477
No. 2
Enclosure in Sir John Jordan's No.322 of August 16, 1911.
CANTON KOWLOON RAILWAY.
со
30069
Minutes of Meeting of Thursday, August 3, 111.
REE Rrat14 SEP IT
Sir John Jordan accompanied by r. Barton called on Lord Li, with whom was Mr. C. K. Yuan at the board of Communi- cations at 3.30 p.m..
Sir John Jordan handed to Lord Li a paraphrase of XK the Governor of Hongkong's telegram of August 2 refusing the Chinese offer of 35% (5), as a division of/profits provisi- onal for one year only. The Governor's final offer, as Sir John Jordan pointed out, was 35). 65, fixed for the whole
ten
term of the agreement i.c. dné years, or it in the alterna- tive 33% 67 on Canton-Kowloon traffic and 451 55; on Sheklung-Kowloon traffic.
Lord Li expressed regret at the refusal of his offer, which had only been made after prolonged consultation with his colleagues in the Board and represented the utmost concession which they could agree to. In the present imper- fect state of their knowledge of how this division of profits would work out in practice, ten years was boo long a period to bind the Chinese Government to a probable loss.
Sir John Jordan pointed out the obvious disadvantage of having two terms for different portions of the same agree- ment and that it was essential that the Government of Hongkong should be able to budget with some certainty an important item of their finances.
of
Lord Li offered as a final compromise to extend the
term to three years, but Sir John Jordan said it was useless
for him to telegraph such an offer in the face of the very definite wording of the Governor's telegram. He quoted from
the Hongkong Governor's despatch July 18 extracts showing
that a fixed rate of 35 65% was slightly to the advantage
of China and urged that either this or the Governor's alterma- tive offer should be accepted and the matter settled.
Lord
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