COPY.
DEACON & CO. LTD.
Messrs. Butterfield & Swire,
Hong Kong.
HONG KONG, 3rd November, 1939.
PRIVATE & CONFIDENTIAL
37
NB
Dear Sirs,
The writer confirms his conversation of 1st November with
you and, as requested, gives hereunder a resume of the information obtained regarding the tug-and-lighter service between Canton and
Hong Kong recently organised by Sino-Japanese firms.
Several weeks ago certain Japanese acting presumably
either under the instructions of or with the connivance of the
Japanese Naval and Military Authorities decided to make use of two large steel lighters which have been lying at anchor in Canton harbour for over twelve months. These lighters, onthe hulls of
which the Portuguese flag is painted, have, we understand, a cargo capacity of some 500 measurement tons. It appears that the original intention of the party making use of these lighters was to tow them by steam launch flying the Japanese flag from Canton to Nam Tau - a small peninsula in Chinese territory just north of the Kowloon leased Territories, and there to load them with sleepers and rails which formerly comprised a portion of the track of the Chinese section of the Canton-Kowloon railway. These materials were then towed back to Canton and discharged at Wongsha where they are apparently to be utilised in re-laying a section of the Canton-
In addition to these Hankow Railway track torn up by the Chinese.
railway materials we are informed that certain quantities of Salt and Flour also found their way up to Canton in these lighters, having been towed first to Nam Tau in Hong Kong registered lighters by a Hong Kong registered tug and there transhipped.
A few such trips having been successfully made, the interested party working with Chinese then began canvassing in a small way by means of friends and brokers for merchandise for shipment from Canton to Hong Kong via Nam Tau.
When the first