CO129-458 - Public Offices & Others - 1919 — Page 172

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HONGKONG & SHANGHAI BANKING CORPORATION,

9, Gracechurch Street, London, E.0.3.

3rd December, 1919.

With reference to our letter to you of 26th August and your reply thereto (No. 6686) of 2nd September, also to the notification appearing in the London Gazette of 24th October, 1919, under the heading of the Treaty of Peace Act, 1919, may we ask your ruling on the following points:-

Sec. I.(Subsec. ii.) This section states, among other

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things: "Any person interested in any such debt or debtor or

creditor shall have no such communication with any persons interested therein as creditor or debtor except through or by leave of the Clearing Office."

In this connection we are anxious to know what is the position of our Hamburg branch when the Treaty of Peace becomes operative: are they allowed to communicate with German debtors and/or creditors in regard to the Bank's pre-war outstandings? Mr. R. E. N. Padfield, as you are aware, is at present in Hamburg investigating the affairs of the Bank's Hamburg Branch, and we are desirous of giving him full information on the procedure to be followed.

P

In the Schedule Sec. III., Art.296(e), it is stated that

"The provisions of this Article and of the Annex hereto shall not apply as between Germany on the one hand and any one of the Allied and Associated Powers, their colonies or protectorates, or any one of the British Dominions or India on the other hand, unless within a period of one month from the deposit of the ratifications of the present Treaty by the Power in question, or of the ratification on behalf of such Dominion or of India, notice to that effect is given to Germany by the Government of such Allied or associated Power or of such Dominion or of India, as the case may be."

As you are aware, we have Branches in India, China and the East, and we presume that Hongkong, Straits Settlements and Ceylon will be included in the "Dominions," but does "Protectorate" coverplaces (say) in China and Siam, where extra-territoriality exists?

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