CO129-495 - Governor Sir Clementi - 1926 [11-12] — Page 466

This Document is the Property of His Britannic Majesty's Government, and should be

returned to the Foreign Office if not required for official use.]

10/10).

Cypher telegram to Lir Racleay (Peking),

Foreign Offico, 13th January, 1936.

io.17.

456

8.45 p.m.

Your telegrems los.1 en 2 (of January 5th: British policy at Tariff Conference).

Cur change of policy was only put forward tentatively. There is no intention of springing it on the conference. If adopted it would have to be done in consultation with the Powers probably in London. No charge of bad faith could therefore justly be 191d.

Without wishing to minimise the force of your arguments against it we are not yet convinced that it saould be definitely abandoned before it has been probed a little further.

While we fully appreciate your efforts to secure abolition of likin and shall welcome any success you may obtain in that direction it seems to us that the grant of tariff autonomy in the immediate future has radically changed the situation and has to a large extent relegated likin and unsecured debts into the background, The question which now appears to us to overshadow all others is whether or not the vastly increased revenues resulting from tariff autonomy shall continue to be collected and controlled by the

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