Office of the Historian

693.002/670: Telegram

The Consul General at Shanghai (Lockhart) to the Secretary of State

Shanghai, May 31, 1938—noon.
[Received May 31—7:35 a.m.]

736. Peiping’s 321, May 25, 6 p.m.1

1.
Commissioner of Customs informs me that, in connection with the new tariff duties, he will be prepared to accept the 1931 rates in payment of customs duties if tendered to him tomorrow. He has asked me whether I would insist that American importers should pay the old duties and I replied that obviously I had no authority to compel business men to pay the old rates if they can import under the 1931 rates, but that I would report the matter to the Department at once.
2.
It seems to me that if other merchants pay the 1931 rates it would be a discrimination against American merchants if they paid the 1934 rates and that American merchants would expect most favored nation treatment. Unless I am instructed to the contrary, the matter of whether the merchants shall pay the 1934 or 1931 rates will be left entirely to their discretion. I cannot imagine any American merchant paying the 1934 rates if the local customs will accept the 1931 rates. The British attitude is substantially the same and I believe that importers of other nationalities will take the same stand.
3.
I asked the Commissioner whether he had received any instructions from Hankow as to what rates he should collect and he answered in the negative. I anticipate that the Inspector General (as distinguished from the Commissioner) will ask me to inform him officially whether the Consulate General will insist upon the payment of the 1934 rates and I recommend that I be authorized to inform him that the matter will be left to the discretion of the importer himself (which in effect will be that the importer will pay the 1931 rates).

Repeated to Hankow, Peiping and Tokyo.

Lockhart
  1. Not printed.↩