C
الشمال المتة الله
235
that a Chinese-owned line should exist in British territory.
He agrees as to the expediency of transferring the telegraph
line to the Railway, and he appreciates my desire that the
revenue of the Colony should profit, by what he says "would in
normal circumstances be a natural source of revenue". There is
therefore no difference in the way in which we regard the
present undesirable conditions.
3.
Sir J. Jordan, however, points out and
emphasizes at great length on pages 2, 3, 4, and 5 of his
Despatch that the admittedly "abnormal circumstances" in which
Hongkong has been placed whereby the revenue which should
accrue to the Colony goes to others and the undesirable anomaly
exists of a Chinese Government Department naving an office and
a telegraph line in Hongkong was created and still exists in
order that the Eastern Extension Telegraph Company may derive
advantages elsewhere in China which are of great pecuniary
value to them. "Clearly (he says) the Company could not have
obtained the arrangements they considered essential at Shanghai
had they not been in a position with the countenance of His
Majesty's Government to offer corresponding advantages to the
Chinese Administration in Hongkong". This is precisely my view.
The "advantages" were offered at the expense of the taxpayers
in this Colony and the Government of this Colony was not only
not