¿

4

10.

355

For the present I am taking no further

action. While the establishment of regular emigration from

here to South Africa would be of little or no advantage to

this Colony our continued pressure on either the Provincial

Authorities or on the Central Goverment of China to secure

this traffic, which is presented in nearly as an unfavourable

a light in the Chinese Newspapers as by a section of the press

in England, is not likely to improve the position of Hongkong

in the eyes of either the rulery or the people of China. It is

also obviously inadvisable, from the point of view of the

Colony's interests to proceed in the discussion with the

Chinese Authorities to the point where threats of some retalia-

-tory action become necessary especially at the time when

delicate negotiations for the Canton-Kowloon Railway are being

initiated with them. Again the approaching change in the

holder of the Viceroyalty of the Two Kwang is an argument

against now attempting to press a scheme to which the present

Viceroy has shewn himself averse. Finally Mr. V. J.Jamison

formerly Commercial Attaché at Peking who has recently been

appointed to supervise Chinese labour in the Transvaal in an

interview I had with him on the 7th. instant asked me to take

no action for the present as he is in favour of obtaining

any further supply of this labour that may be required from

the North where the labourers are in his opinion physically

better suited than those of the Southern Provinces for the

work required of them in the Transvaal.

11.

It is scarcely necessary for me to add

that should you determine that the interests of South Africa

imperatively require that emigration from South China should

be

ཏིཏྟཾ ཏི ཝེ།

Page 360Page 361

Share This Page