Salam Friends,

Just wanted to share the following by Adam Israel Shamir (a former Jew now converted to Catholocism) which is a real eye opener.

It reveals some shocking facts and figures about how a trading group, used the British (willing partners) to destroy a nation by opium. After reading material like this, one cannot help wondering why Allah is so critical of these kind of Jews.

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Jews and Opium

Our friend Peter Myers published this interesting collection of articles and documents on Opium, China, England and Jews. Though 19th century news, it is relevant today because of the parallels with our time. Now the Jews want to destroy Iran – in 19 century they wanted to destroy China, and actually succeeded for a while. Apparently England was the enforcer for Jews – before this cushy job was taken by the US. In 19th century the Jews pushed opium, nowadays they push monetarism, neoliberalism and Hollywood. The proposed material should be taken with a grain of salt.

The Jewish Monopoly on Opium Still Fuels Chinese Resentment Today

http://www.biblebelievers.org.au/sassoon.htm

The 99 year British lease on Hong Kong expired in July, 1997, allowing China to take over its land once again. Hundreds of newspaper stories and TV reports covered that event but not one revealed how England first gained control of Hong Kong.

The truth lies buried in the family line of David Sassoon, "The Rothschilds of The Far East," and their monopoly over the opium trade. Britain won Hong Kong by launching the opium Wars to give the Sassoons exclusive rights to drug an entire nation.

David Sassoon was born in Baghdad, Iran in 1792. His father, Saleh Sassoon, was a wealthy banker and the treasurer to Ahmet Pasha, the governor of Baghdad. (Thus making him the "court Jew" - a highly influential position.) In 1829 Ahmet was overthrown due to corruption and the Sassoon family fled to Bombay, India. This was the strategic trade route to India's interior and the gateway to the Far East. In a brief time the British government granted Sassoon monopoly rights to all manufactured cotton goods, silk and most important of all- Opium - then the most addictive drug in the world.

· The Beginning of the Opium Trade

In the beginning, David Sassoon wanted to trade cotton cloth with China in exchange for tea, but the Chinese did not want the cotton that Sassoon wanted to trade. They were however willing to trade tea for silver. However, Sassoon considered that the Chinese might be susceptible to opium. With this knowledge Sassoon sailed back to India and then England to sell what little tea he had, and to make a new proposition.

Britain had an insatiable appetite for Chinese tea, but the Qing Dynasty and its subjects did not want to buy anything that the British produced. The government of Queen Victoria did not want to use up the country's reserves of gold or silver in buying tea, so, on the advice of David Sassoon, she decided to forcibly export opium from the Indian Subcontinent to China. The opium would then be exchanged for tea.

In Order to boost the trade David Sassoon forced the farmers in Bengali to stop farming food and turn to growing opium poppies. The climate in Bengali was very good for growing opium and Sassoon's business flourished. He became a member of the East India Company, a firm owned and run by Jews out of the City of London. So successful was the opium business that the tax the East Indian Company paid to England paid for all English wars between 1831 and 1905.

· Opium Was a "Jewish Business"

The Jewish Encyclopedia of 1905 states that Sassoon expanded his opium trade into China and Japan. He placed his eight sons in charge of the various major opium exchanges in China.

According to the 1944 Jewish Encyclopedia: "He employed only Jews in his business, and wherever he sent them he built synagogues and schools for them. He imported whole families of fellow Jews. . . and put them to work."

Sassoon's sons were busy pushing this mind-destroying drug in Canton, China, and their trade expanded alarmingly. Between 1830 - 1831 they trafficked 18,956 chests of opium earning millions of dollars. Part of the profits went to Queen Victoria and the British government. In the year 1836 the trade increased to over 30,000 chests and drug addiction in coastal cities became endemic.

In 1864, the Sassoons imported 58,681 chests of opium which brought in over 20 million pounds. By 1880 it had skyrocketed to 105,508 chests, making the Sassoons the richest Jews in the world next to the Rothschilds. The Sassoons were now licensing opium dens in each British occupied area with large fees being collected by their Jewish agents.

