In any further communication on this subject, please quote
No. 5412/37/10
and address-
not to any person by name,
but to-
The Under-Secretary of State."
Foreign Office,
London, S.W.1.
RECEIVED
- 70CT 1030
COL.
COL.OFFIC
40 40
FOREIGN OFFICE.
S.W. 1.
6th October, 1930.
36
Sir,
•
Secretary Henderson to refer to
N7.
I am directed by Mr.
Foreign Office letter F 5168/37/10 of the 25th ultimo and
to connected correspondence relating to the proposed Hongkong-
China Customs Agreement, and to transmit to you herewith, for
the information of the Secretary of State for the Colonies, a
copy of a further telegram from His Majesty's minister in China,
from which Mr. Henderson concludes that the terms of the
proposed agreement have been settled between the Governor of
Hongkong and the Inspector General of the Chinese Maritime
Customs.
2.
Mr. Henderson, as at present advised, is not inclined
to favour Sir M. Lampson's suggestion that the signatories
should be the Governor of Hongkong or alternatively His Majesty's
Minister in China of the one part, and the Inspector General
of the Chinese Maritime Customs of the other; but he will
defer forming a definite opinion on this point till he is in
possession of the text of the proposed agreement, which he
apprehends may involve, by implication at least, questions,
such as sovereignty, of general importance.
The two precedents
to which Sir Miles Lampson refers are respectively thirty and
twenty-three years old, and, apart from the question of the
merits of the form adopted at the time of their signature,
appear to have little or no value as indications of the course
which should be followed at the present time.
13
The Under-Secretary of State,
Colonial office.