COPY
TRANSLATION
No. 48
27
25th March, 1940.
in 27 mm /39
Your Excellency,
I have the honour to protest to Your Excellency with regard to the case in which six vessels belonging to the Ching Kee Steam Navigation Company Limited have been detained in Hongkong and judgment for the dissolution of this Company has been handed down by the Supreme Court of Hongkong.
In spite of the fact that, in reply to a letter addressed by Mr. Kurihara, Director of the East Asia Bureau, to Mr. Dodds Counsellor of the British Embassy, on the 13th May last in which the former expressed his views concerning this case, Mr. Dodds gave an assurance on the 19th May that the contentions of the Japanese interests concerned would receive careful consideration, the Supreme Court of Hongkong passed judgment in disregard of the just contentions of the Ching Kee Company and of the Japanese interests concerned on the 3rd July. Mr. Kurihara accordingly called the attention of Mr. Dodds to the case once more and the Ching Kee Company took proceedings to appeal. I deeply regret to learn that, this notwithstanding, the Supreme Court of Hongkong rejected the appeal on the 5th January last.
Your Excellency must be fully aware from Mr. Kurihara's letter mentioned above that the Japanese side are greatly interested in this case and the action of the Supreme Court of Hongkong in unreasonably ordering the dissolution of a company engaged in its normal and peaceful avocations within the Japanese occupied area and proceeding arbitrarily to dispose of its assets on the basis of the verdict of the Chungking Courts which have actually withdrawn into the interior and which can exercise no authority whatever in the occupied areas, must be described as an unwarrantable procedure which does not conform with the actual situation. This procedure can only be said to be at variance with the declaration of the British Government of the 24th July last which fully recognised the actual situation in China in which large-scale military operations are in progress. Moreover sixty-five per cent of the shares of this company are owned by residents in the Kwantung Leased Territory and Manchukuo and the Dairen Steamship Company have chartered the ships which have been detained. If such procedure as is described above were to be admitted, not only would the rights of the Japanese interests concerned be infringed thereby, but the livelihood of the Chinese population in the Japanese occupied areas would be threatened. This could only be regarded as action
in support of Chiang which the British Government have denied on several occasions and I consider that it will accordingly have an undesirable effect upon Anglo-Japanese relations.
I accordingly protest vigorously against the action of the Supreme Court of Hongkong and demand the immediate release of the six vessels in question.
Hi Excellency
Sir Robert Craigie, K. C. M. G., C. B.,
His Britannic Majesty's Ambassador.
Moreover