CO129-558-11 Mission of Sir F. Leith-Ross to China- proposals for a Hong Kong - China customs... 29-9-1936 - 30-12-1936 — Page 114

114

to be nominated to these posts. This may create

some difficulty as the appointment of the chief

Customs officials rests, and must rest, with the Chinese

Government who would gravely resent any arrangement

which gave the Japanese a deciding voice in their

selection; but some informal consultation might be

arranged by which the officers recommended for appoint-

ment might be mutually notified.

The Japanese Government are also pressing for an

increase in the number of Japanese cfficials in the

customs service and they appear to aim at securing at

least as many Japanese as there are British officials

employed. This is perhaps not unreasonable from their

point of view, but we also wish to secure fresh re-

cruitment of British officials, no new appointments

having been made for over ten years. The Japanese

oppose this on the ground that it will render more

äifficult the additional recruitment of Japanese

officials which they desire. Evt if we agreed in

principle to their desiderata, no doubt some compromise

could be arranged, by which, say, one new British

official would be appointed to every two additional

Japanese officials, until the two nationalities were

equally represented. (At the same time, a certain

number of appointments would also have to be made of

other nationalities.)

I have suggested that advantage should be taken

of Sir H. Knatchbull Hugessen's visit to Tokyo to

secure an agreement between us and the Japanese

authorities on the above lines. There would still

remain the question how the Chinese Government could

be persuaded to give effect to such an arrangement.

-5-