59.
146
made by the Executive Council) and subsequently
placed before the Chinese Government who decided
they could only grant the inland water navigation
privileges under Article b to Chinese-flag ships,
and that only in a separate exchange of notes.
Mr. Maze was also instructed to offer that, as
regards Chinese produce from a Chinese treaty port
trans-shipped in Hongkong en route to another
Treaty Port, the privileges as to non-forfeiture
of status should be extended also to the extent of
permitting such goods to be trans-shipped in
Hongkong into junks or railway trains, which would
stimulate Junk traffic, as it would enable arrange-
ments to be made by which Chinese goods trans-
shipped at Hongkong and conveyed thence by junk
should not as now come under the new National
Import Tariff. These offers did not meet with a
favourable response from Hongkong. The Government
said it would await the offer of further concessions
from Mr. Mase.
65. The Hongkong Government did not provide us
with minutes of the conferences at which they then
proceeded to revise the July draft again, but the
actual results of the revision as they appear in
the November draft (also attached) are shown below.
66. The draft was altered to limit, as in the
original Harris draft, the inland navigation
privileges under Article 5 to non-open ports on the coasts of lwangtung and Lwangmi, The clause
in Article 6 dealing with free carriage of Chinese
mails, to non-open ports, inserted by special
/request