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Foreign Affairs and cannot be affected by any techni-
cal extension of the term "British Subject" which may
have been arrived at by the decision of a British Court
or even by an Act of Parliament.
It is a well known
fact that practically none of our laws or Acts of
Parliament seem to have contemplated the anomalous
state of things caused by extraterritoriality.
I have no wish to criticise the Crown Advocate's
opinion, but if the Hongkong Attorney General is
right, the Secretary of State may lay down for the
guidance of Consular Officers any test he may think
right to be applied to Hongkong Companies before ad-
mitting them to British Consular protection.
That you may not think I am making mountains
out of molehills, I should like to quote a conversa-
tion I had yesterday with a well known solicitor in
Hongkong who has been employed to register three
of these new Companies. After discussing the mat-
ter for some time I said, "But if any seven Chinese
"living in Canton can go and register their business
"as a British Company and claim protection from me,
"I shall have half Canton under my protection within
"a few years. #
"That is exactly what I intend", he
replied: While of course maintaining the right of
such Companies to British protection, he said that
he thought that an objection might fairly be raised
to the Companies being managed by Chinese. The
point struck me as one worthy of attention, for un-
less the manager in China were a British subject,how
could the penalties imposed for breaches of the Or-
dinance be enforced? The registered Office in Hong
kong required under the Act would be, in cases where
the whole property is in China, a mere make believe.
In fact under any circumstances the exercise of
proper control over a Company, whose property is on-
ly in China, and whose directors, officers and mana-
gers are Chinese living in China and out of Consu-
lar jurisdiction, appears absolutely impossible, as
it would be unlikely that the Chinese Authorities
would give their co-operation in an arrangement which
as
takes
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