olocure 2. ftitut. of 21.9.04.
70
admissibility of recruiting under the Convention.
244
The result of this correspondence was to clearly show that the recruiting of labourers at Canton and in the Kwangtung Province for shipment from Hongkong by Messrs. Butterfield and Swire's recruiters had been going on up to the date of their arrest (September 1st.) and that the Chinese Authorities looked on this as a breach of the Convention and were determined to inflict some punishment on the imprisoned recruiters. It also showed that those Authorities considered that recruiting except by their own Agencies was not permissible under the Convention even for despatch from a Treaty Port that had been notified. The Consul-General did not admit this last contention and reported on the 27th. September that as a result of his representations in the matter he had reason to believe that the Viceroy had telegraphed to the Chinese Minister in London with regard to it.
5.
In the meantime the telegrams noted in the margin, of which enclair versions are enclosed, were received from and despatched to you. On the 29th. September I had another interview with the Consul-General and the Transvaal migration Agent, at which it was decided, in view of the success with which the Wuchow Scheme had met with in two months, to ask for the notification of Canton in the hopes that the question of recruiting could subsequently be satisfactorily settled with the Chinese Authorities by the Consul-General in co-operation with the Transvaal Emigration Agent who was to go to Canton for the purpose. The Consul-General telegraphed on the 30th. September to Peking with regard to the notification. Enclair versions of a telegram to you...