CO129-337 - Public Offices & Foreign Office - 1906 — Page 260

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General had made a proposition to discuss this matter on the basis of the Northern Railways Loan Agreement. I corrected this error, whereupon he said that a telegram would be sent to Manton. I asked that the telegram should contain specific instructions to the Viceroy to order his delegate to discuss the draft final and working agreements with the Agent of the British & Chinese Corporation. For some time he refused to do this, and said that discretion must be left to the Viceroy who had to consider local conditions. I impressed upon His Highness that I was asking for the fulfilment of a preliminary Agreement entered into by the Chinese Government according to which the final contract of the Shanghai-Nanking Railway was to be taken as the basis for the final contract of the Canton-Kowloon line, and I pointed out that the local conditions mentioned in the preliminary agreement referred to questions of feng shui, graves, and route to be followed — questions of detail merely.