One may remember the example of near by places. Japan in Formosa, Great Britain in Hongkong and the Straits Settlements, France in Indo-China, and Siam in her territories have found it expedient not to stop the trafic, but to make it a monopoly of the Government—although no one has any right to say that the Governments there are not working in the welfare of the people. We do not propose to ask the Council to do the sam but to object to the gradual ping of the trade in ori minimize the dislocation arising, is to say the least wilfully silly.
The Council's Powers.
In the heat of the argument, the most important question whether the Council has the right to do what it is asked to do is lost sight of. The proposals seem to indicat: that the ratepayers have only to pass a resolution to stop the licences and the rest is done. That is scarcely so. Section 11 of the Land Regulation states that any measure which relates to the change of a bye-law must have the appri of the Diplomatic Body at Peking. And to stop licensing opium would mean to go against a bye-law or to alter a by-law. There is a difference between the resolution of 1908 for closing divans (in which opium was consumed publicly) and the proposed resolution, stopping the sale of opium altogether in the Settlement. Even when the consent of the Diplomatic Body is obtained, it not mean that residents and rate-payers of the Settlement lose their right to claim against the Council for taking steps detrimental to their vested rights, and rights that aros out of treaties between foreign countries and China.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.