Under this heading I have almost nothing to record this week, movements both inwards and outwards having been so few. On the Sth instant, the new British sloop Rosario arrived here from Sheerness, to take the place of the old Rattler. The Rosario is a twin-screw, steel, sheathed vessel of 980 tons displacement, built in 1898 at Sheerness. Shahas Belleville tube boilers, engines indicating 1,400 horée-power, and has a speed of 13.2 knots. She carries two 6-4in. guns and four 3-pounder quick-firers, and has a complement of 105 officers and men. The British sloop Baphne arrived here the same day from Canton. The gunboat Linnet, which regently re-furyed from the South, is to-leave here to-day for Shanghai. The Btitish cruiser Undaunted is to leave here in about a week for England, having completed her commission on this station. She is now only waiting orders by next mail.
A SUBSTITUTE FOR LIKI, the "Chung Ngai San Po" is accurately informed, then the likin question ought soon to be settled. But is it? Or will the tax ever be removed? It is said that when Kang Yi was in Canton on his mission to inquire into the revenues of the southern provinces he suggested a shop tax as a substitute for likin, and the leading merchants promised to pay Tls. 4,000,000 as shop tax annually to the Government if the likin were abolished. The sum of $1,000,000 is reported to have been already collected from the various shops, and the Lith instant has been fixed by the Viceroy and Governor as the date for the opening of the Shop Tax office, and the Provincial Treasurer has been appointed to frame the regulations for the collection of the new tax. Only about half the shops are, however, willing to pay the new tax, so the likin offices are to be retained for the present in order to collect likin from those shops failing to pay shop tax. This looks much too like the addition of a new squeeze on those willing to stand it.
Hongkong, 9th June.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.