out: Bi
107
China Association does not weigh heavily with me.
ab &
protracted and intimate scquaintance individually and col-
lectively with bodies of this kind on the coast of Chine
has taught me that in matters affecting internationel
relations the opinions to which they riv. expression are
apt to be prejudiced and biassed. Intense personal anima
has, moreover, in this instance been intruauced by the
Chairman of the former body, because I ventured to question
the propriety of his telegraphing directly to Peking and
London statements insufficiently verified together with
conclusions drawn therefrom without previously consult-
1
ing either the Hongkong Government or myself. That the
Hongkong opium importers should have lost confidence in me
is only natural, seeing that I refused to adopt en bloc
their line of argument, and that I proved sceptical with
regard to the accuracy of certain allegations put forward
by them
+
as also with their promostications of a general