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for a term of years when built provided it is promptly built.
3.
As far as this Colony is concerned it is
of the greatest importance that the Corporation referred to
should either build the railway from Hongkong to Canton or
resign their rights to others to build it.
It is conceivable that if the connecting
railway to Canton is not built, the American Company would be
forced in the interests of the trunk line from Hankow to Canton
to connect it with some point on the Canton River where deep
water would enable Ocean Steamers to lie and load their
freights. If such a scheme were carried out the supremacy of
this Port as an emporium of trade for South China would be
seriously threatened, and the effect on its prosperity and
future expansion might be disastrous.
A.
Apart, however, from that consideration
it is to the interest of this Colony that the railway from
here to Canton should be constructed as soon as possible. Such
a railway would traverse the New Territories and would hasten
the development of that district which, without the assistance
of light railways or other means of rapid communication, will
remain in its present position of an encumbrance rather than
a source of profit to the old Colony.
With the establishment of communication
by railway large areas especially in the portions of the New
Territory contiguous to old Kowloon at present of small value,
would become of great value and the remoter portions of the
New Territories situated on the mainland, which without railway
communication can never be an appreciable source of revenue
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to