Excounaczp by the freedom from interference their runners have enjoyed, the Opium Guild, not content with levying duties on Chinese within the Settlement, were active enough last week to sue the British subject Dyan for theft. It is difficult to conceive on what principle such a charge was attempted to be sustained. We have heard of such proverbs as, " All yours is mine; and all mine is my own and apparently some such idea might have flashed across the minds of the Guild, when pleading that the opium being carried by Dyan was not his but thei, We have several times questioned the wisdom of lending the assistance of the police to such bodies as the Opium Guild, but are met by the objection that the Chinese living in the Settlement are none the less subject to the jurisdiction of their own authorities, and that it is better the ranners should be checked by the ce-operation of the Foreign police than left uncontrolled. This may be true where the object of the native myrmidons is clearly legal, but it is by no means clear that the Opium Guild have a legal right to levy the taxes they are doing on opium within the Settlement limits. Our readers will acquit us of any desire to encourage the use of opium, when deprecating what we look upon as @ mistaken concession to Chinese encroachment. or our own part, we should be glad to see the smoking of opium in China entirely put an end to, but the present system is not likely to culminate in that end, nor, indeed, is it intended to. So far as outsiders can discover, it is an attempt to'set up under our eyes a close monopoly, a grievance found soirksome that special clause of the treaty of Nanking was found necessary in former times, to repress it. Did the interference of the native tax collectors end with opium, however objectionable it might be in principle, it might be pleaded that little harm was done. We have, however, the strongest reason to believe that every article bought and sold within the Settlement is subjected to the same system of extortion. We may certainly acquit the Council of any intention to help these irregular levies. They plead, indeed, that it is impossible to detect or control them but do they not, by opening the door to such levies in the case of opium, open the door to a system and a class of people whose ulterior action can very hardly be followed? We can not be satisfied that aid is not sometimes lent, or at least indifference displayed, towards the agents of Native Guilds, or even, in some eases, of private parties, who consider the foreign Settlement a fair field for carrying on illicit taxation.
We cannot but think that the first step taken, in permitting the police to give certain assistance to the emissaries of the Opium Guild, was a "mistake, and this mistake has eventuated to all appearance in affecting the influence and utility of the police force. It is difficult to conceive a more pecu-Jiar situation than that in which the natives residing in the Settlement are placed. They have, in fact, to pay double taxes; once to the Municipal Council, for protecting their property and keeping in order the streets; the other, to various agents of native bodies, for no apparent purpose whatever. The Chinese Government has no expenses to meet connected with the Settlement, except keeping up the Mixed Court, and by all accounts this institution in fast relapsing to the ordinary condition of a native Yamen. The Municipal Council is responsible for the peace and good order of the districts under its charge, and we should be very jealous of any interference with its powers and privileges' The ingression of these native taxgatherers is an intolerable nuisance, and we shall be glad if the judgment of the Court can be construed to mean that it is as illegal as it is irritating. If it be right that opium should pay taxes within the Settlement, the natural way would be that such taxes should be collected by the Council, and banded over to the native bodies authorised to receive them. Such a custom. would have few of the disadvantages of the present system, and would not tend to the weakening of Municipal authority within the limits. In the meantime, the decision in the Dyan case is a check to the ever-growing assumption of the Guild; and we should like to infer from it the meaning that opium within the Settlements is still within the limits of the Port, and therefore not yet liable to further exactions. We repeat that we have no sympathy with the opium trade, nor care to see opium itself protected; but we do consider the principle at stake an important one, and wish the Council could be held to have power to exclude taxgatherers of every sort and description, other than its own.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.