F.3.R. Division, MINISTRY OF WAR TRANSPORT,
7th November, 1942.
126
Dear Ashley Clarke,
Please refer to your letter of the 5th November, F.7522/828/ 10, covering a redraft of the Memorandum to be communicated to the United States Ambassador about inland navigation and coastal trade in China.
We think it is important to dissuade the Chinese and the Americans from pursuing this question now. The matter bears on extensive interests of ours in China but apart from that we do not think it ought to be accepted now that after the war it will be in conformity with international practice for the Chinese to be able to reserve their coasting trade to their own shipping. We have not in fact reserved our coasting trade and in general our interest is to avoid any extension of the practice of restricting coasting trade to a national flag. While the draft article follows the standard practice in our Treaties and does not in fact necessarily imply that the Chinese will restrict trade on their coasts and inland waters to their own flag, nevertheless there is no doubt that this is what the Chinese have in mind at present and the draft would leave it open to them to carry out their project and imply that we had no objection. For the reasons stated above this is far from being the case.
We do not gather from the conversation which Sir Horace Seymour had in Chungking on the subject that the Chinese were pressing this point very hard; and as regards the Americans we do not see how they can be in a position to put pressure upon us to commit ourselves at this stage to a provision which as it is restrictive in character cannot assume will be in conformity with post-war shipping policy amongst enlightened nations.
Ve quite appreciate that it is not possible for H.M. Government to imply that they are intending to stick to the present Treaty Articles on this question. It is one thing to be ready to abolish existing unilateral rights; it is quite another to commit ourselves now to a particular form of mutual agreement. On the awkward question of the effect of the draft Treaty as it stands upon our existing rights in this matter our view is that we ought to avoid discussion of the question unless the Chinese force it on us at this stage.
H. Ashley Clarke, Esq.,