ལྭ་
a ligy
ST.
215
03 basool
the present Government of Canton, and be in no way mixed up with politics. They had at once grased that portion of their Resolut- -ion dealing with National Love &c., when they heard I objected
to it.
Vidy
0..
00-
1.0
Ir. Sun Tak Tun Vice-Chairman rose and said
the object of the Committee was entirely confined to Commerce. He
had objected to their sending a Committee of 12 to Canton to
investigate unless they first received a request or hint from the
new Government.
I then replied that I had listened with the
utmost satisfaction to the speeches made, and had heard with
special pleasure of the correct attitude, and sound advice given
by the Members of Council. I had not convened this meeting with
the primary object of discussing the question of this Committee,
but rather to establish confidence between us, to have their
views, and express my own on the general situation. I told them
of the incident on the frontier, and pointed out how friendly my
attitude had been, and that in the latter of the Railway I had
agreed to re-open the line the moment that the Canton Section
were in a position to do so. In all Executive and Administrative
matters I was ready to co-operate with the provisional Govern-
-ment for the public peace and the re-establishment of trade and
proxĹݤ¤xať prevention of famine, but in purely legal questions such as extradition &c., I was at present powerless.
Dr. Ho Kai then asked me regarding the rais-
-ing of funds. He said he had advised that there was nothing
illegal in any individual sending his own money to Canton if he
desired to do so, but he was in doubt whether he could legally
transmit the subscriptions of others. I replied that no public
fund in aid of the Revolutionary Government could be properly
started in Hongkong, and no such fund could be advertised, or any
company or association formed to promote it. I was not blind to
the fact that there was no representative of the Peking Government in Kwangtung, and that the provisional Government must be carried on in order to save life and property in which Hongkong men were