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Your Excellency is doubtless acquainted with the existing conditions at Kiao- chau, where the extent of the free area is about 1 square mile (English), covering a narrow fringe along the harbour limits, and including wharves and duty-free godowns, where merchants have their stocks of material ready for use in "public and official works" and for re-export.
In a memorandum prepared for the commissioner of customs at Dairen, the commissioner at Kiao-chan states:-
"The principal advantage gained by the Kiao-chau customs under the additional agreement is a practically perfect control over all goods, imported and exported, such as exists in no other port in China and would be considered up to date in any foreign country. The expenses of collection are reduced to a minimum, as the otherwise indispensable frontier control is avoided, and, last not least, friction between Customs and colonial Government is reduced to a minimum. The advantages gained by the colonial Government are:---
"1. A reliable revenue of 20 per cent. of all import duties-a very liberal Pacht- calculation of the duties on foreign and native goods consumed in the Gebiet '--and without any collection expenses.
"2. Through having the Chinese customs within the Pacht-Gebiet,' a certain amount of influence over its management.
"3. Ships and goods have all the privileges as in treaty ports and other advantages resulting from the free area system, which simplifies customs work to the advantage of all concerned.
'Agents and shippers, I should mention, have often expressed their satisfaction with the manner in which customs work is done here."
I have, &c.
HUGH HORNE.
C O 5712
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[This Document is the Property of His Britannic Majesty's Government.1350
AFFAIRS OF CHINA.
CONFIDENTIAL.
[1985]
No. 1.
[January 18.]
SECTION 1.
India Office to Foreign Office.-(Received January 18.)
THE Under-Secretary of State for India presents his compliments to the Under- Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, and, by direction of the Earl of Crewe, forwards herewith, for the information of the Secretary of State, copy of a telegram to Viceroy, dated the 16th January, 1911, relative to Burmah-China frontier.
India Office, January 17, 1911.
Enclosure in No. 1.
The Earl of Crewe to Government of India.
(Telegraphic.) P.
BURMAH-CHINA frontier.
India Office, January 16, 1911. Please see telegram, dated the 15th instant, from His Majesty's Minister at Peking. Mention of the Ngawchang suggests that line proposed in 1905 by Shih is being reverted to by the Chinese. Reference is also invited to note, dated the 30th August, 1906, from Prince Ching. Following should, I am inclined to think, be the reply. In 1905 Litton and Shih jointly examined the country in question, and nothing was revealed by examination to modify the views which His Majesty's Government had communicated to the Chinese Government previously. Accordingly Sir E. Satow, in his note of the 1st May, 1906, reaffirmed those views. His Majesty's Government have now acted on the intimation made in the note of the 1st May, 1906, as the Chinese Government have found no more effective proposal to make in four years than that country which has already been examined should be examined further. An expedition has proceeded to Pien-ma, and we are peaceably administering the country up to the watershed. We are prepared to examine at Peking with the Chinese Government, with whom it now rests to show cause why we should not act as we are doing, any evidence in substantiation of claims to particular villages between the Ngawchang line and the watershed which they may wish to produce.
Please let me have your views. In case Shih's line is pressed by the Chinese, it is desirable that you should furnish a reasoned statement of the objections to that line for the use of His Majesty's Minister at Peking.
[1850 ~1]
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