CO129-451 - Public Offices - 1918 — Page 307

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Coples of this correspondence are enclosed herewith and

subject to the views of Your Excellency's Government, I would venture to recommend that advantage be taken of this declaration by the Chinese Government to clinch matters by acceptance of the Chinese proposal and this secure the conclusion of the Agreement.

I have had no communication from the Foreign uffice on the subject since I transmitted to them on September 23rd 1916 a copy of the draft Agreement as enclosed in. Your Excellency's despatch of 11th September of that year, but I assume that His Majesty's Government have informed you of their approval of the Agreement in its present form and that should you so desire, their approval of the addition now proposed by the Chinese Government could be obtained

by telegraph.

In view of the long delays which the frequent politi- cal upheaval in China have hitherto imposed on these nego- tiations I should be glad to see the Convention concluded

As soon as possible, before any fresh change of Government has time to introduce fresh complications and if Your Excel- lency will be good enough to furnish me with your views on the present position of this question as seen from Hong- kong, I shall be happy to render every assistance and to telegraph for any instructions which may be necessary to enable arrangements for signature to be made.

I also take this opportunity to transmit for your in- formation copy of a despatch recently addressed by His Majesty's Ambassador at Tokyo to the Foreign Office in which allusion is made to the views of the Chilean Minister on the sub- ject of the inclusion of "saltpetre" in Article, 5.

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It is perhaps unfortunate that saltpetre which in the original drafts of the Customs Agreement was classed with salt, should now have found its way back among the explosive and if you consider that there are any means short of re- opening the whole negotiations by which an alteration in Article 5 could be obtained, I shall be glad to do what I can here, but this conclusion of the Agreement should not in my opinion be delayed for this purpose alone.

I have &c.,

P.S.

(Signed)

J.N.Jordan.

I might add that an English translation of the whole draft Agreement made from the Chinese text appeared in the local press here in September 20th last and it is presumably from this source that the Chilean Minister obtained his information.

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