And many of these Jewish agents were the Chinese Jews of Kaifeng. These Jews had immigrated to China along the Silk Road hundreds of years ago and had so intermarried with the Chinese that they looked entirely Chinese. But they still were practicing Jews and were thus the perfect Chinese agents for the Sassoons.

The entire trade was controlled by Jewish families only. Sassoon would not allow any other race to engage in "the Jews' business" of importing and selling opium. Opium was strictly a Jewish monopoly. But these Jews were working under British passports.

The corrupt British monarchy honored them with privilege and knighthood - to the disgrace of the Crown. To this day the Sassoons are in the history books as "great developers" of India, but the source of their vast wealth is never mentioned - the destruction and impoverishment of the population of China.

· And Then The Opium Wars - Euphemistically called "The Boxer Rebellion"

China's government, not too surprisingly, objected to the large-scale importation of narcotics into their country by a foreign power, provoking Britain to declare war.

In 1839, the Manchu Emperor ordered that it be stopped. He named the Commissioner of Canton, Lin Tse-hsu, to lead a campaign against opium. Lin seized 2,000 chests of Sassoon opium and threw it into the river. An outraged David Sassoon demanded that Great Britain retaliate. And because the Sassoon family had married into the Rothschild family who controlled the English economy, this demand had powerful Jewish backers in England.

Thus, the Opium Wars began with the British Army fighting as mercenaries of the Sassoons. They attacked cities and blockaded ports. The Chinese Army, decimated by 10 years of rampant opium addiction, proved no match for the British Army. The war ended in 1839 with the signing of "The Treaty of Nanking." This included provisions especially designed to guarantee the Sassoons the right to enslave an entire population with opium. The "peace treaty" included these provisions:

· Full legalization of the opium trade in China,

· Compensation from the opium stockpiles confiscated by Lin of 2 million pounds,

· Territorial sovereignty for the British Crown over several designated offshore islands.

· The Sassoons Use the British Army to Drug An Entire Nation

British Prime Minister Palmerston wrote Crown Commissioner Captain Charles Elliot that the treaty didn't go far enough. He said it should have been rejected out of hand because: "After all, our naval power is so strong that we can tell the Emperor what we mean to hold rather than what he would cede. We must demand the admission of opium into China's interior as an article of lawful commerce and increase the indemnity payments and British access to several additional Chinese ports."

Thus, China not only had to pay Sassoon the cost of his dumped opium, but reimburse England an unheard sum of 21 million pounds for the cost of the war!

This gave the Sassoon's monopoly rights to distribute opium in port cities. However, even this was not good enough and Sassoon demanded the right to sell opium throughout the nation. The Manchus resisted and the British Army again attacked in the Second Opium War fought 1858 - 1860. Palmerston declared that all of interior China must be open for uninterrupted opium traffic.

The British suffered a defeat at the Taku Forts in June 1859 when sailors, ordered to seize the forts, were run aground in the mud-choked harbor. Several hundred were killed or captured. An enraged Palmerston said: "We shall teach such a lesson to these perfidious hordes that the name of Europe will hereeafter be a passport of fear."

· The Destruction of the Yuanmingyuan

This photo taken by Ernst Ohlmer in 1873 is believed to be one of the earliest photos of the Yuamningyuan.

In October, the British besieged Peking.

When the city fell, British commander Lord Elgin, ordered the temples and other sacred shrines in the city sacked and burned to the ground as a show of Britain's absolute comtempt for the Chinese.

In early October of 1860, the commanders of the British and French forces held a conference outside the gates of the Garden of Perfect Brightness - the Yuanmingyuan.

It was situated on the western outskirts of Beijing, where they agreed to share whatever they could loot and to destroy the balance.

As the primary residence of five Qing emperors, Yuanmingyuan contained hundreds of palaces, temples, libraries, theaters, pavilions, chapels, gazebos and galleries filled with priceless artworks, antiquities and personal possessions.

There followed an orgy of indiscriminate plunder in which anything that could not be carted off was destroyed.

