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215
ith the opening of Kongmoon.
K
Inseparably connected with this question of opening Waicnow to
fotilm trade, as I hope presently to shey, is the larger and more impor
one of the immediate construction of the long projected Kowloon-Canton
Railway.
It is universally felt in this Colony and by all the British
residents in Canton that it is of the highest importance to British inte
esta that this line should be completed before the Hankow-Canton section
or the great trunk railway of China is constructed. The latter is now
being actively prosecuted by the American-Belgian Syndicate, to whom the
concession was granted; bub up to the present moment the British Syndica
who obtained the right to continue the line from Canton to Kowloon, hava
given no sign of activity in connection therewith, The Committee feel
strongly that the interests both of this Colony and of British trade are
being endangered by this delay, and that British prestige is aluo sufferi
from the apparent want of enterprise on the part of the British Syndicate
There is, moreover, in the background a further but no less real danger......
to which the late Governor of Hongkong (Sir Henry Blake) forcibly alluded in his farewell speech to the commmity, on the eve of his departure for
Ceylon on the 20th ulto. After referring to the Sanitary progress of
Colony, His Excellency said :- "But great as is the importance of the
structural improvement or Hongkong, there is a matter of greater and mor
(pressing moment that I might wish to bring forcibly before you in these
last momenta before I leave your shores. That is the pressing neceash)
of utilising the British Concession that has been granted for a rally
From Canton to the borders of our territory. That concession har
granted to a British Syndicate, and it is their duty to utilise : "supply the natural asaport terminus to the great arterial line ti
lest possible developments be sought inimical to the interests of Hongke
We have not ouilt up our Empire by being laggards in the race for dev "ments necessary for the expansion of the trade of the world, and 'le I dare not wait upon I would' has never conquered a position nor reta fit for either men ob nations". These sentences were most earnestly
dorsed by the assembly addressed, and a very real anxiety now prevail
Hon