CO129-497 - Public Offices - 1926 — Page 48

2.

45

custom houses are located in foreign controlled areas. This argument has some force so far as concerns Dairen but for technical reasons it would be quite possible for Cantonese to place serious difficulties in the way of functioning of maritime customs at Shanghai and Tientsin if they were bent upon transferring its work to customs offices of their own outside settlements.

Japanese Minister voiced afresh objections to what would be in effect unconditional grant of Washington sur- taxes with which you are already familiar and enquired if illegal surtaxes were regularized as you desire and Cantonese subsequently tried to double or treble them,

I said in present at what point you would make a stand. state of flux it was useless to try to lay down rigid policy for hypothetical circumstances, but that we should all be in a less assailable position to resist such increases once we had got the so called Washington sur-

tax promise out of the way.

P.O.

The position was discussed with both at great length, but their statements contained nothing new, not worth reporting in detail and give little hope of

to change of attitude on the part of their governments, which they are referring afresh.

are

It would be desirable to instruct His Majesty's Representatives at Tokyo and Washington to make urgent representations to the Japanese and United States governments, but the questions involved are so complex and technical that any detailed discussion at Tokyo and Washington would probably only lead to confusion.

You will of course realize that the maintenance of the Inspector General and customs machinery is not an

argument

...