CO129-557-9 British protection of companies in China 26-3-1936 - 27-2-1937 — Page 41

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is not unnatural in the circumstances, the various

branches in China of locally incorporated Chinese-owned

companies are managed in most cases by persons who are

full Chinese subjects and are not even Straits born.

This is the case also with such European controlled

companies as the Great Eastern Life Insurance Company

Limited. To preclude the appointment of Chinese

citizens as agents or managers of branches in China

would affect most adversely genuine Straits-born Chinese.

It is also felt that the exclusion of those unable to

obtain the denationalisation certificates would be an

intolerable hardship upon a section of the Malayan community which justly looks upon itself as British, and considers it is entitled to the protection and benefits

accruing from domicile under the British flag.

Mr. Small, the Governor's Deputy in Singapore,

suggests that whatever rules may be finally decided they should be sufficiently wide in general scope to permit the judging of individual cases on their own intrinsic merits. He thinks that the local Government is the best judge of what is a genuinely British, locally incorporated company, andurges that an Ambassador's licence should in no circumstances be refused to such a company without prior consultation with the Government concerned.

There would seem to be no great objection to these proposals in so far as they exclude from British extra-territorial rights European and other organisations which at present enjoy British protection merely by right of registration in the British Empire, since this would

not