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The
results if the Governor keeps his proposals to himself
and his chief advisers as we must presume he does. Colonial Ofiice has not supported any of the proposals
referred to in the Foreign Office memorandum indeed we
-
have usually facilitated their task of rejection by
presuming that they were incompatible with the policy of
His Majesty's Government as already known to us.
There remains the fact that the incompatibility
of these proposals with the declared policy of His Majesty's
Government was also known to Sir R. Stubbe. The
explanation is no doubt that in the wild fluctuation of
events in China he expected changes in the policy of His
Majesty's Government to cope with fluctuations. We have,
however, given him no ground for expecting such change and
it might be well to tell him to put forward no further
proposals in conflict with our general policy unless and
until we inform him of a change of principle. This
should relieve Foreign Office from further annoyance of in this nature, The proposals themselves have not been good
and have veered about in a truly astonishing manner. It
may, however, be mentioned that the most foolish proposal
of all that as to the Railway wes put forward by Sir C.
Severn when Officer Administering the Government
and also
that one of these inadmissible proposals received some
measure of support from our late Minister at Peking.
-
--
his
•
In many ways, especially financially, Sir R. Stube
has done well as Governor. As regards knowledge of affairs
in China it must be admitted that he has shown himself
inclined to hasty judgment on insufficient experience of
them