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COPY
Ref. 2/0.43/39
S/0 No.16
Copies sent to:-
Canton No. 16
Hon.Colonial Secretary
Dear George,
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332 Gloucester Building,
28th February, 1939.
67
The local press here last week published a
Reuter report from London, dated the 21st February, stating
that in a written reply given in the House that day with
regard to smuggling in China, the Parliamentary Secretary to
the Department of Overseas Trade had said that Viscount
Halifax had received no reports of smuggling since an
answer to a similar question had been given in the House on
Nov ember 16th.
2. Such enquiries as I have had time to make
casually here tend to show that smuggling is rampant in
South China. The following extract from a letter from what
I think is a very reliable source in Canton may intere st
you:
"Meanwhile the city is being flooded with Japanese
goods of every description which are carried by naval
vessels as naval and military stores, appearing later in
Japanese shops which are opening everywhere in former Chinese
pr en is es. Prices are amazingly low and goods norma lly
sold locally by foreign firms are being retailed at figures
far lower than agents themselves can command.
Caldbeck
McGregor's whiskey has been offered to the firm's agent at
$80 per case against his own selling price of $102, and
Kerosene (A.F.C., Texaco, etc.) is on sale at lower prices
than the companies can quote. Junks are arriving openly with
kerosene, and probe bly other commodities, which are purchase d
in Hongkong and, in other words, Cant on is now a free port
for Chinese and Japanese interests".
Yours ever,
(signed) J:C.HUTCHIS GN.
A.H. George, Esquire, C.M.G.,
British Embassy,
SHANGHAI.
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