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particular area in the Colony for the benefit of one section of the community to the exclusion of all others; and, if the Chinese desire any similar concession, the Colony will glad- ly concede it to them. In my Confidential Despatch of the 18th November, 1915, I reported a Chinese scheme for the development of the head of Kowloon Bay, and in paragraph 3
of my Confidential Despatch of the 17th. April, 1913, I foreshadowed this scheme and suggested that the area in question might be set apart for Chinese. The promoters have not asked for a Chinese Reservation, but it might be politic to make a public offer of this concession, at the time when the bill amending the Peak Reservation Ordinance is brought forward. I would also suggest that Clause 2 of the Peak District Reservation Ordinance might be amended by substitut- -ing a line drawn through Wan chai Gap for the present Western boundary thus throwing open the area known as Mount Cameron for Chinese who may desire to reside in what is now a portion of the Hill District. This area might even be made a Chinese Reservation if the Chinese so desire it.
16.
In conclusion I would impress upon you,
as far as I may, the vital importance of this Peak Reserva- -tion to the white peoples who pass and will hereafter pass their lives in this tropical British Colony. It would be little short of a calamity if an alien and, by European standards, a semi-civilized race were allowed to drive the white man from the one area in Hongkong, in which he can live with his wife and children in a white man's healthy surroundings. I am not seeking to establish any new principle. The existing Ordinance admits the necessity for the Peak Reservation, and I have shown that it was only
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