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concession originally made to an American Syndicate, but which is now a thinly disguised Franco-Russian enterprise, it is of the last importance that the Kowloon-Canton Railway should be built before the Hankow-Canton line is made.
Now that there is every reason to believe that the international competition for the construction of the trunk Railways of China has expanded from a commercial into a political struggle for supremacy in that Empire, the Committee venture to hope that the British Government will exhaust every effort to defeat the intrigues of our rivals, and secure to Hong-kong and to British trade the position they at present enjoy of commercial supremacy in South China. To ensure this, it is absolutely necessary that no time should be lost, and I respectfully beg that his Excellency the Governor will take the earliest opportunity to forward this expression of opinion to the Right Honourable the Secretary of State for the Colonies, and to urge, what is unquestionably the desire of the Colony, that this Government should be authorised to immediately commence the construction of the British section of the Kowloon-Canton Railway.
I have etc.,
(Sd.) R. Chatterton Wilcox,
Chairman.