CO129-439 - Others - 1916 — Page 537

Any further communication on the subject, please quote

No. 82672/45%

and address

The Controller,

Foreign Trade Department,

Telephone: Gerrard 8640.

URGENT:

532

FOREIGN TRADE DEPARTMENT,

LANCASTER HOUSE,

43475

ST. JAMES,

S.W.

IREC2

sir,

ber 1916.

Res 100010 October

With reference to your letter of the 12th September (43178) and to subsequent correspondence, I am directed by Tiscount Grey of Fallodon to transmit

herewith for the information of the Secretary of State for the Colonies, copy of a letter received from the Ellerman & Bucknall Steanship Co., Ltd.

With regard to the penultimate paragraph of this letter, the Company have been instructed by this Department to arrange for the immediate forwarding of the goods in question to their destination.

It is understood that this will be effected

by the s.s."City of Manila," which is due at Hong Kong

on or about the 17th inst.

I am to request that, should Mr. Secretary Bonar Law see no objection, the Hong Kong authorities may be informed by telegraph of the instructions which have been issued to the Steamship Company.

I am to add for Mr. Secretary Bonar Law's information, that these instructions were conveyed in a mandatory form at the express request of the Company themselves who were apprehensive that, if a vessel of their Line carried the goods forward on the mere suggestion of His Majesty's Government, their legal position in

The Under Secretary of State,

Colonial Office, S.W.