It appears that the initial part of the text is garbled and not readable. The text seems to be a result of an OCR (Optical Character Recognition) error. The readable part of the text starts from "new regulation of the French Douanes and they de-".
new regulation of the French Douanes and they de-
cided, in order to protest against it, to stop any
further shipments from Hongkong for Yunnan via Ton-
...
This situation, however, only lasted nine days;
for the Customs explained that there was no question
of any new regulation or even of a new application
of an old rule, and that even in the case under dis-
pute they had not insisted on payment of the tariff
in full but had merely caused inquiries to be made
as to the bona fides of the wreck. The misunder-
standing was thus completely removed and the trade
went on as usual.
Monsieur Morel assured me that he was fully
alive to the importance (from a French point of view)
of the transit trade not being unduly harassed by
the French Customs, and he stated that so far from
introducing any new and vexatious regulations, he
had on a recent trip to Leokay impressed on his agents
the necessity of interpreting the rules with the
greatest possible leniency. He added that the idea
of any regulation being issued such as that imagined...
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