sir,
CHINA & JAPAN TELEPHONE & ELECTRIC COMPANY LIMITED.
0.0
14, Austin Friars,
LONDON. E. C.
18th February 1902.
TEB
6
In reply to your letter of the 13th instant,No.5828,
I beg to say that the statement made by Messrs. Dickinson & Co. to the effect that my Board were or are prepared to accept a sum of £1,500 in discharge for any claim for damages that may arise to our Company's Telephone System in Hongkong in connection with the establishment of the proposed Electrical Tramways, is hardly in accordance with
facts.
2.
Messrs. Dickinson and Boyle called upon our Chairman at his own office in December last to offer £800
to £1,000 towards installing the metallic circuits which will be rendered indispensable to this Company if an Electric Tramway is worked at Hongkong. Another Director happened
to call about the same time and, having in his mind an estimate of cost made more than 3 years ago amounting to about £5,000, thought that an offer of £1,500 might be accepted. He was, however, at once reminded by the Chairman that a more recent estimate by a third Director, who had visited Hongkong, placed the minimum cost at £9,000 - and that consequently an offer of even £1,500 was insufficient;
that moreover no answer had as yet been received by us from
the Colonial Office to a Memorandum setting forth the reasons for the reasonable claim of this Company that a clause be
inserted in the Tramway Concession fixing the contribution
of that undertaking towards the metallic circuiting of the
Telephone System at one third.