(C O P Y)
Enclosure
Sir,
542
CO
Colonial Secretary's Office,
Hongkong,
8th October, 1904.
I am directed by His Excellency the Governor of Hong Kong to make the following communication to you with regard to the arrangement which, on the 25th July last, you, acting on behalf of the Agent of the Transvaal Mining Companies, entered into with Mr. Wan Tsung Yao, acting on behalf of His Excellency the Viceroy of the Two Kwang, for the engagement at Wuchow under the Convention which was signed in London on the 18th May of this year, of Chinese sub-jecs for service in the British Colonies of South Africa.
2. The arrangement was to give effect to what the Governor understands to have been the Viceroy's view, that the most effective way of taking the steps to facilitate emigration which the Convention enjoins on the local authorities of any Treaty Port notified for the embarkation of indentured emigrants is for those authorities to themselves undertake the recruiting of emigrants, i.e., the explaining to them of the advantages to be derived from the favourable conditions offered to labour in South Africa and the bringing of them to the Emigration Depot.
3. Fully satisfied that the arrangement thus sanctioned by the Viceroy would prove a thoroughly satisfactory method of bringing to the notice of the people of Kwangsi the advantages of emigration to South Africa and would result in emigration on a considerable scale being started to the mutual advantage of those people and of the Transvaal, the Governor reported on the 8th August last the Wuchow arrangement to His Britannic Majesty's Government which takes the greatest interest in the scheme initiated by the Convention and had enjoined on Sir M. Nathan to do all he could to forward it.
4. In the Governor's report he stated that owing to difficulties which the Viceroy might have to overcome, it would probably be a month before any large number of emigrants would leave Wuchow. This time has now more than elapsed and practically no ...
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