CO129-494 - Governor Sir Clementi - 1926 [9-10] — Page 422

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itself as completely independent and even aspiros by force of arms to bring the rest of China beneath its sway. Under these conditions any foreign diplomacy which persists in regarding Kuang-tung as subject to Peking is bound to fail, and it has repeatedly been necessary for the Hong Kong Govern- ment, through H..'s consular representatives in Kuang-tung, to deal with the Unton Goverment as being the only adoring exercisin, actual control in the province.

Now it always has been, and it still is, the policy of the Hong Kong Government to maintain very friendly relations with our neighbours in Harg- Jung. Je realize that, geographically speaking, this Colony is part of the Huan-tan province and that

ith the prosperity of Kuang-tun, our own is insepar- cbly bound up. But unhappily our sincerest and friendliest good wishes have of late been frustrated by a variety of perverse circumstances. In the first place, since the donfall of the Lianchu dynasty, the successive Governments set up at Centon have cech and all been of a very ephemeral charactor. there has hardly been time for the non; Kong authorities to get into touch with the Cantonese authorities of one Government before that Government vanished and

was succcoded by another. Moreover, the diplomatic

fiction of the existence of a Central Chinose Govern-

ment at Poking has been a constant embarrassment to us and has from time to time infuriated the Cantonese.

Then again, the incessant civil wars of the last

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