CO129-442 - Governor Sir May - 1917 [4-6] — Page 240

CO129 Colonial Office Hong Kong Records 理藩院香港檔案 All

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no ground for exclusion on that score. To exclude them

on other grounds may be to force them to establish

themselves elsewhere when otherwise they would not do

白○ •

To lot them establish themselves elsewhero may be

fatal. My anxiety at the advocacy of any policy which

will tend to stimulate them to get a port established in

the neighbourhood of the Colony, which they have already

threatened to do, will be well understood.

It is conceivable that, under any circumstances,

they will endeavour to establish such a port. That

cannot be holped. It would, in my judgment, be gravely

unwise to take any stops to urge them to do so. We

have an object lesson in what within 20 yours they affected

in Tsingtau.

11.

-

In my judgment the Committee and the members of

the Chamber of Commerce, in their confidence at the

ability of the British Morgant to meet any German

competition - a confidence I do not doubt ila amply

justified lost sight of the fact that the progress

of British trade is not necessarily synonymous with

the progress of the Colony. It is to the interest

of the Colony in the first place that as much trade as

possible should pass through it and secondly that as

much of that trade as possible should be done by the

British Mercant. The trade of the British Merchant

in the Colony and in ghina might increase but the trade

of the Colony might decrease and while it is to the colony's interest that the trade of the British Merchants

established here should be fostered to the utmost extent

its interests are equally as national and international.

12.

If the neighbouring countries of China, Japan,

Rusala and the Philippine Islands could be persuaded to

exclude and lioence the Gormans as the resolutions

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