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New Territories:-
"His Majesty's Government will give the fullest protection to Hong Kong and its mainland territories during the civil war now unhappily raging in China and they have no intention whatever of surrendering
Hong Kong or of abandoning or diminishing in any way its rights or authority in any part of the adjacent
mainland territories under British administration
to the maintenance of which His Majesty's Government
attach the highest importance."
But many of the principal firms established in Hong Kong are among those British commercial houses
which have invested very large sums in the British
Concessions in China and on their behalf we support
in the strongest possible terms the view put forward by Lord Southborough's Committee, in its letter of
March 2nd, 1927, to the Foreign Office, that British
trade with China can only be maintained by having its representatives actually resident in the chief
centres of trade and that such residence is only
possible if the amenities of European life can be
secured "in sufficient degree". The fate of the
former British concessions at Hankow and Kiukiang
affords but little hope that the amenities of civilized
life, without which Europeans cannot live and trade in
China, will be possible if some measure of foreign
control is not retained in the administration of the
areas in which the bulk of the Europeans reside. In
any
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