3.
25
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functioning at present - the revenue collection at the Customs Stations in the now "occupied" area of Namtao to Shatowkok is nil for the time being they are merely preventive Stations).
to
The Japanese Consul-General at Hongkong, however, refused categorically to entertain the Commissioner's proposals; challenged what he termed his reluctance assume responsibility; and informed him that in the event of his acceptance of the Japanese demands to hand over control of the Head Office, etc., resulting in his dismissal by the Chungking Government, far from being unemployed, he might rest assured of "a larger port" but, he added, failure to comply would have serious consequences.
The actual Customs position to-day, therefore, is identical to that of October, 1939. But the gravity of the situation is considerably increased by the worsened political situation in Eur pe and the Far East. The Japanese are chiefly concerned not with the actual re- opening of the Customs Stations on the Frontier, but - in obtaining effective control over the Head Office in Hongkong, and in this they are apparently determined to gain their end, or, failing to do so, to disrupt the entire Customs Service. They are aware that it is not within their competence to apply force in the Colony or to bring the Mirs Bay Customs stations under their control by force without permanently occupying that area - an expensive undertaking requiring the maintenance of a considerable force (to deal with the numerous Guerilla hordes in the neighbourhood) which they appear anxious to avoid; but they are equally well aware that it is possible to make the Inspector General's position in "occupied" China more or less untenable, and it is this implied threat that is being advanced or hinted. Indirectly, but through an unimpeachable source, it has been intimated that refusal to comply with the present demands for Japanese control over the Kowloon Customs demands which are to be repeated in connection with the Lappa Customs which has its Head Office in Macao the Inspector General may be regarded by the Japanese as persona non grata; end, this being so, when the Japanese Government accord the Wang Ching Wei Government official recognition - which step it is reported they intend to take soon the latter may execute their original intention and call upon Sir Frederick Maze to declare his willingness to forsake the Chungking Government and serve the Nanking regimė; while the new Foreign Minister in Japan (Mr. Matsuoka), who is said to consider himself under some form of obligation to Mr. A. H. F. Edwardes (who acted as Officiating Inspector General for a brief time after Sir Francis Aglen left; and who, it is reliably asserted, has been, and is now acting unofficially as a sort of Liaison Officer between the Japanese Embassy in London and the British Foreign Office) has advocated on more than one occasion that Mr. Edwardes be invited to return to China to replace Sir Frederick Maze in the "occupied area", in the event of the latter persistently declining to accept (officially) office with the de facto authorities in Nanking, after the latter have been formally recognised by Japan.
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