On Oct. 18, British forces were ordered by Lord Elgin - son of the Lord Elgin who removed the marble friezes from Greece’s Parthenon - to inflict a final blow, with fire, as revenge for the Chinese refusal to permit the importation of opium that was devastating their country, though ostensibly for the deaths of some British and Indian prisoners in Chinese captivity.

Because Yuanmingyuan was so vast - roughly five times the size of Beijing’s Forbidden City and eight times that of Vatican City - it took an entire infantry division of nearly 4,500 men, including four British regiments and the 15th Punjabis, many weeks to set it aflame and finally render it to utter destruction.

Gilded beams crashed, porcelain roofs buckled and ash filled the lakes, as so many embers snowed down on Beijing that the entire city seemed on fire, where and the clouds of smoke were so dense they eclipsed the sun.

Upon hearing the news, the ailing 30-year-old Xianfeng emperor vomited blood; less than a year later he was dead.

"It was a sacrifice of all that was most ancient and most beautiful," acknowledged Robert McGhee, chaplain to the British forces and a participant in, and defender of, the destruction. "It is gone, but I do not know how to tear myself from it."

Arguably the greatest concentration of historic treasures in the world, dating and representing a full 5,000 years of an ancient civilisation, were either looted or totally destroyed. And all of this was done to protect the exclusive opium concessions granted to the Jewish Sassoons of Britain, and the revenue they generated for the crown.

God Save the Queen, and God Bless "His Chosen People".

The Yuanmingyuan is an unforgettable shame in the hearts of the Chinese people, and a reminder for the whole world that such destruction of human cultural heritage should not happen again.

You can read more on the Yuanmingyuan:

China Remembers a Vast Crime by the West: The Wanton Destruction of the Yuanmingyuan in Beijing

· The British and Jewish "Peace Treaties" and the Origin of British Hong Kong

In the new "Peace Treaty" of Oct.25, 1860, the Sassoons (backed by the force of the British military) were assigned rights to a vastly expanded opium trade covering seven-eights of China. England took not only the Hong Kong peninsula as a colony but also large sections of Amoy,Canton, Foochow, Ningbo and Shanghai.

Hong Kong (as a colony) was founded by the British specifically for a life of crime. When Britain gave the Jewish Sassoon family the exclusive franchise to distribute opium in China, the family needed a base of operations for the importing, processing, packaging and distribution. Hong Kong was forcibly "leased" solely for the Sassoon family's opium business.

This was the bloody origin of Hong Kong's 155 years as a British colony.

Readers may not be generally aware of the behind-the-scenes negotiations in London that preceded the return of Hong Kong to China. The "Iron Lady" (perhaps referring to the chastity belt, and perhaps not) Margaret Thatcher, decided at the last minute she wasn't returning Hong Kong to anybody. The word is that her ministers panicked and browbeat her into concession, for fear of starting World War III.

And for sure it might have done. After all of the past humiliation, there is no way China would have accepted a betrayal or default on that agreement. The Chinese government later admitted it would have just moved in with troops and taken Hong Kong back. And you couldn't blame them.

· The Origin of British Hong Kong Banking

After the British established Hong Kong as a colony in the aftermath of the Opium Wars, local merchants felt the need for a bank to finance the growing opium trade with China, so they established (by special permit from the British) the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation - HSBC today - "The World's Bank".

This is the same bank that almost 30 years ago built the world's most expensive building as their head office in Hong Kong - 1 billion US dollars.

· The Sassoons Destroyed Everything They Touched

Money for these people was only a tool for making more money, no matter the disasters wrought upon the Chinese - or indeed any other nation.

Sir Albert Sassoon, the eldest of David Sassoon's sons took over the family "business" empire. He constructed huge textile mills in Bombay that paid true slave wages. This early example of the "off-shoring of industries" continued after World War One and ended up putting mills in Lancashire, England out of business with thousands losing their jobs to the cheap labor of the Sassoons in India.

This did not stop Queen Victoria from having Albert knighted in 1872. After all, the Sassoons could prosper only after they had subverted the governance of China, whereupon Britain empowered the Sassoons to destroy and impoverish the people, for the glory of the British Empire.

