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have, of course, no guarantee at this stage
that the Chinese will not press for more favourable
terms than for the last exchange of visits.
We argued in earlier submission that once we
had madea concession of principle and the cont
ditions for the exchange of visits had been
established it might be better to press ahead
with them on a regular basis rather than permit
the trail to go cold and be fated subsequently
to renegotiate the bargain. It is conceivable
that the Chinese, seeing that we despair of
progress in other ways and have returned in
this
the suitor role to the particular method,will
press for more favourable terms than last time
(e.g. visits to a larger number of prisoners
However, I do not believe this is likely.
the Chinese do raise their price we shall have
If
If
to resist their demands and consider very
carefully whether the price is tolerable.
it is not, we shall at least be in a position
to place the blame squarely on their shoulders.
9. Similar considerations apply in the case
of the Governor's second condit ion. We
cannot be sure that the Chinese will keep
their side of the bargain and give us access
to Mr. Grey. On the other hand, they fulfilled
the conditions correctly on the last occasion
and there is no reason to assume at this
stage that they will do otherwise.
A
Generally,
the Chinese dirve a hard bargain in such
matters but once the terms have been agreed
they carry out their undertakings.
10. In paragraph 2 of his telegram No. 803
the Governor makes a gere ral point about the
exchange of visits. He asks whether we are
really wise to continue to demonstrate our
/concern
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