i
2869.
PUBLIC
السيليسيا
ทงกายม
VITICL
Reference :-
TC.O.885
SIR,
No. 38.
(Hong KoNG.)
FOREIGN OFFICE to COLONIAL OFFICE.
Foreign Office, February 16, 1885. EARL GRANVILLE has consulted the Law Officers of the Crown upon the questions raised in your letter of the 23rd ultimo, as to whether vessels of the Messageries Maritimes and Chinese revenue cruisers touching at Hong Kong were to be considered as "public ships" within the meaning of the telegraphic instructions sent to the Governors of the Eastern Colonies; and I am now to state as follows for the information of the Earl of Derby.
The steamers of the Messageries Maritimes are mail steamers, and the Company is subsidized by the French Government. Their steamers enjoy, by virtue of the Postal Convention of 1856 between Great Britain and France, the immunities of foreign vessels of war in British ports, and it is not unlikely that under the Company's contract of subsidy they may be under some obligation to serve the French Govern- ment in time of war, if called on to do so.
Lord Granville would therefore suggest, for Lord Derby's consideration, that the Governor of Hong Kong might be informed that the steamers of the Messageries Maritimes, while continuing to enjoy their treaty immunities, must be treated as passenger ships, provided they take no active part in belligerent operations as trans- ports or otherwise; but that if they should be employed by the French Government to assist the French military operations in China, the fact should be reported home by telegram, with particulars of the services required of them in connexion with the existing hostilities.
With regard to the Chinese revenue cruisers, Lord Granville has communicated by telegram with Her Majesty's Minister at Peking, who reports that the Chinese Government state that these vessels are only employed for the suppression of smuggling and piracy, and are not used for belligerent purposes.
I am to state that under these circumstance Lord Granville does not think that supplying them with coals would be within section 8 of the Foreign Enlistment Act, or "an equipment for war" whereby the warlike force of the ship was increased'
within section 10.
The Under Secretary of State, Colonial Office.
+
I am, &c.,
(Signed)
T. V. LISTER.
15987.-94. 85-12/65.
T
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