CO129-542-12 Smuggling from Hong Kong into China 21-1-1933 - 21-8-1933 — Page 60

Copy.

(F 2751/294/10)

17 MAY 1933

60

';

Shanghai Office of the Inspectorate

General of Customs.

21, Hart Road.

SHANGHAI, 9th November, 1932.

My dear Ingram,

Many thanks for your letter of the 1st instant, which reached me yesterday.

The two recent cases you cite, where British interests

have come into conflict with the Customs, have been fully reported to the Inspectorate, and all the main facts necessary

for a fair consideration of their merits are thus on record.

The first case is that of the attempted Opium smuggling, which took place on 10th August this year at Tientsin, where the Customs Search Party, acting on information, discovered on the I.C.S. Navigation Co's s. s. "Tingsang" thirty pieces of Opium, weighing in all 2,952 taels, valued at Hk. Tls. 5,904. This Opium was concealed in the ship's port bunker under seven feet of coal. The Opium being contraband was naturally con-

fiscated, and the ship owners Messrs. Jardine, Matheson &

Co.

-

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fined Hk. Tls.1,000 on the ground that the terms of

their Annual Guarantee in not preventing the shipment of con- traband had been violated. In view of the seriousness of the

case, the penalty imposed was the maximum laid down in the

Manifest Regulations issued and published by the Chinese

Government in January 1931. As Messrs. Jardine, Matheson & Co. took the view that they should not have been held responsible, they paid the fine under protest through Mr. L. Giles, the

British Consul-General.

In the second case, that of the British firm Chin Seng

/at

E. M. B. Ingram, Esquire, 0. B. E.,

etc.,

etc.,

Peiping.

etc.,

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