CO129-531-15 Chinese customs- proposed agreement with Hong Kong 9-7-1931 - 17-1-1932 — Page 96

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e measurable distance of being attained. If the

new agreement about to be concluded succeeds, 25

there is every reason to hope, in removing a griev-

ange that has for years been a source of friction

between the Chinese authorities and the Colony, and

which threatened to become an even greater obstruc-

tion to go ed relations in the future, it will be a

matter on which the officers of the Colony and of

the Chinese Karitime Customs concerned will deserve

every congratulation.

2.

The correspondance enclosed in my confiden-

tial letter to ir V. wellesley of the 13th of June

shows that on examination of the question on his

arrival in Hongkong, sir william Peel came to the con-

clusion that it would be wrong to allow the chinese

to run a preventive service of their own in the waters

of the Colony, and that the encouragement such a foot-

ing would give to the "irredentist tendencies of the

Southern Chinese in regard to Hong Kong was a real

danger./