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whole matter at his finger ends and recalled the
correspondence of 1930. As regards the issue of
denationalisation certificates, he assured me that there
would be no difficulty;
if all was in order and the
requirements of the Law were met, the obtaining of a
certificate was merely a routine matter. But, as
regards the proposed exemption for transient visitors,
it was impossible to make any departure from the principles
of the Law.
77. I pressed the point of view of the Singapore
authorities at some length and I urged the reasonableness
of the proposals made in 1930 and the desirability of
reaching a final settlement along some such lines. In
the course of my arguments I also referred to the
arrangement which we knew to be in existence between
the Chinese and Netherlands Governments under which Dutch
subjects of Chinese origin from the Dutch East Indies
returning to China for brief periods were registered and
protected by the Dutch Consuls. The Minister for
Foreign Affairs and Mr. Hsu Mo replied that that arrangement
was made more than twenty years ago before the present
Nationality Law had been promulgated; and they added
that the Chinese Government could not possibly follow
the precedent of so out-of-date an arrangement of which
they were in any case trying to disembarrass themselves.
8. The conversation concluded by my requesting the
Minister for Foreign Affairs to look into the matter
further and give me a definite reply to my letter to Dr.
Wang