CO129-374 - Public Offices & Others - 1910 — Page 266

C.

31461 259

16 Great George Street,

Westminster, 3.w.

13th October 1910.

300441

Sir.

With further reference to your letter of the 5th instant, I have now had an opportunity of carefully considering the point submitted to me in your communication, and though I cannot pretend to such full knowledge of the conditions affecting Continental Railways as I have with regard to English Railways, I have come definitely to the conclusion that a study of the arrangements made for working them is

not likely to afford much assistance in dealing with the

Canton Kowloon Railway.

The reason which leads me to this conclusion is that

I am quite unable to find a case on the Continent where the

conditions are similar.

There are certainly many cases where the ownership

of a continuous line of Railway crossing a Frontier is vested

in the respective Governments on either side of that Frontier,

and in all such cases through traffic from one system to the other has to be dealt with, but in practically every case

two elements exist which make the conditions quite dissimilar

to those existing in the case of the Canton Kowloon Railway.

The traffic local to each of the two systems bears a

large proportion to its respective total traffic and

competitive railway routes have to be condidered. The result

of these conditions is that in practically every case each

(Government