The following additional correspondence between the Chamber of Commerce and the Consular Body is published for general information SuaNowat Gexerat Cuamper Commence, Shanghai, 18th Feb., 1887.
Stz,—I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of 3rd instant and while thanking you for the information it contains, the Committee of this Chamber regret that the question asked in my letter of Ist instant viz.: whether in your opinion they are correct in their reading, as therein ret forth, of the meaning of the 7th clause the Customs' notification 261, remains unanswered.
The Committee are of opinion that while the clause is still unwithdrawn, it is not satisfactory to the mercantile community to learn only that it is not likely to be given that meaning; it would have been satisfactory could they have had the opinion of the Consuls as to whether it is competent for the Commissioner of Customs to issue such a notification without being accompanied with the sanction of the Foreign Representatives. I may add that the Committee cannot conceal their apprehension that the expression in your letter of the belief that it is not the present intention of the Local Authorities to interfere with the existing usages and regulations affecting the removal of Duty-paid Opium within, the Settlement, may be construed by those Authorities, and others, to tacitly admit that they can interfere' if they so wish, and therefore with the regulations regard. ing any other duly imported merchandize. While tue question of such interference in of very great importanee—and one which the Committee trust will be satisfactorily settled by. te imeructions You We Eayesi ing to receive at an early date from Peking—there is an equally important one to which they would call your especial attention—viz—the retroactive bearing the notification of the Commissioner of Customs ives to the Additional Article to the Chefoo Convention. The Committee deem it almost impossible that the regulations laid down in that Article were ever intended by the English Government to apply to Opium which had been duly imported prior to the time fixed upon for those regulations to come into force. The Committee believe Governments that all goods arriving in their ports and legally landed before the date
always exempted from the operation of fixed for a change in the revenue laws, ary such changed laws and they carnot believe that it was the intention of the British Government to depart from this rule in this instance.
T would therefore on behalf of the Cham. ber respectfully request that you would place these views before the Foreign Representatives at Peking and obtain their views as to whether the Commissioner of Customs is authorized in applying the re gulations in the Additional Article to the chefoo Convention to Opium that had been legally imported befure tht Ist Feruary 1887, L have the honor to be, Sir, Your obedient servant, Joux G. Pexvos, P. J. Hucnes, Esq.
'H.B.M.'s Consul-General and Senior Consul, Shang!
H. M. Coysviats Gesenat, Shanghai, 21st Feb., 1887.
Sim,—I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of the 18th inst. on the subject of the 7th clause of the Customs Notification No. 261.
T have acquainted my colleagues with the contents of your letter and am furward+ ing a copy of it to the Doyen of the Diplumatic Corps at Peking.
With reference to the observations which you make on the terms of my letter of the 3rd inst. it is due to your Com mittee to explain that the question, which, as you say, was left unanswered by me, was considered by the Consuls subsidiary to the main question put in your letter of the 1st inst., namely, whether the Customs
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.