CO129-542-1 China- traffic in arms 31-10-1932 - 9-2-1934 — Page 148

2.

510m

82769

145

1932. On the other hand if the Company's statement was

incorrect and that of the Foreign Office correct it seemed to

follow that the machines could only have been exported from the

United Kingdom with the approval of the Board of Trade and

consequently with the authority of the Chinese Minister if

that were a condition precedent to the approval of the Board.

2. Further it would have been possible though inconvenient

for the Company to remove these warlike fittings before the

machines left Hong Kong, in which case the position would have

become as described by Sir Miles Lampson in the final paragraph

of his despatch to the Foreign Office No.1494(93/10) dated the

9th October, 1931, and relating to the exportation from Hong

Kong to Canton of three Armstrong Whitworth Aeroplanes.

circumstances it did not appear to the Officer Administering

the Government necessary to insist on the Company's having

recourse to this subterfuge.

3.

In the

Moreover the Barcelona Convention and Statute on

freedom of transit has an important bearing on this matter.

Under Article 1 of the Statute goods shall be deemed to be "in

transit" across territory under the sovereignty or authority of

one of the contracting states when the passage across such

territory with or without transhipment, warehousing, breaking

bulk or changing the mode of transport is only a portion of a

complete journey beginning and terminating beyond the frontier

of the state across whose territory the transit takes place.

It is true that Article 5 allows an exemption in

favour of goods of a kind which might be prejudicial to the

state through which they pass, also to goods, and in particular

arms, the restriction of which may be the subject of general

International Conventions, but the transit of arms or armed

aeroplanes through Hong Kong does not constitute any danger to

the Colony, and the only International Convention relating to