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foreign plant or machinery to be used is indistinguishable
from a prohibition of importation and is open to all the
objections which characterise such a prohibition.
Loreover
it will be within the recollection of the Secretary of State
that His Majesty's Government have decided to ratify
unconditionally the Convention for the abolition of Export
and Import Prohibitions and Restrictions. In the se circum-
stances the Board think it would be difficult to justify
the proposed prohibition.
The Board appreciate and welcome the desire of Hong-
Kong to give an effective preference to the United Kingdom,
and the main purpose of their letter was to suggest some
alternative means of achieving the same end which was not
open to the objections they indicated. The Board recognise
that as Hong-Kong has hitherto been a free port there may
be some traditional obstacle to the imposition of a tariff on foreign motor omnibuses. but the Hong-Kong Government are prepared to impose the much more drastic exception to their traditional regime, of a complete prohibition, the Board would urge that the same result should be obtained by the more convenient and more justifiable means of a duty. The Board indeed gathered from your letter of April 12th last that, at that time, Mr. Ame ry felt that the particular
method
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