CO129-562-20 Whompoa Port- development 19-2-1937 - 4-4-1938 — Page 41

No: SECRET.

Copy to:-

Peking No. 6.

3381

N

Canton No. 14.

Sir,

зе

GOVERNMENT HOUSE,

HONG KONG,

19th February, 1937.

42

53770/26

Deart

Copy & Jewell.

142 4

Camy.

вят

I have the honour to address you with reference

to the development of the port of Whampoa, near Canton.

I cannot find that this subject has ever been the subject

of a Hong Kong despatch before, but in paragraph 3 of my secret (2) despatch of the 24th September, 1936, (reporting

my visit to Canton) I mentioned the extension of the

Hankow-Canton Railway to Whampoa, an extension which

implies some development of the latter place as a port.

2. I am informed that during the period of anti-

British feeling which followed the general strike and

boycott of 1925 much was written in the vernacular press

of South China on this subject. The idea then was to

cut out this Colony as the ocean door of South China.

There has of course been a great improvement in Sino-

British feelings since then, but nevertheless the fact

remains that the development of Whampoa was one of the

visions of Dr. Sun Yat-sen and figures in his will.

It

was inevitable that something should be done there, if

only to save the face of the Chinese nation in the matter

of posthumous respect and loyalty to an almost deified

leader. A precis of passages from Dr. Sun Yat-sen's

"Methodical Plans for Building up Our Country" is the

first enclosure to this despatch.

Encl. No. 1.

THE RIGHT HONOURABLE

W.G.A. ORMSBY-GORE, P.C., M.P.,

&C.,

&C.,

&C.

3.