CO129-342 - Governor Lugard & Public Offices - 1907 [11-12] — Page 127

Hon. C. S.

Minute by the Hon. Registrar General.

C.O.

1251

125

RECEIVED (REGISTRY) 11 JAN 08

I approached the subject of H.E. Yang's mission with several Chinese acquaintances and gathered that the intention of it was to induce Chinese residents abroad to invest their capital in large commercial and industrial undertakings in China, such as factories, railways, docks, &c.

I think one object of the mission was also to persuade the merchant class that the official class was ready to meet them on equal terms and anxious for their co-operation.

The Chinese merchants know by bitter experience in the China Merchant Steamship Co. and the Telegraph Co. that Government co-operation results in Government control.

Still, there are men like Cheung Pat Shi, who has spent 400,000 taels to obtain his titles and the control of railways in the South of China, who still think the investment is a good one, and I know another man called Tu who has paid $150,000 for similar titles and offices. Both these men are Straits merchants.

Dr. Ho Kai and Mr. Wei Yuk did not attend the dinner given to Mr. Yang by a number of Chinese, though pressed to do so. Dr. Ho Kai gives as his reason that the Chinese Government required that any Chinese naturalized abroad or born there who invested in any undertakings in China should renounce their acquired nationality, and he thought such a condition unjustifiable in any case and certainly not one to be insisted on by Mr. Yang under cover of a friendly visit to those countries in which Chinese were residing.

Mr. Yang stayed in Hongkong with Mr. Ng Li-hing, whose acquaintance he had made in negotiations for a mining concession in Fukien. Mr. Ng gave a dinner in his honour, at which both Dr. Ho Kai and Mr. Wei Yuk were guests. The only entertainment...