Solomon Sassoon moved to Hong Kong and ran the family business there until his death in 1894. Later, the entire family moved to England because with modern communications they could operate their financial empire from their luxurious estates in London. They socialized with royalty and Edward Albert Sassoon married Aline Caroline de Rothschild in 1887 which linked their fortune with that of the Rothschilds. The Queen then also had Edward knighted.

All 14 of the grandsons of David Sassoon were made officers during World War One and thus most were able to avoid combat.

· The Ubiquitous American Connection . . .

Warren Delano was a senior partner in Russell & Company, whose ships carried the opium that was imposed on China.

The reason Russell & Company were allowed to transport and trade in opium around Canton was that they were a Jewish company and did not interfere with the business of Sassoon's East India Company. The market was large enough for both. Russell & Company got their opium from Afghanistan through a harbor in Turkey.

Delano said later he could not pretend to justify the opium trade on moral grounds, "but as a merchant I insist it has been . . . fair, honorable and legitimate", and "no more objectionable than the importation of wines and spirits to the US."

He returned to America a rich man, and gave his daughter Sara in marriage to a James Roosevelt, the father of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the American President.

Roosevelt's fortune was inherited from his maternal grandfather Warren Delano. Roosevelt always knew the origin of the family fortune but neither side of the family cared to discuss the source of their great wealth.

· The Aftermath

The Sassoon opium trade brought death and destruction to millions and still plagues Asia to this day.

Countless tens of millions of families were destroyed; fortunes lost, daughters prostituted, production collapsed, the economy crashed. The treasures and heritage of 5,000 years of a peaceful society ravaged by madness and destruction of the British and the Jews. The toll was unimaginable. The British Crown and the Jewish Sassons conspired to turn an entire nation of people into drug addicts of the worst kind, solely to satisfy their greed and lust for power.

This drug trade totally eviscerated China's social fabric, virtually destroying not only the country but families and all of society. And, by most estimates, the forcible imposition of opium on The Middle Kingdom by Britain, and the clever and brutal marketing by the Sassoon Jews, set back China's development at least 75 years.

And, using their magical technique of putting all of the blame of their sins upon a scapegoat, to this day the Jews claim that the Opium Trade of China was the fault of the British East India Company simply because the Sassoons all had British passports. And to this day, many Chinese believe them.

Nowhere in British or Jewish history are the truths of this wantonly immoral family told. Instead, the Jewish books and encyclopedias all praise the Sassoons for their "great contribution" to Indian society, without a mention of the God-forsaken criminality of these people.

It was due to this, to the weakened and almost helpless state of the country, that other foreigners - and then the Japanese - could move in and attempt to colonise this entire great country.

Any resentment or malice that the Chinese might feel toward the British today, at least due to the imposition of opium, is partially misdirected. A fair share should be directed to these Jewish families.

(2) By 1871, Sassoon group controlled 70% of the Opium trade - Edward LeFevour

http://www.earnshaw.com/shanghai-ed-india/tales/t-sass.htm

The Sassoon Family

"Sassoon's had specialized in the export of raw cotton to Britain and China for many years and from the founding of the firm in the late eighteenth century, had also been in opium through loans to producers in the Native States of India, loans which were recovered with interest at the sales of Malwa in Bombay. Jardine's manifests show that Sassoon's was also shipping opium to China on its own account from 1834 or perhaps earlier and shortly after Hong Kong had become a colony, David Sassoon opened a branch which concentrated upon opium business. Since his firm was already established in Calcutta and Singapore, he had a branch at that time at every link in the India-China opium chain except in the coastal system. This link was provided by the extension of Peninsular and Oriental Steamship Company's services on the coast in the early fifties ... Early in 1871, the Sassoon group was acknowledged to be the major holder of opium stocks in India and in China; they were owners and controllers of 70 per cent of the total of all kinds..." - Edward LeFevour in Western Enterprise in Late Ch'ing China ==

Edward LeFevour was Professor of East Asian History at the University of Hong Kong. Also the author of The Opium War 1840-1842.

