Sessional_Paper_1884 — Page 174

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With some slight and unimportant exceptions, the whole of this Opium, the trade in which it is worthy of note is now practically monopolized by British Indian firms, passes through this harbour, but by far the larger proportion of it can only be classed under the head of Hongkong trade in the sense in which the traffic through the Suez Canal can be considered as Egyptian trade. About one half of the quantity of Opium I have named as the entire import is immediately sent on either in the original foreign vessels conveying it here, or by other vessels, also foreign, to Shanghai, where it is entered regularly at the Custom House under Official foreign superintendence.

Of the remainder, about one half, that is to say, one quarter of the whole, is shipped by foreign vessels to other treaty ports open to foreign trade, where it is duly entered at the Customs. The local trade proper of the Colony, whether for shipment to Macao or Canton by foreign and native vessels, or in native bottoms to non-treaty ports,-i.e., to ports and places with which foreign vessels cannot trade,—for con- sumption on the island, and for re-export in a prepared state to California and Australia, or for smuggling purposes, embraces therefore about one fourth of the entire export to China from India and Persia, or say, in quantity about 21,000 chests, of an approximate value of £2,500,000, or about £200,000 per month, instead of £1,000,000 per month as asserted by Governor HENNESSY.

There being no Custom House at this port, it is impossible to obtain thoroughly accurate statistics as to the disposition of the 21,000 chests of Opium which form the local trade of the Colony. As regards the local consumption and export in a prepared state, it may be estimated that from 2,500 to 5,000 chests are boiled in the Colony every year, leaving a balance of 16,000 to 18,500 chests to be accounted for. To suppose that this quantity is taken into China by smugglers, would be to disregard all the known conditions of the trade, and the fact the preventive service of the Chinese Empire is probably in point of espionage the most carefully organised one in the world. On every road, in every village bordering on a river or waterway, at every port, village, and fishing station along the Coast, there is a watchful Customs Station, rendering it very difficult for a boat of the smallest size to touch the shore without being over- hauled and made to pay levies purporting to be Imperial or local dues. To what extent such dues are honestly levied and declared, there is no means of ascertaining. The Customs Stations are believed to be farmed out by the Provincial Authorities to Officials who pay for their appointments, and although a service thus organised would be considered as a demoralised one and its system unreservedly condemned according to Western ideas, it is probable that the receipts of perquisites, and the partial remission of duties by Customs Officials who farm the revenue, is a quasi recognized practice acquiesced in by all classes throughout the Empire.

With this system, however, the Colony and Merchants of Hongkong have no concern, and for its results they are in no way responsible. As the vast majority of the junks which leave the mainland with Produce or arrive there with Imports, undoubtedly obtain from the local Custom Houses port clearances and bills of entry, the large trade, whether in Opium or other goods, carried on between this port and places on the Coast in Native bottoms, being thus subjected to the ordinary fiscal dues levied on the China Coast according to the practice of the Empire, is for the most part a strictly legal one.

Smuggling between this Island and the mainland in goods other than Opium scarcely exists, as an evasion of the low ad valorem duty of 5% which is payable on entry at the Treaty ports, and is probably the maximum similarly leviable at other ports, would not compensate for the heavy charges which must be incurred by transit over unusual routes, even if the ubiquitous Customs Officials could be avoided. Opium, owing to its portable character, the facility with which it can be hidden beneath water without serious deterioration, and the high duty imposed upon it, is more readily and profitably smuggled, but the returns which have been received through the Native Custom House at Canton make it nearly certain that the quantity which evades the payment of duty, either at the Treaty ports or the ports and places not open to foreign trade, is not greater than 2,000 to 3,000 chests per annum. (See Parliamentary Papers-China No. 2, 1880). And the quantity thus estimated to be smuggled is not conveyed, as alleged by Governor HENNESSY, in Junks heavily armed for the purpose, fighting their way to the mainland through the Revenue Cruisers, but is concealed, a few balls at a time, about the persons, and in the luggage of Chinese passengers by the steamers plying between this port and Canton, and other places on the Coast, or in ordinary trading junks and fishing boats or unpretentious character, or fast pulling boats propelled by a number of rowers, or by various devices such as are practised by the persons who evade the duties on tobacco in the United Kingdom. That the Revenue Cruisers which surround this Island keep up an