ONFIDENTIAL.
Sir,
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REC?
(Rec 21 DEC 12
GOVERNMENT HOUSE,
HONGKONG. 19th. November, 1912.
10.
It is unnecessary for me to dwell upon the vital importance to this Colony and to the interests of British trade that the proposed Railway between Hankow and Canton should
be connected with the Canton-Kowloon Railway. The point was em-
phasized in my Confidential Despatch of the 15th. of December, 4363-4 1903, and 30th. January, 1904, and in Sir F. Lugard's Confidential 2714/04 110837
Despatones of the 11th. of March and 9th. of April, 1910. The 11416970
urgent necessity of the connection between the 2 Railways was recognised by the Secretary of State for the Colonies in Kr. 14 Bertram Cor's letter of the 27th. of May, 1910, to the Foreign
Office which formed an enclosure in Lord Crewe's Confidential
Despatch of the 27th. May, 1910. The question was referred to at
the first meeting of Messrs. Clementi and Lindsey, the representa-
-tives of the Hongkong Government, with Mr. Wei Han the liamaging
Director of the Canton-Kowloon Railway, and Mr. Wei Han emphatical-
-ly stated that the connection was looked upon as a settled con-
-clusion and that the only point remaining to be settled was as to
which railway should make the connection. In a Despatch dated the
11th. of September, 1910, copy of which was forwarded in my Conf. HAVE of 5th. October, 1910,
Ta Despatch/His Majesty's Chargé d'Affaires at Peking informed the
Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs that in an interview with
Liang Shih-yi, at that time Director-General of Railways, the
latter has assured him that the Board of Communications were fully
alive
20=1
RIGHT HONOURABLE
LEVIS HARCOURT, M.P.,
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