13
31. F.O.
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26/4/28
(Peking Tel 316, 319, 323.325-
184 22 and +232 Apil
222nd
G.J.
This corres. between Sir C. Clementi
and Sir M. Lampson is rather disquieting.
Apparently the Govr. is trying to claim that
when submitting his plans for dealing with the
telegraph office, he intended that the Cantonese
authorities should be allowed to appoint an
agent who would, to some extent, be in charge of
the office. I am quite sure I did not under-
stand that this was implied by the Governor's
telegram of the 20th of February (No.17), and I
do not think that the S. of S's. approval in
the telegram of the 13th of March (No.22) was
intended to cover this. I understood that the
phrase "working arrangement with Canton authorities" referred simply to the necessary
arrangements with the authorities at the other
end of the line and not to the appointment of a
Cantonese agent in Hong Kong.
The duplicate of the despatch of the
15th of March referred to in the first enclosure
to No.31 is annexed and the passage mentioned has
been flagged. When I originally read this, I
thought that it was going a step further than
we had so far agreed, but in view of Sir C.
Clementi's insistence in his discussions with
Li Chai-sum on the necessity for the prior
approval of the S. of S., I expected that we
should hear more about it later when some concrete
proposal would be submitted. The tone of the
discussions does not suggest that the plan had
already been submitted for approval, in fact the
impression