375
submit, lies in the fact that the control of the line and
the responsibility for its completion rests, not with
the Viceroy of this Province, but with a Director General
in Peking.
In order to run a line of railway through
thickly populated and notoriously turbulmt districts,
such as Tung Kun and Taeng Ching, the co-operation and
assistance of the local authorities is, as I have already
pointed out, indispensable. But the Director General in
Poking cannot order District Hyistrates to expedite the
Purchase of land or to send soldiers to patrol the line.
Such orders must come from the Viceroy, and ho, having
no control whatever over the line or financial interest
in it (the Director General draws & salary from the Railway
funds of $2020 per mensen) is naturally disinclined to
take storn measures and risk making himself unpopular
for the sake of a railway from all sh re in the direction
of which he has been expressly been excluded.
These observations apply to the Viceroy as
the