CO129-494 - Governor Sir Clementi - 1926 [9-10] — Page 477

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of them have never seen, is ding excellent work for 455 the education of the Chinese and is worthy of every consideration at the hands of a Board whose establish- ment the Deputation advocates. The Chinese members of the Deputation were reluctant to visit Hong Kong without going to Canton also, and their British col- leagues respected this attitude, and thereby doubtless contributed towards unanimity in the Deputation. But it does occur to me that Hong Kong is after all a British Colony and that the attempt on the part of the Canton Soviet to ruin Hong Kong (admittedly as the first step towards the destruction of British trade, influence and prestige in Chira generally) by methods which His Majesty's Government have since described as those befitting brigands and pirates" was scarcely a circumstance which should have been regarded with in- difference by persons, whatever their nationality, who had consented to serve on a British Parliamentary Committee. This Committee was appointed by Act of Parliament to advise the Foreign Secretary as to the purposes on which money due to the British Treasury should be spent, these

purposes being required by the said act to be of mutual

interest to His Majesty and to the Republic of China. The mischief has already been done and cannot now be

undone; but I still feel bewildered when I reflect that

in the long process of humiliation to which this Colony has recently been subjected, a blow so damaging to its interests was struck by a Deputation of His Majesty's Government, which decided that, unless its members were

allowed to go at the same time to Canton, there to

negotiate, as friends bringing gifts, with men whose

avowed object was the ruin of all things British, not

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