This Document is the Property of His Britannic Majesty's Government.
CHINA TRADE.
CONFIDENTIAL.
446
C.O.
1308
Pena
January 21.114 FEC 08
SECTION 1.
[2315]
No. 1.
Sir,
Board of Trade to Foreign Office.--(Received January 21.)
Board of Trade, January 20, 1908. WITH reference to your letters of the 11th December, 1907, and of the 1st instant, transmitting copies of despatches from His Majesty's Minister at Peking, with inclosures, relative to a fine imposed upon a British vessel by the Customs authorities at Chefoo, I am directed by the Board of Trade to forward to you herewith, to be laid before Secretary Sir E. Grey, a copy of a letter from the Commissioners of His Majesty's Customs on the subject.
I am, &c. (Signed)
WALTER J. HOWELL.
Inclosure in No. 1.
Sir,
Customs to Board of Trade.
Custom-house, January 14, 1908. WITH reference to your letters of the 20th ultimo and the 8th instant, transmitting communications from the Foreign Office, with inclosures, on the subject of the levying of a fine on the British steamer "Lienshing" by the Chefoo Customs authorities, I am directed by the Commissioners of His Majesty's Customs to state, for the information of the Board of Trade, that the decision arrived at in the case under notice having been accepted as satisfactory by all parties concerned, as shown by the copies of the correspondence accompanying your last letter, it does not appear to be necessary to offer any observations on the subject of the use of the bond or guarantee referred to in the correspondence for a purpose other than that for which it was intended.
In regard to the second point in the concluding paragraph of Sir J. N. Jordan's despatch of the 10th October last, I am to add that no such document as a bond or guarantee in which certain concessions are provisionally promised is in use in the Customs Department of the United Kingdom, and that the practice with regard to bonds is that they are given in a penal sum named in the bond to cover breaches of the law and the regulations made for the security of the revenue. The breach of a mere regulation frequently does not involve liability to a statutory penalty, and where there is a breach of a regulation in this country, not of such a character as to lead to the withdrawal of privileges, it can be, and is occasionally, dealt with under the bond by reference to the penal sum thereby secured. Where the payment of the penalty secured by the bond or some portion of it is required, a new bond is also called for.
I am, &c. (Signed) R. HENDERSON.
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