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of these proposals, as it seemed premature at present to do so.
But the time would come when presumably it would be necessary. Mr Shigemitsu repeated what Mr Saburi had said to me, namely that his people were absolutely opposed to the licensing idea. He asked whether there was any truth in the report which he had heard that Butterfield & Swire had come to some arrangement for amalgamation with the China Merchants ? I said I had heard nothing of the kind, but that Butterfields were a very go-ahead firm who gener- ally looked ahead; that I know they had for long been study- ing the possibilities of some form of Anglo-Chinese ombination of the kind; and perhaps the report which he had heard was some scho of that; but I did not know. Mr Shigemitsu said it was very important that in a matter of joint interest such as this we should keep closely together and that none of our people should make a breach in our general attitude. I said this seemed very desirable; at the same time, of course, one could not prevent one's people doing what they really thought best.
Discussing the whole question from a broader point of view, I said that some months ago, when I had been putting up a summary of my views to the Foreign Office, I had suggested that a solution might lie along the line of giving up purely inland water navigation and retaining the inter-port traffic, or, if it were impossible to get any- thing quite so clearly worded as that, to retain the right of river navigation for ocean-going steamers, He said that he had himself had the same sort of idea and he thought there might be something in it; but I feel sure what he had been really after was to ascertain whether I knew anything about the proposed deal between Butterfields and the China Merchants.
(sa) M. W. LAMPSON.