CO129-331 - Public Offices - 1905 — Page 16

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19795

RECO

THE BRITISH AND CHINESE CORPORATION

E-WO,

PEKING.

April 17th, 1905.

Dear Sir Ernest Satow:-

In accordance with your request I enclose

a copy of the rough estimate of amount of loan re-

quired for the Canton-Kowloon railway.

In this esti-

mate you will observe the nominal amount of the loan

is placed at £1,500,000, but the Chinese would actual-

ly get only £1,350,000. In previous railway loans,

as far as I am aware, nothing has ever been provided

for working capital" or "margins, whereas in the en-

closed estimate, in order to comply with clause 10 of

Schedule and leave a margin for contingencies these

amount to £133,822, a sum almost sufficient to provide

for the two additional years interest which may be re-

quired in the event of the Hongkong section taking

four years to build. In discussing this matter with

Sir Mathew Nathan, he seemed to think that the Hong-

kong section might be built more expeditiously and

possibly the Chinese section might take a little

longer than anticipated, in which case the opening of

S

the