CO129-521-14 Chinese Customs- proposed agreement with Hong Kong 31-10-1930 - 10-1-1931 — Page 6

(* muintes on No.11

72751 A/30.)

معد *

(x

No 6 on

70464/30 Gen?)

was no point in telegraphing these particular

amendments to Hong Kong.

6

Moreover, since the Governor had reported in No.4 that he had reached agreement with Mr. Maze, it seemed very likely that Mr. Maze would have already departed from the Colony, which in itself would have done away with any advantage which there might have been in proceeding as suggested in No.3.

It was accordingly agreed that the only action required at the moment vis-à-vis Hong Kong

is to reply to the last sentence of No.4, and I

submit a draft accordingly.

We also pointed out that the draft

amendments proposed in No.3 were at any rate designed

to turn the draft into an agreement between the United Kingdom and China, but that the authorities

in the Colonial Office had not yet agreed to the

Foreign Office view that the agreement should take

this form. Mr. Mackillop urged, however,

(1) that it would be very undesirable that the agreement should take the form of an agreement between the Hong Kong Government and the Chinese

Government. I agreed with this view, as on a previous recent occasion (in connection with a Palestine-Egyptian Dengue Fever Agreement) we

ourselves had urged on the Foreign Office that an agreement between the Government of a Colony (or other Dependency) and the Government of a foreign

state would be anomalous.

(2) Mr. Mackillop was not enamoured of the idea that the agreement should be between Hong Kong and

the Chinese Maritime Customs, and he also expressed

the view that the Chinese Government would not be

prepared to agree to the agreement taking this

form