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Sir,
indles.
ww
46075
SEP 17
The Hongkong General Chamber of Commerce..
Chartered Bank Building, 211
Hongkong, 24th, July, 1917.
!
I am directed to acknowledge with thanks the copy
of a memorandum by the Secretary for Chinese Affairs reporting the result of a reference to the District Watchman's) Committee,
en closed in your letter of the 4th, instant.
My Committee have read this report and also the copy of a letter from Mr. Chou Shau-son with great interest.
It may interest you to know that it is not admitted without considerable dissent that the British are not equally ready as their German competitors to endeavour to suit the taste and requirements of the Chinese, but there is practically unanimi- -ty in the belief that whatever faults may be found in this direction are the faults of the manufacturer and not the merchant who represents him in China.
The question of the cheapness of the article is, of course, mother matter and one into which the cost of production enters and is again a matter for the manufacturer and not the merchant. Moreover low prices have been in considerable measure due to State aid and protection of the manufactures in the on- -tinental country of production.
The opinion of the Watch Committee expressed in paragraph 2 of the Honourable Mr. Hallifax's report is difficult to understand both as regards the comparison of the manners of the average British and German merchant and also as to the quest. -ion of the knowledge of the Chinese language. Mr. Chou Shau-Bon also makes a great point of the knowledge of Chinese possessed by the Germans.
nourable
Colonial Secretary.
My