P
CRET.
C O
32727
Government House,
225
Hongkong, 4th August 1908.
My Lord,
I have the honour to acknowledge your
92 Despatch Secret of June 26th., relative to the negotiation of
a Joint Working Agreement with the Chinese for the Kowloon-
-Canton Railway.
2.
I enclose copy of a Despatch which I have
addressed to Sir John Jordan together with its enclosure, and a
copy of the letter from His Majesty's Consul-General, Canton,
alluded to in my post-script. . As soon as I receive a reply to
this Despatch I will address Your Lordship fully on the subject.
You will observe from the final sentence of
3.
paragraph 9 of the enclosure that Mr. Grove, Chief Resident Engineer of the Canton Section holds the same view as that
attributed by Your Lordship to the Consulting Engineers in the first paragraph of your Despatch, and in this view I understand that Mr. G. W. Eves, Chief Resident Engineer of the Kowloon Section concurs. Mr. May who has a knowledge of the Chinese extending over 25 years also urges me very strongly not to bring forward the subject of the Working Agreement at present, for he fears that it may possibly be used as a means of delay- -ing the construction of the line, since the artificial difficulties alluded to in paragraph 8 of my Despatch to Sir John Jordan seem to indicate that the authorities for some inscrutable reason exhibit at present no desire to push forward the work. I have stated in that paragraph my own reasons for not delaying these negotiations too long but I concur with Mr. May that they can well be deferred until the Chinese have committed themselves by the purchase of the requisite land.
he Right Honourable
This
The Earl of Crewe,
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&C.
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