T
THE HONGKONG GOVERNMENT GAZETTE, 1ST JUNE, 1889.
ARTICLE VII.
477
The subjects or citizens of each of the Contracting Parties in the dominions and possessions of the other shall be exempted from all compulsory military service whatever, whether in the army, navy, or national guard, or militia. They shall likewise be exempted from all contributions, whether pecuniary or in kind, imposed as a compensation for personal service, and, finally, from forced loans, and from charges, requisitions, and war contributions, unless imposed on real property, when they shall pay them equally with nationals.
ARTICLE VIII.
The subjects or citizens of either of the two Contracting Parties residing in the dominions and possessions of the other shall enjoy, in regard to their houses, persons, and properties, the protection of the Government in as full and ample a manner as the subjects or citizens of the most favoured nation. In like manner the subjects or citizens of each Coutracting Party shall enjoy in the dominions and possessions of the other full liberty of conscience, and shall not be molested on account of their religious belief.
ARTICLE IX.
The subjects or citizens of each of the Contracting Parties shall have, in the dominions and possessions of the other, the same rights as natives, or as subjects or citizens of the most favoured nation, in regard to patents for inventions, trademarks, and designs, upon fulfilment of the formalities prescribed by law.
ARTICLE X.
Each of the Contracting Parties may appoint Consuls-General, Consuls, Vice-Consuls, Pro-Consuls, and Consular Agents to reside respectively in towns or ports in the dominions and possessions of the other Power, each one of them reserving the right of excepting those places where it may not appear convenient to admit them whenever this exception is extended to the Consular functionaries of all other nations.
Such Consular officers, however, shall not enter upon their functions until after they shall have been approved and admitted in the usual form by the Government to which they are sent. They shall exercise whatever functions, and enjoy whatever privileges, exemptions, and immunities are, or may hereafter be, granted there to Consular officers of the most favoured nation.
The archives and official papers of Consular functionaries shall be respected as inviolable, without the authorities of the country being able, on any account, to seize them, or take note of their contents.
ARTICLE XI.
The Consuls-General, Consuls, Vice-Consuls, and Consular Agents of each of the Contracting Parties, residing in the dominions and possessions of the other, shall receive from the local authorities such assistance as can by law be given to them for the recovery of deserters from the vessels of their respective countries.
ARTICLE XII.
Any ship of war or merchant-vessel of either of the Contracting Parties which may be compelled by stress of weather, or by accident, to take shelter in a port of the other shall be at liberty to refit therein, to procure all necessary stores, and to continue their voyage without paying any dues other than such as would be payable in a similar case by a national vessel. In case, however, the master of a merchant-vessel should be under the necessity of disposing of a part of his merchandize in order to defray his expenses, he shall be bound to conform to the Regulations and Tariffs of the place to which
may have come.
he
If any ship of war or merchant-vessel of one of the Contracting Parties should run aground, or be wrecked within the territory of the other, such ship or vessel, and all parts thereof, and all furniture and appurtenances belonging thereunto, and all goods and merchandize saved therefrom, including. any which may have been cast out of the ship, or the proceeds thereof if sold, as well as all papers found on board such stranded or wrecked ship or vessel, shall be given up to the owners or their agents when claimed by them within the period fixed by the laws of the country; and such owners or agents shall pay only the expenses incurred in the preservation of the property, together with the salvage or other expenses which would have been payable in the like case of a wreck of a national vessel.
The goods and merchandize saved from the wreck shall be exempt from all duties of customs unless cleared for consumption, in which case they shall pay the same rate of duty as if they had been imported in a national vessel.
In the case either of a vessel being driven in by stress of weather, run aground, or wrecked, the respective Consuls-General, Consuls, Vice-Consuls, and Consular Agents shall, if the owner or master or other agent of the owner is not present, or is present and requires it, be authorized to interpose in order to afford the necessary assistance to their fellow-countrymen.