:
3
558
}
He accepted and I asked a few leading people to
meet him, being most careful to avoid any appearance of an
official reception. Tas I wrong? Sun Yat Sen is a great
figure in China, probably in the popular estimation even
of his enemies, the greatest Chinese alive. Should I
have been right in refusing to extend to him the courtesy
which I should shew as a matter of course to any eminent
stranger from Europe or America?
As a matter of fact, there is no question
that by receiving hia courteously I did good work for the
Colony and the Empire. He was very ill-disposed to Hong
Kong and to the British when previously in Hong Kong and we paid for it by the general strike. Since his return we have
had no labour troubles and I am convinced that he was sincere
in his statement to me that he now realised that the
interests of Hong Kong and Canton go together and that he
wanted to work with the British and not against them.
Everything went well until this unhappy business
of the Cutoma cropped up. When the Powers threatened to
interfere by force in the event of his seizing the Custome
he sent down Eugene Ch'en to see me with a letter, a copy
of