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work by importing limestone from Indo-China at an average cost of from $3.25 to 84.25 a ton landed at the Factory in Hongkong The cost varies according to the freight paid. Owing to the extraordina -ry demand for tonnage all over the world the Company find it very difficult to charter vessels for the transport of limestone from
Indo-China, and the rates demanded are in consequence very high.
The Company has suffered and is suffering
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enormous losses while the import into this Colony of the cement of the Canton Cement Company has increased very largely. The returns of the Chinese Maritime Customs show that whereas the total export of Cement from Canton to Hongkong in 1911 was 5,960 bags, from the 15th. January to 15th. February in this year the export was 5,400 bags. Since the latter date I am informed that the export has been
at the rate of 6,000 bags a month.
do
The demand for cement is very large and the
Green Island Cement Company cannot supply the demands made upon it the inferior cement of the Canton Cement Works is being used.
The most persistent and patient efforts on the
part of His Majesty's Consul-General at Canton and of His Majesty's Minister at Peking have availed nothing against the interested
action of the Canton Authorities, and I have little hope of any
settlement being arrived at unless His Majesty's Government is prepared to take drastic action to protect the Green Island Cement Company from ruin by enforcing the immediate payment of the claim the Company has now made, and by securing the payment of com-
-pensation in the future until such time as the embargo upon its legitimate enterprise is removed.
In the interest of other industrial enterprises
in the Colony and of the maintenance of friendly relations between
this Government and the Provincial Government at Canton I trust
that it may be found possible to take such action, for if the
Provincial Authorities are allowed to kill the competition of the
Green Island Cement Company with impunity there is grave danger of their becoming emboldened to ruin other local industrial Companies which compete with Companies in Canton. They might even
be tempted to aim a blow at the very existence of Hongkong by
placing
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