CO129-494 - Governor Sir Clementi - 1926 [9-10] — Page 482

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that these percentages should be regarded by the Board of Trustees as intended for their general guidance only. The Deputation adds that the Board should not be debarred from transferring a portion of the money avail- able for expenditure under one head to one of the other heads. The Board of Trustees would, in effect, not be going beyond the letter of the Deputation's Report, if it spent the whole of its income on administration. Then again the Deputation advises that the work selected for investments should be railway construction, adding that of the railway projects brought to its notice the one which should, in its opinion, be preferred, provided that political and other difficulties are not found to be insuperable, is the completion of the Hankow-Canton Railway. The Deputation advises further, that, if for any cause this Railway project has to be abandoned, the money available for investment should be devoted to conservancy work and it proceeds to name two such schemes as being most deserving of support. Impartial experts are to be selected before any railway or con-

is sergancy scheme be definitely adopted. If the impartial experts submit unfavourable reports, or if the Board of Trustees itself considers that political and other con- ditions in China are such as to make these undertakings unduly speculative, then the delegates advise that the money to the credit of the Indemnity Fund at the Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank should at once be invested in approved stock in China or abroad and that the sum in excess of the amount which is to be spent ammually for the other purposes named (£350,000) be similarly invested and added to the capital sum with the interest annually accruing. To this recommendation the delegates add the

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