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THE HONGKONG GOVERNMENT GAZETTE, 26TH MARCH, 1887.
THE OPIUM CONVENTION.-Read the following Minute by His Excellency the Officer Administer- ing the Government:-
W. H. MARSH.
The Officer Administering the Government is now able to lay before the Council a copy of the Memorandum of the basis of Agreement arrived at by the Commission which met in Hongkong in June last in pursuance of Article 7 Section III of the Agreement between Great Britain and China, signed at Chefoo on the 13th September, 1876, and of Section 9 of the Additional Article to the said Agreement, signed at London on the 18th July, 1885.
The Joint Commissioners for China laid before the Commission three alternative plans for the collection of Opium Revenue for China which may be briefly described as follows:-
The first plan proposed that the Opium Revenue should be collected for China by England in India, and this plan was regarded by the Chinese section of the Com- mission as the one of the three best calculated to secure a full collection at the least cost, and as less likely than either of the others to embarrass either Government or Commerce. By a system of deferred payments of duties in India it was alleged that interference with capital could be avoided, and by freeing Opium from taxation in China, smuggling and its attendant evils would, it was thought, be brought to an
end.
The second plan proposed that China should do her own work, that is, collect her own Revenue on Chinese Territory, and take her own preventive steps all along the Chinese sea-board; a plan which could be made thoroughly effectual, but would necessitate large expenditure, and it was feared that it would cause much friction, and that the more thoroughly it was done the more heavily would it press on all affected by it.
The third plan under which it was proposed that there should be a sort of co-operation between England and China, was somewhere between the other two; it would be more expensive than the first, and it probably would not press so heavily on any interest as the second. It was called the Hulk plan. Its general outline was ELS follows:-
1. The Chinese Customs were to provide two or three Opium Hulks to be anchored at Hongkong, supplemented if required, by a Godown on shore, and the Hongkong Government was to enact an Ordinance directing every vessel entering the Harbour to go alongside one or other of the Hulks. This was subsequently modified and restricted to vessels arriving with Opium on board. These vessels were to dis- charge their Opium into an Opium Hulk-the French Mail steamers into the French Hulk, the British into the British, and others into a miscellaneous Hulk.
2. Opium stored in the Opium Hulks was to be treated as follows when leaving the Hulk:-
(a.) Opium leaving a Hulk to go by steamer to Macao, or by small Coasting vessels, not under the foreign flag, to Chinese ports, to pay Duty and Lekin before leaving the Hulk.
(6.) Opium leaving a Hulk to be taken to any Godown at Hongkong other than
the Customs' Godown, to pay Duty and Lekin before leaving the Hulk. (c.) Opium leaving a Hulk to be taken to a Chinese Treaty Port by vessels under Treaty Power flags, or belonging to the China Merchants Com- pany, to pay Duty and Lekin at the Treaty Port in the manner provided for by the Additional Article, but the Hulk Officials to issue to each such vessel for delivery to the Customs at the Treaty Port, a Cargo Certificate describing the nature and quantity of Opium received from the Hulk, and to be delivered at the Treaty Port, and they were also to send a copy of that certificate by some other vessel direct to the Customs at the port concerned.
Modifications would have been made on this plan if the general outline had been acceptable to the Hongkong Government--such as refunding duty on opium consumed in the Colony-or shewn to have been exported to places other than China. Another was that the Hulks should be placed under the British flag.
Under instructions from Her Majesty's Government, the British Commissioners could not assent to the first proposal and did not take it into consideration. It is needless to enter into the arguments for and against the Hulk plan, as it appeared to the Hongkong Commissioner
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