SANDERS REHDERS & CO LTD
LONDON.MANCHESTER,NEW YORK
Telegraphic Address:-
"THEODOSIUS'
IFEN LONDON.
MANCHESTER
Telephones.
N* 4372 AVENUE, LONDON
NP 7184
N° 7105)
CITY, MANCHESTER.
IN REPLY PLEASE REFER TO
D
DEPARTMENT
sir.
108. Fenchurch Street."
London
The Under Secretary of State,
589
9th Dec. 1915.
B.C.
Colonial Office, Whitehall,
C. O
56768
REC S.W. REG 9 DEC 15
Some months ago, after protracted negotiations, our
tenure of the valuable agency for South China of the Texas
Company of New York and Port Arthur, Texas, was confirmed to
us by the acquiescence of H.E. the Governor of Hongkong and
of H.M.Colonial Office, in the appointment of Mr.Humphrey
Cheetham as our representative in Hongkong, with Messrs.Reiss
& Co. as his local advisers.
An inspector of the Texas Company who went to China
recently found, on visiting Hongkong, that in spite of in-
numerable difficulties, which we need not recapitulate, Mr.
Cheetham had fostered the interests of the Texas Company'■
business in Kerosene Oil (and Wax) in his territory with grati-
fying success. He seems, however, to have formed the opinion
that Mr.Cheetham was indifferently supported by Reiss & Co.,
and to have reported in that sense to New York.
The agency of the Texas Company for the whole of the
rest of China has been held nominally for the last three years
by a very prominent British firm, but as in all that time they