555

and most amusing scoundrels in China and there my interest

in them ends. If you will ask Masterton Smith to shew you the latter which I wrote to him on the 21st of July you will, I think, have ne further doubtse as to my atti-

tude.

In sending the telegrams which I have sent to Your Grace and to Peking I have been actuated by one motive only - to advance the interests of this Colony and of British trade. The strike of 1922 shewed us very clearly how entirely the prosperity of this Colony is bound up with Kwangtung. With a hostile Kwangtung, the trade of Hong Kong, which means most of the trade of Great Britain with China, cannot be carried on and it is essen- tial in the interests of this trade that we should be on as good terms as possible with the power that rules Kwangtung, whether that power be Sun Yat Sen or another.

I cannot help feeling that the importance of this factor is not properly recognised. Peking is far away and, owing to the unfortunate state of affairs for many

ilona years past, is much out of tough with the South, Kong is a very small place but it is of great laportance to trade and in twenty years or so will be of infinitely greater, if things go well. It is the great entrepôt of

British

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