The above quote on the Sassoons comes from his book

Western enterprise in late Ch'ing China: a Selective Survey of Jardine, Matheson & Company's Operations, 1842-1895. By Edward LeFevour, East Asian Research Center, Harvard University.

His books are available, second-hand, at http://www.abebooks.com/. Spell the surname "LeFevour" (no space).

(3) First Opium War was kicked off when Lin Zexu burned 20,000 chests of opium, much of which belonged to Sassoon

http://jugalbandi.info/2008/04/reeking-of-fish-and-opium-sassoon-docks/

Reeking of fish and opium: Sassoon Docks

April 23, 2008

[...] The Tatas and the Sassoons appealed to the Hong Kong Legislative Council in 1887 , on behalf of the Opium Importers and dealers complaining that a bill to regulate the sale of opium "would prejudicially affect their trade." (More at Salon.com)

{quote} In the annals of globalization, there are few contemporary crimes committed by either transnational corporations or modern governments that match the scale of the 19th century enterprise in which the British Empire fought two wars against China to ensure its right to profit off Chinese citizens addicted to Indian-grown opium. Indeed, the first Opium War was kicked off when Lin Zexu burned 20,000 chests of opium, a hefty proportion of which belonged to Sassoon & Co., one of the above-named petitioners.

{endquote; http://www.salon.com/2007/04/20/tata/singleton/}

Thus, the Opium Wars began with the British Army fighting as mercenaries of the Sassoons. The wars ended in the treaty on Nanking, which gave the opium traders like the Sassoons and the Tatas freedom to trade without restrictions in China. It gave the Sassoon family compensation for 2 million pounds of opium confiscated by the Chinese government. And it gave the British territorial sovereignty over several Chinese islands including Hong Kong. This information has been scrubbed from Wikipedia (it’s cited in some anti-Semitic sites as being part of Wikipedia under ‘David Sassoon’ but is no longer there). Wikipedia is a place where anyone can add info, and others can delete it. Someone has recently gone around removing the Sassoon name from anything that talks about opium. Or Rothschild and opium. Others are free to add these nuggets back on if they wish to. That’s the beauty of Wikipedia.

(4) Opium Traders and Their Worlds: A Revisionist Expose of the World's Greatest Opium Traders, by M. Kienholz

published by iUniverse, 30/1 0/Z008 - History - 252 pages

Opium Traders - Volume Two continues the history of opium commerce at a point where the Sassoons of Persia, closely connected with the Rothchilds, won control of the trade. The Sassoons celebrated when the monopoly of the British East India Company was repealed; they used their business expertise and parliamentary connections in London to grab nearly 80% of the drug trade out of India. Connections with British royalty made possible their important involvement in securing Israel as the Jewish Homeland. The Sassoons' extensive holdings in India and China were encroached upon as a result of India's independence movement and China's takeover by communists. Indian independence strengthened the hold of the Parsee family of Tatas, who, in the 21st Century are advertising the development of a "People's car" estimated to cost about S2,500. China's takeover by communists, who now hold a monopoly of China's expansive opium trade, followed the Taiping and Boxer Rebellions and the revolution of Sun Yat-sen and Chiang Kai-chek. These militant movements are summarized. Japan's exploitation of opium in the Manchuna-Manchukuo era, through secret societies, is detailed. The opium trade of East Asia and the Middle East is further elaborated in descriptions of the cultivation of poppies of Iran, Iraq, Pakistan, Russia, Turkey, Burma, Vietnam, Afghanistan and Indonesian territories. Contemporary poppy fields of Mallinckrodt, opium and labor smuggling during the years of railroad building and Mafia activity in the United States are addressed. ==

Volume One of Opium Traders and Their Worlds examines "the great trading companies, their rivalries and aggressions, with emphasis on Britain's East India Company, the greatest winner in these events." It reviews the history of the "opium colonialists of Boston and New York who had their day as leading drug shippers" and discusses the trade's "ship builders, ships and captains."

Volume Two describes the power shift from trading companies to East Asian and Middle Eastern opium traders such as the Jewish Sassoons, Parsee Tatas, Chinese Triads, Japanese imperialists, and the so-called Golden Crescent and Golden Triangle. It culminates in a review of some aspects of the opium trade in the United States ...

