CO129-509-5 Applications by Japanese fishermen to use Hong Kong as a base 16-1-1928 - 9-8-1928 — Page 41

NQ SIFCRET (2).

Copies to

Tokyo.

.-in-C.

Copy t

ady

*8 MAR 1928

Sir,

1928 OFFICE

527982

40

GOVERNMENT HOUSE,

HONGKONG 16th January, 1928.

کیسی

38973/18

With reference to the late Sir Henry May's confidential despatch of 10th June, 1918, on the subject

of Japanese-owned craft basing deep sea fishing

organisations on the Colony, I have the honour to forward

for your information recent developments of this question.

The point on which the 1918 application

2.

turned was the expediency of permitting Japanese craft to

fish in the territorial waters of the Colony to the

possible embarrassment of the local fishing industry; but

the permits originally granted were later not renewed, as a consequence of revelations concerning the smuggling of opium. Throughout there was an undercurrent of suspicion

in the minds both of the Colonial Government and of the

Naval Authorities that these activities of the Japanese fishing fleet might prove dangerous in the event of possible future hostilities.

3.

In 1926 the question arose again in an

application to base a high-seas motor trawling business

on Hong Kong, by Messrs. Hayashi and Company of Nagasaki,

THE RIGHT HONOURABLE

LIEUTENANT COLONEL L.C .M.S. AMERY, M.P.,

&c.,

&c.,

&c.

forwarded