CO129-480 - Governor Sir Stubbs - 1923 [4-7] — Page 203

Enclosure {

Copy.

THE CHINESE MERCHANTS BANK, LTD.

To

200

Saigon, 31st May, 1923.

Sir . E. Stubbs,

H. I. The Governor of Hongkong,

Hongkong.

Froellency:-

I beg to have received your Excellency's letter of the 28th February, 1923, transmitted to me through the Colonial Secretary of Hongkong, relative to the subject of 111-treatment by the Immigration Office at Saigon. I thank your Excellency for the kindness of calling the attention of the British Consul-General in this port to the subject and of instructing him to deal with this serious situation. I regret to state, however, that inspite of the fact that the British Consul-General Mr. Drummond Hogg has taken up the matter with the French Authorities here, nothing has been done to ameliorate the actual state of affairs in any definite manner. On being inquired for the reason that the Japanese, in contradistinction to other Asiatics, are exempt from the requirements of the Immigrat- ion Office, the French Officials declared that Japan and France had a treaty by which the Japanese were to be treated on the same footing as Biropeans. The Japanese and the Chinese are both of the yellow race, and if the Japanese are not required to comply with the formalities of the Immigration Office, it is unreasonable that a British Subject like myself, though of Chinese parentage, should be humiliated by being subjected to ill-treatment, for from the legal standpoint a British Subject is a European regardless of his parentage. I am as truly a British

Subject