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feeling, and where even I was looked upon with a certain degree of distrust. I said and I spoke not only from a full heart, but with deep misgiving for the future--that I would rather have lost an own brother and one of my own children.
"Immediately after this having, with one of my colleagues, to attend to getting some people off to Hongkong, I had, just before leaving, suggested that the few remaining members of the foreign staff frame some resolutions suitable to the occasion. There certainly was no Chinese pressure of any sort in this.
"It was six-thirty that evening when we got back to the campus.
The problem of getting the rest of the foreign staff away the next day, plus the various pressing problems at such a time on a campus where over one hundred and fifty students were marooned and whose non-student popula- tion is over eight hundred, kept one more than absorbed. It appears from what I have since learned that the resolutions had already been drafted and sent out before I had returned to the campus that night. It was not until they appeared in the Hongkong papers, which arrived some days later, that I read them for the first time. It is therefore evident that these resolutions can only be regarded as personal expressions of opinion, and not as an official statement from the College.
"In order to make any sort of statement it was neces- sary to get in touch with some of those present when the resolutions were drawn up. Being scattered and the mails irregular, this was not easy. Meanwhile, different ones in Hongkong, realizing how completely, as will appear, their intentions had been misunderstood, were on several occasions on the point of making statements, but were persuaded that at the risk of considerable delay and even further misunder- standing it might be better to wait until one final statement could be made.
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I have now satisfied myself that, regardless of the word- ing of the resolutions, no one had any idea whatever of sug- gesting which side fired first or of singling out any particular nation. In so far as the resolutions indicate or imply other- wise, they are definitely at fault, and on behalf of those who drew them up I wish hereby in these respects to withdraw them. No one had had any chance to hear from the Shameen side, but what was definitely and foremost in every one's mind--was a protest against what seemed, according to the information available on June 24, to be unnecessary severity in the Shameen defence and the apparently indiscriminate machine-gun fire.
Had the wording of these resolutions been as clear in this as I have satisfied myself was the intention of those who drew them up, I am confident so much misunderstanding would not have arisen, nor so regrettable and, I beg to say, undeserved bitterness evoked against an institution which, despite every assertion to the contrary, has been striving steadily to promote international goodwill, and as an institu- tion with Chinese, British and Americans on its staff and on its Board of Trustees, has, we believe, been to no small degree successful in this and we hope will continue to be.
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We yield second place to none in our keen desire for the early adjustment of Chinese and foreign relationships. It is our belief that the only settlement of China's external difficulties will be one wherein mutual rights are mutually recognized, and where the foreigner is willing to do what has been so well suggested recently by a group in London, put Chinese interests first.'
HONGKONG, July 29, 1925.
(Sd.) JAMES M. HENRY, President, Canton Christian College.
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