Bong
Bong.
434
Government House.
It would be very undesirable to have our watersupply in foreign
territory. Also the Military establishments which are a curse
to the island must go over to the mainland and the only sites
Luitable for most of them are in the New Territory.
If we could get a permanent cession of the New Territory
or even of some part of it- though I think that the Kilitary woulė
that we must have all of it for defence reasons- in return for
ihalwel we should make a fine bargain,
The trouble is that in present circumstances no such bargain can
be effected.We should surrender Weihaiwel to the Peking Government
would probably be wiling to cede the New Teritory to us, esp-
cially if we paid them a little money, but they have no power or
nfluence in the South and "President" Sun and the Cantonese
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jould refuse to recognise the cession and would use it as another
Acs to beat them with and probably try to cause disturbances or
bycott our trade or otherwise make themselves unpleasant. If these
is ever a Government of the whole of China again - and I doubt
hether that will come for many years- we might do a deal on the se ines but that means retaining Weihaiwei for a long time.
The only real solution would be to recognise the southern Govern- ent as at least partially independent. I return for such recog- ution I believe they would cede us the leased territory but that
28 a question of politics which are too higă for me.
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Personally, I believe that we shall have to come to separate recog-
ition of the Southern Government sooner or later. I doubt the
sibility of Sun getting power in the North and there is no posa- llity whatever of the present Peking crowd getting control of
the south, wu Pei Fu has been a disappointment. He will never unite
+
loa and there seems to be no chance of anybody else doing so
thin a reasonable time.