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You will see from the wording of the contract, that we have no redress against the seller, but we have bought the metal practically on the guarantee of the Government laboratory at Hong Kong, and we maintain that the guarantee given in the contract is the Government guarantee that their sampling and assaying are correct. In the foregoing two cases, however, these have proved to be at fault.
For your information, we give you herewith copies of correspondence received from assayers which will show you that from the English assaying point of view, the sampling on the other side has been at fault, and the whole trouble has no doubt arisen through the drill holes in the original samples not having been made deep enough into each ingot to give` a proper representative result.
We shall be obliged if you will kindly put this matter before the right Authorities, and we beg to say that we think we have a perfectly bona fide case for damages against the Hong Kong laboratory.
The broad question opened up by this matter is that whereas in the past the merchant who has been handling Chinese Tin has felt that he was safe in buying metal guaranteed by the Hong Kong Government, unless some explanation and redress are forthcoming in these cases, it will undoubtedly act as a very great deterrent for any of the firms dealing in metals from running the risk of buying on Hong Kong laboratory analyses.
If there are any further points which you desire to help to elucidate the matter, we are entirely at your disposal.
Yours faithfully,
per pro HENRY GARDNER & CO. LTD.,
W. Grindlay,
P.S.
Our contention is that samples should be taken by ingots being sawn and not drilled.