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Dear Cowell,
spare.
GOVERN ME NT HOUSE, HONG KONG.
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 so me thing 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 tele graphed 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 of the
amount paid as a drawback on re-exportation. The importers tried
to get this Government to waive payment, being very short of
capital, but I was unable to agree. Subsequently the Hong Kong &
Shanghai Bank came to the ir rescue and the duty was paid down in
the ordinary course.
I hope that we are going to get an answer so on from
you about the use of the road between the border and Canton. Cars
are still using this road and of course without any official warning
of the dangers that be set them.
H.R.COWELL, ESQ., C.M.G.,
COLONIAL OFFICE.
Yours sincerely,
At. kontin
fat.