These volumes are described as "revisionist,", and they are to the extent that the information collected, although available "out there," is so skilfully ignored by historians that it is "shocking" to some readers. ...

M. Kienholz retired from 18 years with the Spokane Police Department and has spent several decades studying law enforcement issues including the narcotics trade. She is the author of Police Files: The Spokane Experience 1853-1995; Strange Medicine; and Galilee: A Century of Conflict.

Buy Opium Traders and Their Worlds (vol. 2 and/or vol. 1) at

http://www.abebooks.com/servlet/SearchResults?tn=Opium+Traders+and+Their+Worlds

Vol. 2 is also available as a Kindle eBook at Amazon, for $6. But serious readers will want hard copy.

How the Sassoon family cornered the opium market; intermarriage with the Rothschilds

from Opium Traders and Their Worlds, by M. Kienholz - Volume Two:

How is it that a single family, that of David Sassoon (1792-1864), a refugee from Persia, came to dominate the Indian opium trade? How did his circle effectively push aside members of the Malwa opium syndicate established in 1820 by Magniacs, Davidsons, and Dents; allegedly marginalize the great Jardine-Matheson firm's opium trade; and overtake British East India Company freelancers and Boston, Salem, Philadelphia and New York firms? By 1871, the Sassoons controlled seventy percent of the middle-man opium market in both Malwa and Patna opium auctioned in Bombay and Calcutta, with the Chinese distributing much of the drug inside China.

David Sassoon's company might be considered the successor to Jardine-Matheson & Company, although David was contemporary with that company, arriving in India the year Jardine-Matheson adopted its present name (1832).

Competitiveness, history and politics were the thumb and fingers that pushed David Sassoon (1792-1864) through the needle's eye. His father was an affluent Baghdad merchant whose family had transferred from Spain to Persia in the sixteenth century. In 1828, David Sassoon went from wealth in Baghdad to allegedly sleeping as a fugitive in a merchant's shed at Bushire, shooting rats, whose scampering poenails kept him awake. It is reported that during the year 1830-31; i.e., the year before arriving in India, the Sassoons trafficked in 18,956 chests of opium; and opium trafficking may have been a family tradition for generations. The Sassoons blamed their fleeing Persia not on their opium dealing but on outbursts of anti-Semitism.

[...] Continuing from Bushire to British India ... One of David's tactics was to undersell other opium dealers for five years. Another tactic was to advance money to growers a la mode the East India Company and to practice usury ... These tactics gave him substantial control of the Malwa raw opium market by 1860.

David took control of the Patna market by outbidding his competitors at auction. His tactics were effective but required considerable capital in hand.

[...] The Sassoon dynasty, like its trading vessels, reached far beyond the boundaries of India. The Sassoons were connected by marriage with Gunzburgs, a wealthy banking family in Russia. David Sassoon's grandson Joseph (1855-1918) married Louise de Gunzburg. Baron Horace Gunzburg (1833-1909) was a Jewish Bavarian financier in St. Petersburg and an ambivalent financial adviser to the Russian treasury. The Baron was a supporter of the Social Revolutionary, Aleksandr Kerenski. The Baron was married to Rosa Warburg. A cousin of the St. Petersburg Gunzbergs, Paul Warburg ... was a founder of the United States Federal Reserve System.

David's son, Reuben Sasson, was assigned to 12 Leadenhall Street in London. There, his wife Kate Sassoon (nee Ezekiel) who, perhaps disturbed by Reuben's excessive intimate association with the Rothschilds and the Prince of Wales, smoked a hookah incessantly, became porcine and had to be "carried up and down stairs" of her luxurious home.

[...] David Sassoon's son Arthur Sassoon married Louise Perugia. Her father ... was a distant relative of the Rothschilds. David's grandson, Edward Albert Sassoon (1856-1912), 2nd Baronet, married Aline Caroline de Rothschild (1885-1908), daughter of Baron Gustave de Rothschild. Lousia Perugia Sassoon's sister Marie Perugia snagged Leopold "leo" de Rothschild. ... Meyer Amchel Rothschild (1743-1812) had older ties with the British government than did the Sassoons. Meyer's daughter, Hannah Rothschild Rosebery, is given credit for initiating the Sassoons' introduction to Marlborough House.

