660
THE HONGKONG GOVERNMENT GAZETTE, 28TH AUGUST, 1880.
3. Inquiry into the means of suppressing frauds on the Customs.
4. Amelioration of the status quo with a view to develop cominercial relations.
These bases are general enough to reserve to the two Governments entire freedom of discussion with regard to the classification of goods and the fixing of duties.
The extension of commercial relations by a wider international exchange of the chief industria! products of the two countries, cannot fail to draw nearer the ties of friendship which so closely unite the two countries, and I am glad to think that this result will be attained by the renewal, on the bases. above indicated, of the Treaties of 1860.
Accept, &c. (Signed) LÉON SAY.
No. 2.
Earl Granville to M. Léon Say.
M. l'Ambassadeur,
Foreign Office, June 8, 1880.
I have the honour to acknowledge the receipt of your Excellency's note of to-day's date indicating the bases upon which the French Government are prepared to open negotiations for the renewal of the Treaties of Commerce at present subsisting between the two countries as soon as a favourable oppor- tunity presents itself.
I beg to inform your Excellency in reply that Her Majesty's Government have much pleasure in accepting the proposal which you have been instructed to make; and they consider that the points enumerated in your note will afford a satisfactory basis of negotiation.
With regard, however, to the fourth point, I think it right to inform your Excellency that an amelioration of the status quo intended to develop commercial relations between the two countries can only, in the opinion of Her Majesty's Government, be understood as meaning a reduction of duties on the principal products of English industry, though not necessarily a general reduction of duty on all such products.
Her Majesty's Government concur with your Excellency that there are other matters which can be treated in detail when formal negotiations are commenced.
I am, &c.
(Signed)
GRANVILLE.
DOWNING STREET,
2nd July, 1880.
SIR,-With reference to my predecessor's Circular Despatch of the 5th of January last relative to the detention in the Colonies, in certain cases, of Certificates suspended under the Merchant Shipping Acts, I have the honour to transmit to you, for your information, extracts from a correspond- ence with the Board of Trade, from which you will perceive that the time during which Certificates. suspended in the Colony under your Government may be retained, may, in the opinion of the Board of. Trade, be extended to six months.
I have the honour to be,
The Officer Administering The Government of
Sir,
Your most obedient humble Servant,
KIMBERLEY.
COPY.
HONGKONG.
Extract of a letter from the Board of Trade to the Colonial Office,
dated 2nd April, 1880, M. 5060.
"The Board of Trade see no objection to the term for which certificates may be retained in the Colony being extended to six months in the case of those Colonies to which, on account of their "distance from the United Kingdom, it would be impossible for the Board of Trade to return them "within that period.
"The Court will not, of course, retain certificates except with the knowledge and consent of the "Officers interested, for whose benefit only this departure from the strict letter of the law is sanctioned."