}
NO P Y.
7203
206
})
(Rere | MAR 13 At the outset, every effort was made to obtain a copy of the New Mining Regulations in order to ascertain their purport, but without success. A foreign representative of the Company called repeatedly at the office of the Director of the Bureau of Industry, and asked for copies of the Regulations but only obtained them after much trouble and solicitation on the 2nd. of August. About seventy applications for mining permits were sent in by various Chinese, some were refused, and
some not answered at all.
So far as can be ascertained no proclamation was ever posted
overt at West River Quarries. The first/act being the seizure of two junks with stone at Samshui, and this we are informed by the Commissioner of
Customs at Samshui was done as the result of a circular from Customs
Board at Canton dated the 23rd. of July stating that the export of gold,
silver, metals and minerals, also limestone, granite and similar stones
is prohibited unless the cargo is accompanied by a Yuen Chow issued by
the Board of Industry at Canton.
One of the lessees of a quarry that has supplied us made a
statement as follows: -
"On the 31st. of August the Commissioner of Industry sent a
"deputy named Kong Po in company with the Tung On Magistrate, Lo So han,
"and some soldiers to arrest him (the lessee, named Kwok Pui Chee), and
*seize all stone say over 10,000,000 catties which had been bought by
"Shun Yick (a trading name of the above Kwok Pui Chee) (Contractor to
this Company), and stored at Luk To in the Tung On district.
*On the 20th. of October two shipments, and during November
*ten shipments of the above stone were towed away in Government boats
"to the Cement Factory at Canton".
Pui Chee's partner named Chan Chee adds that two junke laden
with stone were also towed away from How Lick Lekin Station (where
they had been detained) to Canton, and their cargoes landed at the Canton Cement Works without anything being paid to the owners of the
stone or to the Junk masters.
In the meantime Kwok Pui Chee was still in prison, and on the
4th. of December the Comissioner of Industry sanctioned an investiga-
-tion