2.
391
for me to come to Hong Kong till late in the autumn, though
if we could arrange a meeting earlier at Shanghai or else-
where, I should of course most cordially welcome it. It
is, I know, too much to expect you to come to Peking for
some time to come, but I hope you will manage it some day
before 1 leave the place. it is still, in many ways, as
fascinating as ever.
3.
The more I have got to know about this question
of the Customs agreement, the more I have come to suspect
that the view you express in your letter is the right one,
and that the right thing to do is to drop the agreement,
and to start afresh to consider the matter from a new
angle, concentrating on removing as far as possible any
grounds for complaint the Chinese may have on the
smuggling score. I cannot see that this is impossible on
the lines of the Lloyd scheme ( about which however I
know nothing), provided there is sufficient goodwill on
both sides, though of course I cannot pretend to foresee
all the technical difficulties that may arise. I have
said this in a recent, perhaps rather smug, despatch to
the Foreign Office, of which a copy will have been sent to
you. I have felt from the start and said to the
Foreign Office- that there was more than meets the eye in
the insistence of the Chinese to get a firm footing for
their Customs service in Hong Kong, and that the
'irredentist' danger was a real one; on the other hand, the
Hong Kong Government seem in the past to have laid them-
selves open to blame in frequently encouraging the Chinese
to believe that they were ready to swallow their pride on
this point provided the price paid were big enough, and
then withdrawing at the last moment. I agree with you
that