CO129-613-4 Transfer of registration of China Companies from the United Kingdom to Hong Kong 16-4-1946 - 3-2-1948 — Page 64

In any further communication on this subject, please quote

No. F 9549/4110/10

and address-

not to any person by name

but to--

"The Under-Secretary of State,"

Foreign Office,

London, S.W.1.

RESTRICTED.

FOREIGN OFFICE.

64

33

(27)

Sir,

S.W.1

6th August, 1947.

54246:47

I am directed by Mr. Secretary Bevin to transmit a copy of a despatch No. 224 of the 24th June, from His Majesty's Ambassador at Nanking, on the subject of the registration of "China Companies" at Hong Kong and the future operation of British companies in China. This despatch has crossed Foreign Office despatch No. 297 of the 1st July, a copy of which was sent to the Colonial Office under Foreign Office reference F 7325/4110/10 of the 2nd July.

2. His Majesty's Ambassador in Nanking, it will be observed, recommends that the date laid down in Article 4(2) of the China Order in Council 1943 should now be specified. Mr. Bevin agrees with this recommendation and would suggest that the date be fixed as the 30th September 1947. A copy of a draft notice which it is proposed should be published in the London Gazette is enclosed for the favour of the early observations of the Colonial Office.

1

3. It will further be observed that His Majesty's Consul General at Shanghai puts forward a proposal that British companies shoul be requested to deposit certain documents at the Consulate in which their chief local office is situated or their business is chiefly carried on, for the purpose of establishing their genuinely British composition. This proposal appears to Mr. Bevin to have merit and he would be grateful for the observations the Colonial Office, with particular reference to the practice in other parts of the world. It is presumed that Mr. Ogden is correct in suggesting that, notwithstanding the abolition of extraterritorial rights, a distinction may be drawn in the matter of Consular protection between genuine British companies and those nominally British but whose membership and capital is wholly or in greater part Chinese. Bevin would also be grateful for the observations of the Colonial Office on the oint regarding the levy of fees to which reference is made in paragraph 4 of Nanking despatch No. 224 enclosed.

Mr.

4. A co y of this despatch is being sent to the Treasury, with special reference to the question of the fees leviable if the proposal for the deposit of papers with His Majesty's Consulates is approved, and also to the Board of Trade. -

I am,

Sir,

Your Obedient Servant,

Auscott

:

The Under Secretary of State,

Colonial Office.