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arrangements with the people, both for dressed stone and material for concrete and foundation work.
To our dismay and astonishment we have just received a telegram from our Agent at Hong Kong to the effect that the Colonial Government have stopped all quarrying in the New Territory.
Doubtless our arrangements for procuring our supplies at Lyemoon outside the farm limits have been the cause of this action on the part of the Colonial Authorities.
We ask you as a matter of urgency to intervene in this matter.
We are perfectly willing, as we have all along represented, to pay any reasonable royalty to the Colonial Government, but we should have unrestricted rights to quarry ourselves from any site which we may buy, without being at the mercy of the quarry farmers, year by year, who have no resources for producing the quantities we require.
We append copies of a letter, dated 8th November 1900, written to the Colonial Secretary, and of a recent petition signed by the principal people interested in the building trades &c., from which you will further see how the matter stands.
We would suggest as possibly the quickest solution