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could return, if they could find employment or had means of subsistence. Mr. Foo said that Mr. Fletcher had said some- thing to this effect.
(8) and (9) Rents Law.-Mr. Foo said that Mr. Fletcher considered these two "demands ** incapable of being con- ceded, and we expressed the same opinion.
(11) Racial Discrimination in Employment of Chinese.-- Mr. Foo said that Mr. Fletcher informed the Canton Govern- ment that there was no differentiation between Chinese and other nationals. Mr. Foo asked us two questions. One was. whether Germans or Portuguese of British nationality would have exactly the same treatment as a Chinese British subject. The second question was and we replied in the affirmative.
whether the law governing the grant of certificates of Masters, &c., of British ships was Hongkong law or universal law of the British Empire, and we replied that the matter was probably governed by Board of Trade Regulations, and not Hongkong law.
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(12) Licences.-Mr. Foo himself could not understand what this clause really meant. We said that if, for example, it had any reference to the replacement by another person of a licensed hawker who had vacated his stall-space and left the Colony during the strike, it would be obviously unfair to restore that space to the original holder.
(13) Free Housing of Workmen'.—Mr. Fletcher was repre- sented to have said that the Hongkong Government desired to encourage employers to provide quarters for their work. men near their works, as was evidenced by the facilities it granted to some employers in the sale of land for building such quarters; but it was clearly impossible to compel em- ployers to provide such quarters. We said that we agreed with Mr. Fletcher, and pointed out that the provision of free quarters would mean the proportionate reduction of wages.
(15) Free circulation of Chinese Currency.-We told Mr. Foo that this was a purely economic question in the real sense of the word, and not in the sense previously employed throughout the discussion; that the free circulation of foreign currency was not permitted in England or other countries in Europe or America; and that therefore it would be useless to consider the demand at all. Mr. Foo replied that. Mr.. Fletcher also said something to this effect, and he himsel! realised that a request of this sort could easily be dropped after negotiation had been opened.
8. Though the students' demands " were printed on the same sheet, we told Mr. Foo that we could not discuss them, but on the contrary, we would advise him not to encourage the students to interfere in politics.. But we informed him of the decisions of the Hongkong Government in regard to school fees. and to the re-admission of students who left their schools during the strike.
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9. After having gone through the political terms we re- sumed conversation in a general way. In answer to a question from us, Mr. Foo said that the Strike Committee had received altogether (apart from grants made by the Canton Government for food and clothing) a little over $1,000,000. About $600,000 was received from Chinese abroad, and about $400,000 was raised by an impost on house rents in Canton. There were now no surplus funds. in Canton, and the strikers depended entirely upon the Government grant. The amount of money said to have been obtained from the sale of confiscated goods was very much ex- aggerated. According to a return recently rendered by the Strike Committee to the Canton Government as the outcome of the Customs incident, 1,100 packages of goods had been seized by the strike pickets from July last to date. Eighteen shipments were seized by the pickets, but eleven of them were afterwards returned by the strikers, probably on payment of some bribe by the owners to the Strike Committee or Pickets Committee.
Asked as to whether Mr. Wong Ching-wei could use his influ- ence with the strikers to end the trouble, as he said to Mr. Kong E-suen and Mr. Li Sing-kue that he would, Mr. Foo answered that Mr. Wong would do so, should there be a hitch in the nego- tiation over the question of monetary payment, provided the amount offered would be within reason. Mr. Foo suggested that we should induce the Chinese merchants to increase the amount of their former offer, and he undertook to do his utmost to get the strikers to reduce their figure. We replied that though we could not promise that any payment would be made at all, and that probably the Chinese merchants would not now be, able to raise the $300,000 they originally mentioned, we would have a talk with them. We added that the English merchants, being in a somewhat intransigent temper, could not be expected to assist the Chinese merchants. He said that though he made this suggestion, he felt that as the difference between the strikers' figure and that mentioned by the eight delegates was so great, very little could be expected from the Chinese merchants in Hong- kong; and he thought that the only practical solution would be the grant of a loan by the Hongkong Government to the Canton Government in the manner indicated by him the previous day. We said that while we had nothing to add to our remarks of the previous day, we would convey his suggestion to His Excellency the Governor.
10. We reminded Mr. Foo that he mentioned nothing as to whether or not the Canton Government would appoint officials to meet officials appointed by the Hongkong Government. Mr. Wong Ching-wei told Mr. Kong and Mr. Li that he would be prepared to do so; and we asked Mr. Foo whether he could con- firm this statement. He replied that though the subject was not mentioned to him, owing probably to an oversight, he would ask Mr. Wong on his return to Canton, and would then let us know.
11. After the discussion Mr. Foo said that as he had frankly and, in fact, without the least reserve, said many things to us which officially he should never have said, he trusted that we
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