CO129-517-1 Administration and function of Chinese Maritime customs- prevention of smuggling across Chinese frontiers 7-2-1929 - 15-11-1929 — Page 45

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3.

As a matter of fact, the Hongkong Government has

already authorized the Chinese Customs to function at the

Kowloon Railway Terminus where, since 1911, they have

conducted examination work and collected Chinese Custome

Duty, to the convenience and benefit of the British mer-

chant in Hongkong. What Mr. Maze asked was an extension

of this established principle. Moreover, in 1918, a

document known informally as the "Harris Agreement" (after

the Commissioner of Customs who sponsored it), and for-

mally as "The Anglo-Chinese Customs Agreement of Hongkong

was drafted and agreed on at Hongkong, but failed to

obtain ratification owing to political changes in China

due to civil war.

W

4. At the recent Conference at Hongkong Sir Cecil

Clementi read Memoranda detailing the history of the

negotiations and incidents which led up to the "Harris

Agreement", printed drafts of which were laid on the

table. The eighteen artioles of the draft were each

discussed and adopted preliminarily with some amendments

designed to meet present conditions. The Conference was

then adjourned for further study, but it appeared to me

probable that the "Harris" draft Agreement would be adopt-

ed in the main.

5.

On the Hongkong side there appeared to be willing-

ness in the interests of the safeguarding of the Chinese

Customs revenue and of the facilitation of British trade

to make great concessions to permit of a large increase

in the Chinese Customs staff to cooperate in the Colony

and its waters with the Colonial authorities as regards the

extension/

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