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prejudice the issue since they would not require another
batch for 3 years. Such action on my part might I consider-
-ed be regarded by China as a very discourteous act.
9.
Moreover even if the Chinese
Government did not resent my action, I had every reason
to suppose that it would be bitterly resented by the
guilds who had prohibited the emigration from Swatow, and
the Self-Government Society of Canton, who had shown them-
-selves able to institute a Boycott in the Fatshan and
other cases in opposition to the Chinese Government. I
could not consent to undertake this risk which I regarded
as a very serious one, in spite of my genuine desire to
oblige the Germans.
10.
Dr. Voretzsch in repeated inter-
-views amounting in the aggregate to many hours of argu-
-ment
at which the Attorney-General was present urged
me by every means at his command to relax my decision,
finally appealing to me as an act of personal friendship
to himself. He admitted the risk I had described but
considered that I over-estimated it; he urged the promise
already given in the name of this Government to Messrs. ~
Wendt and Company and the parallel case of the Pellew
Islands. I replied that in the latter case there had not
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