Directory_and_Chronicle_1917 — Page 185

SUPPLEMENTARY CONVENTION BETWEEN GERMANY AND CHINA

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this shall be taken as proof of a false manifest, no matter whether a certificate of the reception of such goods on board, bearing the captain's signature, be produced

or not.

4.—If a German ship, in consequence of damages received in one of the open Chinese ports, or outside thereof, needs repair, the time required for such repair shall be reckoned in addition to the term after the lapse of which tonnage-dues are to be paid. The Chinese authorities have the right to make the necessary arrange- ments for this purpose. But if it appears therefrom that this is only a pretext and a design to evade the legal payments to the Customs, the ship therein concerned shall be fined in double the amount of the tonnage-dues whereof it has tried to evade the payment.

5.--No ships of any kind which belong to Chinese subjects are allowed to make use of the German flag. If there are definite grounds for suspicion that this has nevertheless been done, the Chinese authority concerned is to address an official communication thereon to the German Consul, and if it should be shown, in con- sequence of the investigation instituted by him, that the ship was really not entitled to bear the German flag, the ship as well as the goods found therein, so far as they belong to Chinese merchants, shall be immediately delivered over to the Chinese authorities for further disposal. If it be ascertained that German subjects were aware of the circumstances, and took part in the commission of the irregularity, the whole of the goods belonging to them found in the ship are liable to confiscation, and the people themselves to punishment according to law.

In casc a German ship carries the Chinese flag without authority to do so, then, if it be ascertained through the investigation made by the Chinese authorities that the ship was really not entitled to bear the Chinese flag, the ship, as well as the goods found therein, so far as they belong to German merchants, shall be imme- diately delivered over to the German Consul for further disposal and the punishment of the guilty. If it be shown that German owners of goods were aware of the cir- cumstance and took part in the commission of this irregularity, all the goods belong- ing to them found in the ship shall incur the penalty of confiscation by the Chinese authorities. The goods belonging to Chinese may be immediately seized by the Chinese authorities.

6.-If on the sale of the materials of a German ship which, from unseaworthi- ness, has been broken up in one of the open Chinese ports, an attempt be made to mix up with them goods belonging to the cargo, these goods shall be liable to con- fiscation, and, moreover, to a fine equal to double the amount of the import duty which they would otherwise have had to pay.

7.—If German subjects go into the interior with foreign goods, or travel there, the passes or certificates issued to them shall only be valid for thirteen Chinese months, reckoned from the day of their issue, and after the lapse of that term must no longer be used. The expired passes and certificates must be returned to the Customs authorities in whose official district they were issued in order to be cancelled.

N.B.-If a pleasure excursion be undertaken into regions so distant that the term of a year appears insufficicnt, this must be noted on the pass by reason of an understanding between the Consul and the Chinese authority at the time it is issued.

If the return of the passport be omitted, no further pass shall be issued to the person concerned until it has taken place. If the pass be lost, no matter whether within the term or after its expiration, the person concerned must forthwith make a formal declaration of the fact before the nearest Chinese authority. The Chinese official applied to will then do what else may be necessary for the invalidation of the pass. If the recorded declaration prove to be untrue, in case the transport of goods be concerned, they will be confiscated; if the matter relate to travelling, the traveller will be taken to the nearest Consul, and be delivered up to him for punishment.

8.-Materials for German docks only enjoy, in so far as they are actually employed for the repair of ships, the favour of duty-free importation in open ports. The Customs authority has the right to send inspectors to the dock to convince