onclosure 6.
59
adjacent District of the Canton Province on the subject of
certain suggestions which he had made for co-operation
between the Colonial Government and the Imperial Maritime
Customs with a view to increasing the control over the
launch and junk traffic between Hongkong and China with a
view, on the one hand, to the better protection of China's
revenue and, on the other hand, to extending facilities
to the trade of the Colony especially in connection with
its distribution of goods to Non-Treaty Ports. Mr. Harris
at the same time made suggestions for the collection of
duties on rail-borne goods entering China from Hongkong
and vice versa. I appointed a separate Committee, under
my own presidency consisting of the gentlemen named in
enclosure 6 to this Despatch for the consideration of this
matter, and I hope shortly to lay recommendations before
Your Lordship.
It has been a matter for anxious
deliberation whether the necessary Customs arrangements
so far as they affect the Railway should be included in
the Working Agreement or should form part of a separate
Customs Convention and the opinion has prevailed that
the two matters should be dealt with separately but
simultaneously on the ground that negotiations would
thereby