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17
3.
Apart from the China Navigation Company's steamers
the tonnage registered in the United Kingdom and trading to
Chinese waters is mainly of the ocean-going type, and includes
ships of lines like the P. & O., Blue Funnel, Canadian Pacific,
Ben Line, etc. Obviously if the tonnage of ships belonging
to such lines trading to Chinese waters is taken into account
it would outweigh the tonnage on Hong Kong registry even when
account is taken of the fact that only a small proportion of
these fleets would be in Chinese waters at any one time.
4.
It is difficult to say with any degree of accuracy without considerable investigation the volume of such tonnage
involved, but it would appear that about 50 ocean-going
vessels of 350/400,000 tons gross or say approximately
250,000 net might be expected to be found in or near Chinese
waters at any given date. These figures are, however, not
limited to vessels on United Kingdom registry, and would probably
include a small proportion of vessels registered in the
Dominions etc., e.g. India and Australia.
5.
It thus appears that the British interest as a whole
greatly outweighs the purely local interest of Hong Kong in
this matter; and even if the larger steamers trading in
Chinese waters are omitted from consideration, as not being
liable to piracy to the same extent as smaller vessels, the
China....