2.
was initially occupied by 500 troops only, and that during the
earlier and worst days of intense looting, no Japanese forces
were available to protect property against looting.
3. Prior to the receipt on December 2nd of a letter
from the Bank's Canton agent, it had never been suggested to
me that the Sincere Company claimed British Consular protec-
tion. Certainly no such claim as regards the Canton branch
had ever been made to me either by the manager (a returned
British student) or by any individual, and still less by the
Chinese authorities. To make absolutely certain on this point,
I telegraphed to His Majesty's Consul-General at Shanghai and
received the expected reply that British protection in China had been withdrawn from this company by direction of the
Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs in September, 1937.
4. The answers to the three questions propounded in
paragraph 4 of Sir Vandeleur Grayburn's letter of December
16th to the Colonial Secretary are therefore as follows:
(1) Presumably because there is no genuine British interest in the company (apart from the Bank's mortgage) and because they were regarded, and regarded themselves, as a
Chinese concern in China. It will be appreciated that I have no definite information on this point, but the exact reasons can,
of course, be supplied by His Majesty's Consul-General at
Shanghai.
(2) See China Crder-in-Council of larch 17th, 1925,
Article 221, which reads as follows:-
" (1) A company shall not be entitled to be recognised
or protected as a British company unless it is registered under this Order, but shall, although not so registered, be subject to the jurisdiction or His Majesty's Courts in China.
(2).....
6