{endquote}

Hannah Rothschild married Archibald Philip Primrose, the fifth Earl of Rosebery, later to be Lord Rosebery and Liberal prime minister. Rosebery, a Liberal Imperialist, was a member of Cecil Rhodes' secret society, fore-runner of the RIIA and CFR. Carroll Quigley, who termed it The Anglo-American Establishment, records that Rosebery was one of the trustees of Rhodes' will: http://mailstar.net/quigley.html

(3) The Sassoons' petition to the Hong Kong government, 1887, lobbying it not to impose a law which might hurt the Opium business

http://www.legco.gov.hk/1886-87/h870325.pdf

{page 1} 53

LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL No. 21.

———————

FRIDAY, 25TH MARCH, 1887.

———————

PRESENT:

HIS EXCELLENCY WILLIAM HENRY MARSH, C.M.G.,

Administering the Government in the absence of His Excellency SIR GEORGE FERGUSON BOWEN, G.C.M.G.

His Honour the Chief Justice, (SIR GEORGE PHILLIPPO, Knt.)

The Honourable the Acting Colonial Secretary, (FREDERICK STEWART.)

,, the Acting Attorney General, (EDWARD JAMES ACKROYD.)

,, the Colonial Treasurer, (ALFRED LISTER.)

,, the Surveyor General, (JOHN MACNEILE PRICE.)

,, HENRY GEORGE THOMSETT, R.N.

,, PHINEAS RYRIE.

,, WONG SHING.

,, JOHN BELL-IRVING, (vice the Honourable WILLIAM KESWICK, on leave).

,, ALEXANDER PALMER MACEWEN, (vice the Honourable THOMAS JACKSON, on leave).

,, CATCHICK PAUL CHATER, (vice the Honourable FREDERICK DAVID SASSOON, on leave).

The Council met pursuant to adjournment.

The Minutes of the last Meeting, held on the 18th instant, were read and confirmed.

VOTE OF MONEY REFERRED TO THE FINANCE COMMITTEE.–Read the following Minute by His Excellency the Officer

Administering the Government:–

W. H. MARSH.

C.S.O.

696 of 1887. Chinese correspondence having increased very much of late, especially registered letters from America, the duties of the Senior Postman, who has to distribute all registered letters and obtain signatures to receipts, are now more than one man can accomplish in the course of a day.

The Officer Administering the Government, on the representation of the Postmaster General, recommends the

Council to vote a sum of $80 to meet the salary of another Postman at the rate of $10 per month from 1st of April next.

Government House, Hongkong, 22nd March, 1887.

The Acting Colonial Secretary moved that this vote be referred to the Finance Committee.

The Treasurer seconded.

Question–put and passed.

PAPER.–The Acting Colonial Secretary, by direction of His Excellency the Officer Administering the Government, laid upon the table the following paper:–

Correspondence in connection with the proposed Loan. (No. 17

87 ).

PETITIONS.–The Acting Colonial Secretary said that the Clerk of Councils had received two Petitions, and moved that they be read.

The following Petitions were then read by the Clerk of Councils:–

(1.)

TO HIS EXCELLENCY THE PRESIDENT, AND THE HONOURABLE MEMBERS OF

THE LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL OF HONGKONG.

The humble petition of Shellim Ezekiel Shellim, of the firm of David Sassoon, Sons & Co., Jacob Silas Moses, of the firm of E. D. Sassoon & Co., Ruttonjee Dadabhoy Tata, of the firm of Tata & Co., Marcus David Ezekiel, of the firm of Abraham, Ezekiel & Co., Mahomedbhoy Khetsey, of the firm of Tharia Topan, Jafferbhoy Khetsey, of the firm of Jairazbhoy Peerbhoy & Co., and Hormusjee Meherwanjee Mehta, of the firm of Framjee Hormusjee & Co., all of Victoria in the Colony of Hongkong, for and on behalf of the Opium Importers and wholesale Opium Merchants of the said Colony.

