CO129-521-13 Chinese Customs- proposed agreement with Hong Kong 27-8-1930 - 16-10-1930 — Page 41

In any further communication on this subject, please quote

No. 5412/37/10

and address-

not to any person by name,

but to-

The Under-Secretary of State."

Foreign Office,

London, S.W.1.

RECEIVED

- 70CT 1030

COL.

COL.OFFIC

40 40

FOREIGN OFFICE.

S.W. 1.

6th October, 1930.

36

Sir,

•

Secretary Henderson to refer to

N7.

I am directed by Mr.

Foreign Office letter F 5168/37/10 of the 25th ultimo and

to connected correspondence relating to the proposed Hongkong-

China Customs Agreement, and to transmit to you herewith, for

the information of the Secretary of State for the Colonies, a

copy of a further telegram from His Majesty's minister in China,

from which Mr. Henderson concludes that the terms of the

proposed agreement have been settled between the Governor of

Hongkong and the Inspector General of the Chinese Maritime

Customs.

2.

Mr. Henderson, as at present advised, is not inclined

to favour Sir M. Lampson's suggestion that the signatories

should be the Governor of Hongkong or alternatively His Majesty's

Minister in China of the one part, and the Inspector General

of the Chinese Maritime Customs of the other; but he will

defer forming a definite opinion on this point till he is in

possession of the text of the proposed agreement, which he

apprehends may involve, by implication at least, questions,

such as sovereignty, of general importance.

The two precedents

to which Sir Miles Lampson refers are respectively thirty and

twenty-three years old, and, apart from the question of the

merits of the form adopted at the time of their signature,

appear to have little or no value as indications of the course

which should be followed at the present time.

13

The Under-Secretary of State,

Colonial office.