CO129-499-4 Canton situation- governor's despatches 18-3-1927 - 22-4-1927 — Page 153

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

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Shanghai and Hong Kong is resented in an extreme de ree. Then England is regarded as having snow no sympathy with the legitimate aspiration of the Kwok Man Tong till it was forced to by the stress of aircumstances and in its

own interest. Thus it is thought that if England will

revise its treaties with China other nations will be

bound to follow suit.

A leading plank in the Kwok Man Tong's programme is the recovery of tariff autonomy. It is regarded as monstrously unjust that other countries e.g. Japan and

American should tax Chinese exports to any extent they choose (e.g. America's tea and Chinese silk is 100% ad valorem) while China's tariff is fixed by outside powers.

In addition to all this there has came the Russian

anti-British agitation and many of the labour unions have been

infected with the idea of a world revolution.

The danger lies, if revision of treaties is delayed,

in China, Japan and Russia forming a triple alliance for eeenem economic, if not military attack on the West and America. There are already forces at work in tuis direction and one hopes the British Government is alive to the fact.

(5) The Chun Hwa Sheng Kung Hui:-

If things do settle down with a reasonable time and we are able to carry on the work a very strenuous effort ought to be made to develop industrial education for the poorer classes, especially in the country districts. Our present country day schools are failures, and this for various causes, the chief one of which is that the aim is a purely literary education. The concentration of so much strength on higher education does not seem to have done very much towards building up the Church. It might be well worth while to make a real attempt at starting from the bottom.

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