£
China such a monopoly could be made effective.
The Chinese are
adepts at playing off one group against the other. After all
even a monopoly price must be a relative price and our competi-
tors, freed from any responsibility for making good their 133
contract, would see to it that alternative quotations were
submitted to the Chinese which might make our price appear
relatively high, or alternatively, might prejudice British
credit by bringing pressure to bear on the British manufacturer
to offer goods below standard quality, or at a non-remunerative
price.
16.
1
Even if a monopoly could be made effective, I am
convinced that British trade has more to gain in the long run
from a system of open tender by which, if its tender is better,
the British Group is enabled to secure the supply of material for
all sections of the railway, than by a system of monopoly which,
since we cannot deny to the other groups the advantages we claim
for our own, must necessarily be limited to the British section
alone.
17.
It has cost us a hard fight to establish the principle
of open tender in China and, if we were to abandon it now, I see
no alternative but a reversion to the former welter of inter-
national competition with its sinister political consequence of
renewed attempts to delimit international spheres of interest
in China.
18.
If it
Open tender is the keystone of the Consortium. is removed the whole structure must inevitably fall to the ground
I do not wish and the work of many laborious years be destroyed.
to exaggerate the value of the Consortium. I have never regarded it as an end in itself, but only as a means for tiding over the period of transition to an established Government in China. that happy event is accomplished, no one will be more relieved
When
than/