COPY.
Enclosure
377
No. 7.
Sir,
0
B. M. Consulate-General,
107gton February 24, 1914
Rear 21
Red 23 MAR 14
In accordance with the instructions contained in your despatch No. 5 of the 11th. instant, I have the honour to submit the following observations on the Green Island Cement Company's claim on the Chinese Government.
The supplies of stone contracted for, it is said, would have been converted into cement by way 24, 1913, and the loss sustained by the embargo placed on export and the consequent failure to realise profits on sales of cement, based on the contract price of stone has been estimated at £512,378. Consequential damage was put down at $100000 and demurrage on junks stopped by the Govern.ent at $7,459, making a total of 8619,387.
Since the date above-mentioned a regdar monthly clain
in respect of estimated loss of profit on 70,000 casks, at the rate of 81.00 per cask, has been presented.
-
As regards the first section of the original claim, I sm of opinion that it is a justifiable one, provided the company can prove its figures, because they had every right to expect that out- -standing contracts would be fulfilled. That in fact they were not, was undoubtedly due to the action taken by the Provincial Government in power in 1912. The latter, it is true, contended that: firstly they were within their rights, inasmuch as they held that the contractors were infringing the mining laws and being Chinese subjects were punish- -able for their wrongful acts: secondly that they did not recognise the company in the master and thirdly that the remedy for the latter was to sue the former for breach of contract owing to failure to deliver. This plausible defence for the attitude taken up, one would ordinarily have had to accept, had it not been for the terus of the proclamation issued by the Tutu, which created a monopoly in favour of the Canton Cement Works and in effect absolutely stopped export.
The claim for consequential damage must be abandoned and
No comments yet.
Private notes are available after approval.