96
e measurable distance of being attained. If the
new agreement about to be concluded succeeds, 25
there is every reason to hope, in removing a griev-
ange that has for years been a source of friction
between the Chinese authorities and the Colony, and
which threatened to become an even greater obstruc-
tion to go ed relations in the future, it will be a
matter on which the officers of the Colony and of
the Chinese Karitime Customs concerned will deserve
every congratulation.
2.
The correspondance enclosed in my confiden-
tial letter to ir V. wellesley of the 13th of June
shows that on examination of the question on his
arrival in Hongkong, sir william Peel came to the con-
clusion that it would be wrong to allow the chinese
to run a preventive service of their own in the waters
of the Colony, and that the encouragement such a foot-
ing would give to the "irredentist tendencies of the
Southern Chinese in regard to Hong Kong was a real
danger./