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whole agreement, but has merely protested that the British
section's claim based on Article VII clause (f) is not
its liability as a railway but the liability of the
Chinese Government. The action of the Chinese section
on these occasions has indeed, as the Crown Solicitor
shows, been incompatible with the application of Article 32 (or 38) thereto.
2.
While therefore I am ready to agree with His Majesty's Minister that this may not be an opportune
moment for pressing our claim and that our chances of
ultimate recovery are slender, I must deprecate complete
abandonment, which will involve the writing off from the
assets of the British section nearly a million dollars (please see item B.7-6 on page 24 of Appendix S to the Annual General Report for 1928) and presumably acceptance
as a dead loss of any deficits which may in future be
sustained from similar interruptions of through traffic.
3.
In any case I deprecate any formal announcement
of abandonment either to the National Government, or to
Canton although the latter has had notice of our claim in Sir. C. Clementi's letter of the 2nd January, 1930, addressed to His Majesty's Consul-General and transmitted by him without comment to the Provincial Government. A copy of
this letter was forwarded to Your Lordship under despatch No.3 of 3rd January.
Such an announcement is unlikely to evoke any solid gratitude from the beneficiaries and may well
encourage them to attribute all future suspensions, whatever their immediate cause, to similarly uncontrollable events and even to reject claims for demurrage which are now
accepted.
I
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