COPY.
117 63370
Translation of a note from
Wu Chung-hsi, Director-General of Telegraphs,
To
H. B. M. Consul-General, Shanghai.
April 28th, 1904.
In the matter of the telegraph poles in the New Territory at Kowloon, I have the honour to acknowledge your notes of February 24th and April 21st. As I stated in my reply of February 5th, although the Telegraphs are under Government control, yet the shares are owned by private individuals, and the telegraph lines and poles are entirely private property. No prohibition has hitherto been put into force by your country forbidding Chinese to own property or engage in trade within your borders - e.g., Hong Kong, for instance. It seems then, as telegraphs form a portion of the trade of any place, that it is unnecessary to remove the lines and poles from the territory.
I have several times called a meeting of the shareholders and directors and informed them of the purport of the several communications received; the general opinion was that consent was impossible.
I therefore have the honour to request you thus to inform the Hong Kong Government.