CO129-400 - Governor Sir May - 1913 [3-4] — Page 481

C

IPAJ

COPY.

Translation.

Export of Limestone.

From the Commissioner of Foreign Affairs

474

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To His Majesty's Consul-General, Canton.

March 20, 1913.

The Bureau of Foreign Affairs has the honour to acknow-

-ledge the receipt of H. B. M. Consul-General's communication of

the 3rd. instant, which assumed the form of six questions. This

office has, in conjunction with the Bureau of Industry, gone into

the matter and the replies to the six points are respectively as

follows:-

1. The illicit quarrying in, and transport for export from,

this Province of dark blue limestone and limestone by merchants

and others was prohibited by a proclamation of Ch'en Tu Tu issued

in April 1912.

2. The proclamation in question prohibited merely illicit quarrying and transport but did not, as was alleged in H. B. M.

Consul-General's protest of May 2, 1912, place an embargo on

export and this office accordingly considered themselves under no

necessity to withdraw it.

3. That the Green Island Cement Company should have in

former years contracted for the purchase and export of limestone

and that Chinese subjects should have concurrently illegally

quarried and trensported the said limestone, is certainly no

reason why this Government should refrain from prohibiting the

practice.

4. This Office finds that the Fei Shu Quarry was not the

only one closed down by the late Imperial Government.

Wherever illegal exploitation has beenascertained, the

quarries have already been closed down, for they constituted a

direct contravention of the law, and the same rule will be applied

in the future in the case of any quarry still open, whose owners

in defiance of the regulations work or transport stone without a

permit.