Enclosure 6.
177
daily more difficult to control in Canton. He added that his
Government would do all in their power to assist this Government
in suppressing the boycott. On the other hand further objection- -able paragraphs have appeared in the "Chung Kwok Yat Po" news- -paper in spite of representations made to the Tutu on the subject,
and it is doubtful how far the opinions of Mr. Chan Hing-wah,
whose personal friendliness towards this Government is well-known, are endorsed by his Government; though it may be that the Authori- -ties are too weak to exercise an effectual control over the
press. Moreover, I am convinced that he is wrong in attributing the boycott to the lower classes. Sir Kai Ho Kai with whom I had an interview on the 27th. instant (copy enclosed) is much nearer the mark when he attributes the origin of the boycott to the action of the money-changers, whose numbers have risen from 104 in 1905 to 420 at the present date, with whom are associated with- -out doubt the compradores, shroffs, and other middlemen who act as intermediaries between employer and employed in the payment of wages, and especially the firms and banks who receive remittances from Chinese resident abroad and transit them to relatives in
China. Persons of this class, whose profits lie in exchange, see foreshadowed in the action of the Traway Company the threatened extinction of their privileges and they welcome the boycott as a means of expressing their resentient. Enquiries Lade since my conversation with Sir Kai Ho Kai lead me to believe that the principal offenders in the organisation of the boycott were the Nam Pak Hong or Californian Merchants. The Postmaster-General has pointed out to me that these merchants receive from Chinese resident abroad remittances in gold for payment to Chinese in
Hongkong,, Canton and its vicinity to the amount of about Honey on u
kanum)
$56,000,000 They charge no commission but make the payments in
subsidiary coin and pocket the whole of the discount. Their profit
at only so
therefore amounts to some $2,800,000 a year. It is only natural that these persons should be opposed to the rehabilitation of Hongkong Subsidiary coin or to the reduction of the means of trafficking in exchange and I am assured on excellent Chinese
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