ENCLOSURE NO. 1 IN CANTON DESPATCH TO B.E. SHANGHAI, No.211 of
21st NOVEMBER, 1938
46
(Paragraphs 7 and 8 of Mr. R. H. Scott's report on his interview
wi Dr. Lo Wen-kan, enclosed in his confidential despatch No.11 of march 18th, 1936 to His Majesty's Ambassador, Peking.)
From the commercial point of view the scheme is unsound.
The technical difficulties in the way of dredging the necessary
approached and access channels may perhaps have been overestimated;
but even assuming that the port can be completed with the funds
available, and the maintenance work can be and is efficiently carried
out at reasonable cost, it still remains to convince shipowners of
the attractions of Whampoa. In the case of Shanghai there is no
alternative port of which shipping can make use; but in the case of
Canton Hongkong provides cheap and up-to-date facilities for all
classes of ships. Small coasting vessels of about 2,000 gross
tons register, which ply from Canton to Shanghai, Tientsin, Haiphong,
Singapore, Bangkok, and other ports, can already proceed not only
to Whampoa but to Canton itself; and it is difficult to see what
inducement there is to larger vessels to come to Whampoa. To dis-
charge cargo there, instead of at Hongkong, would entail a delay of
at least one day, and probably of two days; and in the case of a
large ocean freighter or mixed passenger and cargo steamer, where
only a portion of the cargo was consigned to Canton, demurrage and
tonnage and pilotage dues would make a visit to Whampoa disproportion-
ately expensive. Moreover, it would in any case be necessary for
such a vessel to call at Hongkong to discharge cargo consigned to
Hongkong, Swatow, and other small ports in South China; and it
would be more convenient also to discharge cargo for Canton at the
same time. The same argument applies to loading cargo. Again, if
freight were transhipped at Whampoa, further handling and transport
would still be necessary: Canton is ten miles away, and the costs
of transhipping at Whampoa into lighters or junks, and transport to
Canton, would be little less than the cost of transhipping at Hong
Kong, and transport thence.
8.
On the other hand, like so many other enterprises under-
taken in China, the success or failure of the project will not depend