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Canton Strike Committee were impeding through traffic over the Kowloom Canton Railway and suggested that the strikers and unemployed labourers in Canton would be more usefully occupied in constructing the loop-line railway at Canton,
project which would be financed by the Hong Kong Government on easier terms than the Canton Government could expect from
any other quarter. Subsequently on the 29th March I had
another conversation with Mr. Sun Fo, (please see my secret
despatch of the same day), at which he referred to the
question of the loop-line railway at Canton and I told him
that it was a project in which the Hong Kong Government took
a great interest, and which we should be glad to further to
the best of our ability. Later still, on the 9th April, Mr.
J.H.Kemp discussed the loop-line project in a conference with Mr. C.C.Wu et Canton (please see enclosure No. 1 in my
secret despatch of the 11th April). Mt. Wu then said that this loop line would only cost about $600,000 and he appeared to
.for.
70267/26
sure No. 3.
be greatly attracted by the idea of loans for railway and other purposes as a means of ending the boycott.
5.
It would, however, seem that Mr. Sun Fo
is not animated with his father's "whole-hearted intention" of
pushing through the junction line as speedily as possible; for on the 6th May, when present in his capacity of "Minister of Reconstruction" at the installation of a new Managing Director
Canton Railway, he
to
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of the Chinese Section of the Kowloon
delivered the lecture, of which I attach a translation -the railway staff. In this lecture he said :- On the first construction of the Kowloon Canton Railway, England
had a wild ambition against Kuang-tung and, therefore, the line was made to lead direct to Kowloon, in order to centralize the comamications of the Province there, in the
the interests of/commerce of Hong Kong. The railway has great relation with Kuang-tung and South China, and the English
Financing
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