53838/20
16.
18
Copy reed. by
DROIT
Air Mail. No. 8. Hong Kong.
70.8.
RECEIVED
1 TEE 1933
Dear Cowell.
C. C. REGY
Government House.
January 12th, 1938.
You may have wondered why I sent you the telegram
about the Chinese Government's stocks of gasoline (my No.12 of
the 10th January). The fact is that the local Manager of the
Asiatic Petroleum Company came to me that morning, gave me
these facts and wanted me to say something which would enable
him to argue back to his Company in London, hoping to be able
to persuade them to revoke their cabled prohibition against
storage on their premises of the Chinese-owned gasoline in
drums.
However I declined to say anything of the kind,
partly because, as I told him, I thought that the view taken by
the Company in London was quite reasonable and partly because
judging by the terms of the Company's telegram from London it
looked as though there had been some consultation between the
Company's officials and the Foreign or Colonial Office and on
that latter chance I telegraphed the information.
The same gasoline gave rise a little while ago to
the question of the payment of duty, the ordinary procedure
being to pay duty on importation and to receive back the bulk
H.R. COWELL, ESQ., C.M.G.,
COLONIAL OFFICE.
1