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to be nominated to these posts. This may create
some difficulty as the appointment of the chief
Customs officials rests, and must rest, with the Chinese
Government who would gravely resent any arrangement
which gave the Japanese a deciding voice in their
selection; but some informal consultation might be
arranged by which the officers recommended for appoint-
ment might be mutually notified.
The Japanese Government are also pressing for an
increase in the number of Japanese cfficials in the
customs service and they appear to aim at securing at
least as many Japanese as there are British officials
employed. This is perhaps not unreasonable from their
point of view, but we also wish to secure fresh re-
cruitment of British officials, no new appointments
having been made for over ten years. The Japanese
oppose this on the ground that it will render more
äifficult the additional recruitment of Japanese
officials which they desire. Evt if we agreed in
principle to their desiderata, no doubt some compromise
could be arranged, by which, say, one new British
official would be appointed to every two additional
Japanese officials, until the two nationalities were
equally represented. (At the same time, a certain
number of appointments would also have to be made of
other nationalities.)
I have suggested that advantage should be taken
of Sir H. Knatchbull Hugessen's visit to Tokyo to
secure an agreement between us and the Japanese
authorities on the above lines. There would still
remain the question how the Chinese Government could
be persuaded to give effect to such an arrangement.
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