193
copy.
C.R.T.477/30.
COMMERCIAL RELATIONS AND TREATIES
DEPARTMENT,
BOARD OF TRADE,
GREAT GEORGE STREET,
LONDON, S.W.1.
4th March, 1930.
Sir,
With reference to the Inter-Departmental
meeting held at the Colonial Office on the 20th February
to consider the proposed Customs Areement between China
and Hong Kong, I am directed by the Board of Trade to
state that they have examined further the point raised
by their representative at that meeting regaruing the
wording of article 9 of the agreement.
This article as originally drafted provided
that ¿pods landed in hong Kong in the course of trans-
mission from one treaty port in China to another shoula,
with certain exceptions at the discretion of the Chinese
Customs, be placed in bonded warehouses a reed upon
between the Hong Kong Government and the Chine se
Maritime Customs, in order to secure readmission into
Chinafree of import duty. The provision for bonded warehouses disappears from Article 9 of the draft
Agreement as revi ed and there is sub tituted a provision that all such goods in their original packages, shall be
admitted into China free of import dut, .
While thislatter provision may appear prima
facie more liceral than the earlier one, the Lourd fear
THE UNDER SECRETARY OF STATE,
COLONIAL OFFICE,
3.7.1.
that