CO129-367 - Acting Governor May - 1910 [6-7] — Page 367

t

'

365

made by the British Consul-General.

3.

The whole incident has created the

worst possible impression in business circles in this

Colony. The Hongkong Chamber of Commerce and the local

branch of the China Association have emphatically condemned

the manner in which the negotiations were in the first

instance conducted by Mr. Jamieson, while the local Opium

Merchants have lost all confidence in him and distrust

him. It is currently reported that the regulations (to

which such strong exception has been taken both by the

British Government and by the Merchants concerned) were

originally submitted to Mr. Jamieson in draft by the

Provincial Authorities and that he signified his approval

of them. He did this, so far as I know, without reference

to His Majesty's Minister at Peking and certainly without

in any way consulting the Merchants concerned or this

Government, and I submit that his action forms a most

unsatisfactory contrast to that of Mr. J. Scott, when in

1902 Taotai Hsu tried similar tactics.

There is much force in the oon-

ad

-tention of the Opium Merchants that, they actually buy

their Opium from the British Government on the faith of

treaties now existing between Great Britain and China,

note to page

3 of Memo!)

they