44
3.
As a matter of fact, the Hongkong Government has
already authorized the Chinese Customs to function at the
Kowloon Railway Terminus where, since 1911, they have
conducted examination work and collected Chinese Custome
Duty, to the convenience and benefit of the British mer-
chant in Hongkong. What Mr. Maze asked was an extension
of this established principle. Moreover, in 1918, a
document known informally as the "Harris Agreement" (after
the Commissioner of Customs who sponsored it), and for-
mally as "The Anglo-Chinese Customs Agreement of Hongkong
was drafted and agreed on at Hongkong, but failed to
obtain ratification owing to political changes in China
due to civil war.
W
4. At the recent Conference at Hongkong Sir Cecil
Clementi read Memoranda detailing the history of the
negotiations and incidents which led up to the "Harris
Agreement", printed drafts of which were laid on the
table. The eighteen artioles of the draft were each
discussed and adopted preliminarily with some amendments
designed to meet present conditions. The Conference was
then adjourned for further study, but it appeared to me
probable that the "Harris" draft Agreement would be adopt-
ed in the main.
5.
On the Hongkong side there appeared to be willing-
ness in the interests of the safeguarding of the Chinese
Customs revenue and of the facilitation of British trade
to make great concessions to permit of a large increase
in the Chinese Customs staff to cooperate in the Colony
and its waters with the Colonial authorities as regards the
extension/
1