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alive to the absolute necessity of making the connection in the interest of their own lines; that he had made the necessary ar-
-rangements for the construction of the junction line during a visit to Canton; and that negotiations were already proceeding for
the purchase of the necessary land. Finally on the occasion of Sir
F. Lugard's interview with Liang Shih-yi at Peking on the 21st.
October, 1910, the latter stated that in his opinion the only way of making the Canton-Kowloon Railway pay was by connecting it with
the Canton-Hankow line.
2.
When the draft working agreement for the
Canton-Kowloon Railway came to be negotiated this Government
endeavoured to obtain the inclusion in it of a clause binding the
Chinese Government to make the connection. With the object clause
32-A (copy enclosed) was inserted in the draft submitted by tuis
Government to the representatives of the Canton Section of the
Canton-Kowloon Railway. The clause was not accepted by them and
it finally took the much less definite form of section 30 (copy enclosed) of the Working Agreement which was in process of negotiation when the Manchu Government fell.
3.
Whatever opinion one may hold as to the
sincerity of the protestations of certain Chinese members of the
Manchu Government in favour of the connection there is little
doubt that the Republican Government which so far has shorm far
more antagonism to the interests of this Colony and far less moral
courage to withstand popular clamour for the obstruction of
foreign enterprise, will not make the connection if it can avoid
doing so. The Chinese now appreciate quite clearly how vital the
connection is to this Colony and their ambition is, as I think it
has ever been either to establish a port which shall with the
help denied to Hongkong of connection with the trunk railways of
China, kill the trade of tuis Port, or if that cannot be
accomplished then to regain possession of tais Colony and its dependencies as soon as possible. The enclosed extract from an
article by Mr. George Bronson Rea in the "Far Eastern Review" of
September, 1912, on the subject of Dr. Sun Yat Sen's Railway
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