Enclosure No. 6.
20
Copy.
CANADA,
Ottawa, 14th October, 1925.
Sir,
With reference to Your Excellency's despatches
dated the 29th April and 4th May, respectively, on the
subject of action arising out of certain certificates which
had been issued by the Colonial Veterinary Surgeon of Hong
Kong for meats exported to Canada, I have the honour to
inform you that the question has been considered further by
the Department of Agriculture.
The Department of Agriculture relies for
protection upon the certificates themselves, not upon
personal knowledge of the officials who sign them, and it was as to the reliability of the said certificate and not
the efficiency of the officers in charge that its observat-
ions were intended to be directed. The shipments in the Sam
Wo Hing case did not conform with the certificate and it
would clearly not be possible for the Canadian authorities,
under the Statutes governing their action, to continue to accept similar certificates if some method of ensuring such
conformity could not be devised. There was, however, no ground for coming without enquiry to a definite conclusion as to whether the difficulty in this case was due to defects in the system, permitting a substitution after the issue of
a certificate, or to laxity in its enforcement, and in so
His Excellency
Sir R. E. Stubbs, K.C.M.G.,
Governor of Hong Kong,
Victoria, Hong Kong.
far
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