262

The proposals put forward by the government and by Chinese government officials were held to be inadmissible.

Sir Robert Hart — See prints annexed.

We wrote to the Foreign Office on 30 Nov that "Lord Salisbury will probably agree to the Chinese authorities of the Customs Grant 'permission to exercise any jurisdiction within the Colony or to maintain customs houses' would be highly undesirable"... and that in return for our collecting the opium revenue there "Should be no Chinese customs houses within the colony or the 'leased territory'."

The Foreign Office agreed that Sir Robert Hart's proposals were inadmissible (letter of 9 Dec) and their despatch to Sir C. Macdonald stated that there "customs houses must be removed."

Our pledge to China is that "it is proposed to leave being handed over with all possible precautions to prevent the leased area being used to facilitate smuggling into China or in any other way to the detriment of the interests of China".

It is not contrary to this pledge: it is in furtherance of this pledge, and knowing that we shall lose money because our action will be effective in stopping smuggling, that we are proposing to collect for the Chinese Government the opium revenue.

It is only opium that we have had hard work in connexion with smuggling, and it is opium with which Sir R. Hart was dealing. If the Chinese government reforms, the only other articles that Sir Cecil Smith has told me are subject to smuggling are salt and arms, and smuggling of arms can be stopped by proclamation. I do not believe the statement that or the implication that opium is only a small part of this smuggling question. Agreements & correspondence have always dealt with this one article.