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Viceroy persisted in construing this phrase in the preliminary agreement as entitling him to object to the whole undertaking in principle, and for that reason I held it necessary that he should receive specific instructions.
His Highness then argued that the agreement of March 1899 being only preliminary, and the final agreement and loan not having been concluded, the matter was quite open and the Viceroy could not be asked to accept specific terms, but I referred him again to the Preliminary Agreement which said that the final agreement for the Canton-Kowloon railway should be based on that concluded for the Shanghai-Nanking Railway.
That, I said, did not mean that the latter agreement was to be used bodily for the Canton-Kowloon final agreement; there would of course be modifications necessary to suit the different conditions. I pressed once more for the issue of specific instructions to the Viceroy, and His Highness said that a telegram would be sent.