CO129-476 - Acting Governor Claud Severn & Governor Sir Stubbs - 1922 [8-12] — Page 208

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Sir G.

Government inposed a special tax on shipowners, Grindle was prepared to admit this, but he pointed out that this was a disability shared in war-time by HongKong with home shipowners, and that it could not be avoided, He observed that it was only for technical reasons',

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not specially affecting HongKong, that it had been decided not to apply the Imperial Indemnity Act to the Colonies, and that as a matter of fact such a course had been very sericusly considered, The HongKong Ordinance was a piece of Imperial policy, which no Secretary of State was likely to reverse, and it was inconceivable that it should be disallowed. He added that, to put matters quite bluntly, the disposal of the profits was immaterial so long as the object - that the shipowers should not get them

was attained.

Some discussion followed, arising out of the point that the profits had not been paid into general revenue (as here) but were held in a suspense account. Mr.Burroughs intimated that his firm (a Shanghai one) might have acquiesced in the money being spent on definitely "war"

when a proposal was made that it should purposes, but that be devoted to housing the poor of Kowloon, they were roused into testing the legal position. Hence the Wollowra case. Sir G. Grindle however took the view that this was in fact merely a point of accounting and not of any real importance. Mr. Borroughs and Mr. Burkill then reverted to the point of war risk insurance. Mr. Burkill said that heavy payments were made to insurance companies, his firm having no knowledge that the Government would insure. He denied any knowledge of any letter such as that in 34042/18

enclosure

enclosure F in which this question is dealt with (paragraph 11 of letter and paragraph 19 of enclosed Charter Party). He contended that for this and other reasons, such as the high China exchange, firme concerned, his firm at any rate, had done far worse than home shipomers, and had in fact suffered heavy losses, in spite of the extra allowance over blue bock rates authorised for the Far East by Colonel

Thompson. Mr. Eushe expressed some difficulty in under-

standing this.

W

Mr. Borroughs said that it was unfortunate that the HongKong Government had not explained the position so fully and clearly as it had been set out now by Sir G. Grindle. Reference was made to negotiations with Mr. Fletcher, and to an offer of division of profits on a 50/50 basis said to

have been made by the HongKong Government but turned dow

by the Unofficials, Mr. Burroughs said that, as Sir G.

Grindle had pointed out that the Government's intention wES

that HongKong shipowners should not be better off than

those in this country, it might be argued that in that case they outhg not to be worse off, and asked if the position

could not be considered on that basis.

W

Sir G. Grindle said that any offer on the lines

referred to above, even if it had been decided upon by the Colonial Government would undoubtedly have failed to secure the Secretary of State's sanction. He could not accept Mr. Burrough's corollary that HongKong shipowners ought not to be the worse off, all that His Majesty's Government had settled was that they ought not to be better off than those in this country, but he considered that if the shipowners could satisfy the HongKong Government that they were in

fact