"SPEECH BY CONSUL-GENERAL RONALD A. HALL ON THE
OCCASION OF ADMIRAL HARCOURT'S FAREWELL VISIT
TO CANTON"
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It gave me great pleasure to hear that His Excellency the Commander in Chief, Hong Kong, could spare the time to accept the very kind invitation of Their Excellencies, General Chang Fa kwei, Governor Lo and Admiral Chan Chak to visit us here in Canton before leaving the China Seas. I thought on this farewell visit, His Excellency would like to have among the guests no less than 37 graduates of Hong Kong University.
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The bricks and mortar of that University have been destroyed but its spirit is alive today even in this very roan. I believe you graduates of Hong Kong University if you will it can exercise a great, influence on the good fortunes of Kwangtung Province. You have absorbed two civilizations from your cradle up you have absorbed the civilisation of China, and in your student years, the civilisation of the West. You therefore have more standards of judgment than most people, and 90% of the troubles between nations are due to faulty judgment. You need not make the mistakes made by others through ignorance of more than a single point of view. Moreover, with patience and self confidence you can prevent others making mistakes.
Kwangtung province with its teeming millions, its fertile soil and its network of natural waters has a greater potential than many European powers. But with its streets containing a number of starving refugees, it is at present only a potential. It is for you to convert that potential into an actuality. With fear, with despondency nothing is possible. With faith in yourselves and in your own high destinies anything is possible. Difficulties there always will be in our lives, but if we will it we can write them off as a spur to achievement. It is just over a year ago that America lost her wartime President. He also had his own personal difficulties. But who can doubt that. it was infantile paralysis which raised Roosevelt so far above his peers, and enabled him to be elected three times President
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