CO129-342 - Governor Lugard & Public Offices - 1907 [11-12] — Page 178

174

voured to inflame the people by urging that Foreign war-ships in inland waters were the natural precursors of new annexations and were an interference with the sovereign rights of China which would form a disastrous precedent. They urged that all launches flying foreign flags should transfer themselves to the Dragon, and discussed a boycott of British trade, and a strike of all Chinese in British employ. With regard to the first of these proposals the guild of launch owners at once expressed their willingness to follow the suggestion, if the Provincial Government would remove the onerous treatment which compelled Chinese launches to seek a foreign flag. A full exposé of the disabilities under which launches flying the Chinese flag suffered followed, and the result was to divert the anti-foreign cry largely into a complaint against their own rulers. As regards the latter proposals - a boycott or a strike - it began to be apparent as days past that the patrol was by no means unpopular with the riverain people. They treated the British crews with courtesy and indeed appeared to welcome them and the efficient protection they afforded, so that the fulminations of the Cantonese agitators received no backing and tended more and more to be directed against the inefficiency and corruption of their own

'S.