CO129-559-13 Sir A. Caldecott- visit to Canton 13-9-1936 - 26-11-1936 — Page 50

3.

49

whether Hong Kong would agree to a reopening of the question of a

Customs Agreement and that an affirmative reply had been sent. I

last have addressed you on this/subject in a separate despatch. The

Generalissimo then expressed complete agreement as to the need for

understanding and co-operation and said that he would let it be

known that it was his desire that Canton business men should respond

to any invitation to visit Hong Kong. There was local opposition

to the linking of the Hankow and Kowloon railways (I had not

mentioned this project but ever since the broadcasting by the

Chinese Press of Sir Cecil Clementi's speech at the Royal Empire

Society last December every Chinese official that one meets thinks

that one is trying to get at him over this loop line) but he had

ordered the completion within seven months of an extension of the

Hankow railway to Whampoa. That extension would cross the Kowloon

railway on the level, and their connection would follow as a matter

of course but without advertisement. The Generalissimo had never

heard of the draft Hong Kong-China Customs Agreement of 1930 and

consequently did not evince much interest in it. The conversation

thereafter became general and Madame Chiang Kai Shek, who is General Secretary to the Chinese Aviation Commissioners, told me

that she was thinking of sending South China air cadets to the Far

Eastern Aviation School at Kowloon for private preliminary

training; if this idea should eventuate it would of course assure

the future of the School, introduce a pro-British element into the

Chinese Air Force and foster a demand for British planes. I

therefore listened most sympathetically. Nothing was said at

Whampoa about Japan or the Japanese, except that the Generalissimo

in the course of general enquiries about Hong Kong and Malaya

asked me how many of them there were in either place. During the

whole of the evening Madame Chiang Kai Shek was suffering from

severe pain and irritation caused by acute dermatitis, and in

bidding her good-bye I expressed my admiration of her pluck in

remaining at Whampoa to be our hostess and interpreter when her

Page 50Page 51