Sessional_Paper_1886-1887 — Page 309

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1883 is left out of consideration. This year the revenue will probably exceed $1,300,000, and should the arrangement recently made by the Commissioners appointed under the Chefoo Convention be approved, the increase in future years will be very considerable. On the other hand, however, there are many public works urgently required which have been deferred for want of funds. The Taitam Water-Works, Sanitary Works, and the Military Defences will exhaust. the reserve of previous years and also the Loan of £200,000. A new Gaol is urgently wanted the cost of which will be $400,000, and the prosecution of the Sanitary Works will probably absorb about $100,000 a year for the next two years. There will be full employment therefore for any surplus revenue during some years to come.

6. The erection of a Light-house on the Gap Rock is at the same time at question of considerably greater importance at the present day than when it was originally mooted, owing to the extraordinary development of the shipping trade of the Colony during the last few years; and as the representatives of the interests which will derive the principal benefit from the construction of the Light-house offer to bear one half of the cost, I recommend the proposal of the Chamber of Commerce for favourable consideration.

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7. It does not seem to have been ever denied that the construction of a Light on a rock, thirty miles from Hongkong, belonging to the Chinese Empire is, properly speaking, a work that should be undertaken by Chinese, but there are so many Lights which the Government of that Country proposes to erect when it has the necessary funds that I fear a considerable time will elapse if the Colony waits for the construction by it of one on the Gap Rock.

8. I have forwarded copies of the several reports enclosed in this Despatch to Sir JOHN WALSHAM for the information of the Chinese Government, and I have suggested that he should endeavour to obtain a more formal proposal from that Government for the erection of the Light-house.

I have, &c.,

W. H. MARSH.

Enclosure 1.

Chairman Chamber of Commerce to Acting Colonial Secretary.

[C.S.O.].

SIR,

HONGKONG GENERAL CHAMBER OF COMMERCE, HONGKONG, 28th September, 1886.

With reference to this Chamber's letter of the 8th July, on the subject of a Light-house on the Gap Rock, I have the honour to inform you that the following resolution referring to this matter, was unanimously passed at a special meeting of the Committee held to day:

Resolved:-"That in view of the imperative necessity which exists for a Light-house to be placed on, or in the neighbourhood of the Gap Rock at the Southern approach to this Port, His Excellency the Officer Administering the Government, be requested to make a direct application to the Secretary of State for the Colonies for a special grant from the Light Dues levied in the Colony at present, sufficient to cover the cost of erection."

Agreeably to the spirit of this resolution, I now beg, on behalf of the Committee of this Chamber, to request that His Excellency the Administrator will be pleased to give effect to the above expressed opinion by bringing this important matter to the notice of the Secretary of State for the Colonies, coupled with such recommendation as His Excellency may consider the urgency of the case demands.

Some years since, when this subject was submitted for the consideration of the Government, the Committee are informed that the reasons then assigned for leaving the matter in abeyance were, that the site in question was not within the jurisdiction of the English Government, and that no funds were available for the building and maintenance of the proposed Light-house.