Sir,
Chambers,
Supreme Court, Hongkong,
10th March, 1909.
C.O. 13042
363
REC'd 17 APR 09
I have the honour to acknowledge Your Excellency's letter of 3rd instant, enclosing copies of a Despatch from His Excellency the British Minister at Pekin, with correspondence attached between the Foreign and Colonial Offices relative to the action taken by the Acting Consul-General at Canton in connexion with Letters of Request issued to him from this Court. I am sorry to say that we are all at cross-purposes, as it is perhaps not to be wondered at when laymen are discussing a very highly technical rule of procedure of the Courts. It may possibly have occurred to Your Excellency on perusing the correspondence that Sir John Jordan's despatch of 12th February does not correspond with Mr. Antrobus' letter of 6th January to the Foreign Office, the words "by His Majesty's Courts in China" after "service of Hongkong writs" being omitted. As Mr. Fox's contention went - at least originally far beyond this, it is necessary to put matters straight.
In doing so it is essential that I should safeguard myself on one point. In consenting to discuss the matter,
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(the rest of the text is not provided, if you provide the rest, I can continue with the proofreading)