CO129-328 - Governor Nathan - 1905 [1-6] — Page 358

of

# Decom ber

Mebl

December

1904.

353

labourers there.

6.

Both of these modifications appeared to

me objectionable in principle for the reasons given in a

letter which I wrote to Mr. Scott dated the 25th. December

after my first interview with him which took place on the

previous day. I annex a copy of this letter (Enclosure 4) and

of the reply to it (Enclosure 5) dated the 28th. December,

From this reply it appeared that at any rate the Governor of

Kwang Tung was strongly averse to emigration from Canton and

that the only basis on which any arrangement for it could be

made was one involving heavy payments to the Provincial Of-

-ficials, payments which the Agents to the Mining Companies

were not prepared to defray.

7.

As these Agents were not at the time

desirous of pressing on emigration from South China and

I was certainly not prepared to take up a hostile attitude

to the Provincial Goverment in other matters in order to

·

in

force on the emigration scheme I took no further steps

until the 1st. February of this year when after an interview

with Mr. W. Cowan, the Agent for the Transvaal Government,

which he expressed the desire that negotiations should be

continued, I wrote to the Consul-General suggesting that as

the financial stipulations appeared to be the main difficulty

in concluding an agreement with the Cantonese Authorities he

might propose to them in place of tonnage dues and payments

for superintendence of recruiting, etc., a fee of $2 or $3

a head to be paid to the Provincial Treasury for every labourer

embarked in addition to the $3 payable under the Convention

which I understood went to the Central Government. To this he

replied