128
18 -
find means to regularise the position" (Foreign Office
telegram to Poking No. 297).
19. Before this statement could be considered at
Peking, news was telegraphed by Mr. Brenan that the Canton Government had ostablished an inspection corps for examination of all goods and passengers and had
published detailed regulations for search♦ of outgoing and incoming trains and steamers, examination of pas-
sengers, their luggage and passports, and for interro-
gation of ships' offcers, and that examination sheds
were to be established among other places at Canton, the
Bogue forts and the Hong Kong frontier. He considered
this to be a dangerous attack on the Maritime Customs, whose duties would thus be duplicated and also to be
part of a general programme to abolish treaties (Canton
telegram No. 51 to Foreign Office). Colonel Hayley Bell also reported in the same sense to Mr. Edwardes, adding "I regard the occasion as calling for positive and uncom- promising action and I am warning the Government that such intrusion into the Customs field of responsibility
will not be tolerated until full instructions are ro-
ceived from Poking. I am requesting the Superintendent to refrain from any overt act in boarding of steamers, Chinese or foreign, or interfering with cargo, any casc of which I will deal with as the circumstances require.
I submit that the very existence of the Maritime Customs is threatened by this and similar calculated means of
infiltration". Mr. Edvardos communicated this tele-
gram to Sir R. Macleay on the 26th October and again urged the necessity of immediate action in either ef-
fectively