COLY.
SHANGHAI OPPION OF THE
INDP CTORATE GEM RAL OF CUSTOMS,
91, Hart Road.
STIAMONAT. 20th December 1932.
74
My dear Ingram,
Many thanks for your letter of the 18th
instant regarding the a.s. "Tingseng" opium case at
Tientsin in August last.
I admit that the actual wording of the
Annual Guarantee leaves much to be desired, but the
obvious intention of the document is to place upon the
agent of a steamer, who signe such a document, the full
responsibility for any acts that may be done by any
members of the crew either in actual smuggling or con-
cealing of contraband or in not preventing such mate
which are detrimental to the Chinese revenue.
From the fact that the opium was discovered, not
by any of the employees of the Company or by any of the
arew but by the Customs searching party, and from the fur-
ther foot that a member of the crew and therefore one of
the Company's employees absconded immediately after
discovery, we
ve are surely justified in inferring that th
cealing of the contraband on board was done by a servant of
the Company. If, as the Company maintaina, the Master end
other officers of the 8.8. *ingseng" received "atriot ordere
not to allow any Opium, Salt and/or other contraband or smuggled
goode to be received on board" and if subsequent search by
the Customs revealed
To E.P.3. Ingram aquire,
etc.. etc.,
eta.,
RANKING.
se it did
thet Opium was on
/ board,