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with the result that the ratio of division suggested by Mr.Clementi for all through passenger and goods traffic was accepted by the Chinese Minister of Communications.
3.
Accordingly the original draft of what is now Article 28 of the Working Agreement read as follows:-
"The division between the two Sections of all "through passenger fares and of all through rates for goods
"traffic and for the carriage of animals dogs and horses passeng
•
"ers baggage and railway parcels shall be such that 35% thereof
"is assigned to the British and 65% thereof to the Chinese
"Section".
The original draft agreement contained no definition
clauses. When these were added, at the instance of the Chinese
negotiator, forming Article 4 of the final agreement, Article 28
was amplified in the manner in which it appears in the copies transmitted to you in the despatch under reference. In Section (1) of this Article the words "by through express trains" were insert- ed after the words "all through fares for passengers". It is
difficult to find a satisfactory explanation of what seems to have
been a slip of the pen. Broadly speaking the effect of the new
draft of Article 28 is, as regarda passenger fares, to provide that
in the case of through express trains the division is to be one on
the 35% 65% basis; but that in the case of all joint sectional trains, through trains, or through slow trains, the division is to be such that each section shall receive the sectional fare between
Sham Chun and the arrival or departure station on that section.
4.
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After endeavouring, without success, to induce the Managing Director of the Chinese Section to accept a division on the basis of 35% 65% in accordance with what the history of Article 28 shows to have been the intention of both parties to its negotiation in its original form, I was forced to fall back on a compromise. I derived support in contending for such a solution