69
: towns the traffic in passengers and goods between which and Canton on the one side and Hongkong on the other is already very large. Such traffic is at present carried on by native boats supplemented in some cases by launches. There are also numerous populous villages intercommunication between which is carried on on foot, or by sedan chairs in the case of the wealthier classes.
6. The Railway would serve all this traffic, and in order to gain some authoritative support of my opinion that it is sufficient to make the line pay, I have consulted Mr. Wei Yuk who was the first to conceive, many years ago, the idea of linking Canton to Hongkong by a Railway. He and some of his Chinese friends spent a considerable sum of money in obtaining information on the subject and employed Mr. J. F. Boulton, now an Executive Engineer in the Public Works Department, to make a preliminary inspection of the route which they wished the Railway to follow. He spent 5 weeks in doing so and has shown me the route which he recommended, designed with a view to a large intermediate traffic while giving a short, though not the shortest possible, connection with Canton.
The considered opinion of Mr. Wei Yuk and his friends and of Mr. Boulton, an Engineer well qualified to judge, is that a line designed on those lines would undoubtedly pay. The Chinese gentlemen referred to opened negotiations with the Viceroy at Canton with a view to obtaining permission to build the Railway but were met with the preliminary demand of such an enormous douceur as a condition precedent to even considering their application that the project fell through.
16.
7.