Enclosure 6.
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been laid down and in flat disregard of the effect which its action might have upon the Colony's interests. In view of this letter I addressed to His Majesty's Minister at Peking my telegram of 30th July, a copy of which is enclosed,
Enclosures Ill together with copies of the further telegraphic correspond-
141873
ence to which it gave rise.
9.
As stated in my telegram of August 21st, the launch has now been interned and the Canton Authorities have accepted that solution with a very good grace so that the incident may be regarded as closed for the present but
I desire to protest most emphatically against the action of the Salt Gabelle in this matter. Your Grace will readily perceive that for this Government to remain on friendly terms with a neighbouring administration with which it is daily brought into contact but which it is unable to
recognize is by no means an easy task and I submit that we
are entitled to expect that irresponsible third parties should refrain from adding unnecessarily to our difficulties. The Salt Administration had full notice of our objections
to their use of Hongkong as a refuge for their vessels and if, in defiance of our requests and warnings, they insisted
on keeping the "Suinam" here I maintain that we should have been perfectly justified in handing her over to the Canton Authorities, who, as shown by Mr. Eugene Chen's letter, can
make out a fairly good case for claiming her.
I note that His Majesty's Minister considers
that the surrender of the vessel to Canton would have a
bad effect on British prestige in China. I do not share
that view but, assuming it to be correct, I venture to
submit that very much worse results would attend an open
breach with Canton such as must necessarily follow on an attempt, whether successful or unsuccessful, to take possession of her by force. The first result would be the
total cessation of British trade in the provinces over which
Dr.
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