4.
يد
21
@'I.anon
احمد
Consul presumably he will act in the same man er, and
I do not see how his action will be affected by any
action of the Hongkong overnment save that his hands
will not be strengthened by a request for assistance
emanating therefrom.
There remains the case of Chinese and foreigners
who have no Consular officer to whom they can appeal.
It appears to me that Article 23 of the Treaty was
inserted for the protection of the trade of Hongkong,
and that debtors should not be able to abscond with
impunity to Chinese territory to its detriment.
latter part of the Artide is directed against them,
mention is made of the creditor or his nationality;
and the trade of Hongkong will certainly suffer if
Chinese resident or trading in Hongkong are to be robbed
by their unscrupulous countrymen resident in China.
C
The
no
When therefore the Hongkong Coverment ask the assist-
ance of the Consul in such cases he ought to act under
the Treaty. This applies to all foreigners whether
they have a Consul or not, but naturally the Trit`sh
Consul will not act in theinterests of say a herman,
unless the German Consul cooperates with him, or at all
events does not act independently.
So much for the theory of the matter, in practice
as Mr. Carnegie has pointed out the Consul has to exert
pressure for the recovery of debts by discursion and
argument and his intervention is not likely to be
equally efficacious in all cases. His discretion must
therefore be left unfettered.
Sir Francis Piggott seeks to establish a system
which will secure the execution of the judgments of
the Hongkong Court in China and calls in aid the latter
part of Article 23 of the Tientsin Treaty. It does not
appear to me that this Article in any way contemplates
A
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