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His Excellency: I presume you have a copy of it?
r. right: Nothing ever came of it.
His
cellency. This was communicated semi-officially
by Ir. Harris.
(Mr. Southern then read r. Herris' letter (to . Fletcher dated 7th December 1920.
His Excellency: I may mention that it will be necessary
for the Hong Kong Government to stipulate that during the duration of the proposed Convention
the Commissioner of Chinese Customs in Hong Kong
should continue to be British, I regard that as an
essential part of this Agreement. It appears in
Article 16 of the draft. Then there are two other
things which have happened officially during the
last few months. You will recollect that Sir Miles
Lampson recently initiated negotiations in Nanking with Mr. C.T. Tng for conclusion of an Anglo-Chinese
Commercial Treaty, In the British draft of that
Treaty there is one clause which specially concerns
Hong Kong. It reads :-
"Any goods whatsoever sent from one place in
"China to another place in China via Hong Kong,
"even if unloaded there, shall as regards the
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payment of Customs duties be treated as if
"they had been sent direct, provided that no
duties or charges are levied on such goods
by