"I. therefore closed the. Custo House on June 23, andvin so doing I acted entirely-on my own" res-Ponsibility, with the full approval Of the then Inspector-General of Customs, and in no way whatever did T receive any suggestions what-sover from any member of the Consular Body in connection with my action. The regrettable incident followed proved my'action in the Custom House to be fully justified, as none of the Customs staff, either Chinese or fore was involved in this incident, Tt has been alleged in the Chinese press that the unfortunate accident of my getting wounded during the affair was due to the fact that I was commanding a Volunteer Corps to fight the Chinese. Such a state ment is entirely unfounded, and, although a Volunteer Corps did exist on Shameen, I may add that few days before the incident took place -I issued the. strictest Instructions to every member of the foreign staff of the Canton Customs that in no ciredmstances were they to associate themselves in any way with this Volunteer Corps, seeing that the of a Chinese The feet that I was wounded myself was a pure accident which occurred while was (aking the junior members of the Indoor Staff away. from a house which wus at the end of the island where the fighting was taking place, "With retard to the closing of the port of Canton, I may say that the port of Canton was never closed during my tenure of office as Commissioner of Customs. I can only regard to ation, as it is true that of Canton wax closed in special circumstances in February 1926, but this took place eight months after my departure from Canton.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.