161
sign has been given, nor word spoken, on the subject, either by the Corporation or by the Government, and the time seems to have arrived when it would not be unreasonable to ask the cause of the apparent new delay.
I cannot doubt that this delay must be as unsatisfactory to His Excellency as it is to the Association, and I do not think he will consider the Committee unduly importunate in begging for some assurance that this vital question has not again been temporarily shelved on the representations of the concessionaires.
It cannot well be pleaded that the negotiations in connection with the Shanghai-Nanking Railway block the way, for the final agreement with the Chinese Government was signed in July last, and the loan for the prosecution of that enterprise has since been floated. On the other hand, events having a somewhat sinister bearing on the interests of Great Britain in Central and South China have transpired in the interval, strongly accentuating the need for prompt action. The American interest in the Hankow-Canton Railway, never very large, has been purchased and the entire line is now nominally under Belgian control. Here, if it really were under Belgian control, it would perhaps not matter so much; but occasion has been taken, there is good reason to believe, by other Powers, more influential and less friendly to Great Britain, to secure practical control of a trunk Railway through the British sphere of influence in China, by which they hope to effectively neutralise that influence. If that line be made by Franco-Russian Agents, working through Belgian nominees, we may be very certain that the clause in Article II of the Agreement with the American Syndicate giving them "the right of an extension to the sea", if thought advisable, will be availed of to the injury of Hongkong.
Unless, therefore, the British Government insist, as I respectfully submit they have a right to insist, upon the cancellation of the concession