SHEWETH,–That at a recent Meeting of the Opium Importers and wholesale Opium Merchants of this Colony, held for the purpose of considering the Bill now before your Honourable Council, entitled An Ordinance for the better regulating of the trade in Opium, it was inter alia resolved that the said Bill, if passed in its present form, would prejudicially affect their trade, and that your petitioners should be appointed a Committee to take such measures as they might consider advisable to bring their complaints before your Honourable Council.

That while fully recognizing the necessity of carrying out the object aimed at by the said Bill, namely, the prevention of Opium smuggling into China, and while sympathizing with its spirit, your petitioners submit that the means by which it is proposed to effectuate such object would inflict serious injury upon the Opium trade, and especially on the aforesaid Opium Importers and wholesale and retail Opium dealers, and prove a blow to the general commerce and prosperity of this Colony.

{page two} 54

That your petitioners believe that the ends intended to be accomplished by the said Bill could be attained by other and less objectionable means, and that your petitioners are prepared to co-operate with your Honourable Council and the Executive in attaining the desired object.

That inasmuch as the Bill affects private interests, and was only brought in and read a first time on Friday, the 18th instant, it is desirable to postpone the second reading thereof so as to enable the persons who are more immediately interested, as well as the general public, to acquaint themselves with its scope and object.

Your petitioners therefore humbly pray

1.– That the second reading of the said Bill may be postponed until such day as your Honourable Council may

under the circumstances deem meet.

2.– That your petitioners may be heard by Counsel at the bar of your Honourable Council as to their objections to the said Bill in its present form.

3.– That the said Bill may be so amended or modified as to remove the objections of your petitioners, or that it may be withdrawn and a fresh Bill introduced such as the necessity of the case requires.

And your petitioners will ever pray, &c.

S E. SHELLIM.

J. S. MOSES.

R. D. TATA.

M. D. EZEKIEL.

M. KHETSEY.

J. KHETSEY.

H. M. MEHTA.

Hongkong, 22nd March, 1887.

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(2.)

TO THE HONOURABLE THE LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL OF HONGKONG.

The humble petition of the undersigned merchants and traders resident in Hongkong. Respectfully showeth:–

1.–Your petitioners are dealers in Opium risiding and carrying on business in Hongkong.

2.–At the meeting of your Honourable Council held on Friday, the 18th March instant, a Bill was introduced and read a first time entitled An Ordinance for the better regulating of the trade in Opium, and the said bill is framed for the purpose of regulating the movement of Raw Opium in this. Colony and of prohibiting the purchase or sale of Raw Opium in quantities less than one chest.

3.–Your petitioners deal largely in Raw Opium, buying and selling it in quantities less than one chest, and have a large capital engaged in the said business, and they employ in their said business many hundreds of persons.

4.–If the said Bill becomes law in its present form the business hitherto carried on by your petitioners will absolutely cease and can no more be carried on the capital therein employed will be idle, the hundreds of persons now occupied in the said business will be thrown out of employment, and your petitioners will all of them suffer grievous loss and injury, and some of them will be irretrievably ruined.

5.–Your petitioners respectfully submit that the objects proposed to be attained by the said Bill may be far more effectually carried out by means other than those contained in the said Bill, and without loss or injury to any class of the community; and they therefore humbly pray that on the second reading of the said Bill they may be heard by their Counsel against the said Bill, under the provisions of the 47th of the Standing Orders and Rules of this Honourable Council, and that they may have due notice of such second reading.

WING KAT CHEUNG. KWONG IN CHEONG.

HOP WO. FUK SHUN LUNG.

KING WO. SHING KI.

I UN HO. KWONG SHING LI.

KU UN HO. MAN UN HO.

WING LI LUNG. TIN UN.

LI TAI SING. PO FUNG CHEONG.

KWONG UN SHING. CHING LUNG.

FUK UN CHEUNG KI. SHANG UN HO.

YUT WO U KI. ON SHING HO.

SHUN KAT HO. MIN UN HO.