16
2.
24
law should be impressed on the Chinese authorities, and if arrangements to this end could not be devised for the whole country at least regional arrangements could be made, for example, in Canton and Shanghai. The desirability of some such arrangements was later urged upon Marshal Li Chai-Sun, head of the Canton Administra- tion, in a conference with Sir Cecil Clementi in Hong Kong on 3rd March, 1928, and again in Canton on March, 9th 1928 when His Majesty's Consul-General and the Canton Commissioner for Foreign Affairs were also
present. In pursuance of the recommendations of these Conferences the Canton Goverment made arrangements for the issue of denationalisation certificates, ធន reported in Mr. Brenan's letter to Sir Kiles Lampson of 12th April, 1928, a copy of which has doubtless reached you from the Foreign Office.
3.
The Canton arrangements I am informed
are working reasonably well and arrangements on similar lines in which this Goverment has concurred are it
is understood now being worked out for the Shanghai region, and it is hoped that the time is not far distant when a general arrangement on the same lines will hold throughout the whole country of China.
4.
It will be observed that the trend of
this arrangement is towards the reservation of the claims of Chinese British subjects to Consular protection in China, within certain new limits, and the arrangement is not of a nature which should give offence to the many loyal Chinese British subjects of Hong Kong to whom the possibility remains of a choice between their two nationalities. It provides promise of a final solution which will be satisfactory to all parties, and it is
therefore