[ { "id": 246677, "series_id": 27, "series_slug": "histsyn-co129-engine", "series_title": "CO129 Colonial Office Hong Kong Records 理藩院香港檔案", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "CO129-072 - Indviduals - 1858", "page_number": 512, "title": "CO129-072 - Indviduals - 1858", "content_text": "802\n\n9\n\n509\n\n8\n\nINDUSTRIAL MUSEUM, SCOTLAND.\n\nAt the request of private parties, analyses have been made of 170 objects. Among the chief substances examined have been 18 minerals, including sandstones, limestones, granites, iron ores, coal, and bituminous fuels; 77 guanos, superphosphates, and other manures; 19 waters and boiler deposits; 30 articles of food; five drugs; 12 recent animal products, along with the substances requiring analysis in three suspected cases of poisoning; and many miscellaneous objects, such as pigments, porcelain, glass, and mineral powders of unknown origin.\n\nThe Director, in addition, has, at the instance of parties concerned, drawn up reports on the means of preventing the forgery of bank-notes; on the relative merits of four competing patents; on the adulteration of bread; on the legal signification of the word \"pottery,\" as affecting business contracts; on the means of purifying contaminated waters; on the sanitary relations of distilleries; on the changes which grain undergoes during the process of malting; on the causes of sour fermentation in brewing; on the expansibility, under heat, of chloroform; on certain of the limits within which arsenical poisoning may occur; besides less elaborate replies to questions of individual interest.\n\nTwenty pupils have prosecuted analytical chemistry in the laboratory for periods varying from one month to six. The whole of them have been engaged in inquiries relating to industrial science.\n\nIII. The students of the University class of technology number forty. The professions represented by the class are those of general manufacturer, architect, engineer, farmer, merchant, baker, tanner, sugar planter, sugar refiner, teacher, doctor, and clergyman, besides young men entered simply as students, but chiefly training for industrial callings, as well as retired military, medical, and legal officers of the East India Company's service, and amateurs.\n\nThe Senate of the University of Edinburgh, willing to show their interest in the new chair, have placed at the disposal of the Director, as Professor of Technology, a Straton medal of five Charles guineas value for competition among the students. Cowan, Esq., M.P., has offered a prize for the best essay on a subject suggested by the Director; and a senior member of the class, Mr. Farmer, who has realized during a lengthened residence in New Zealand the value of industrial science, has promised another prize for competition among the junior students.\n\nBesides attending the daily lectures, the students, as in preceding years, visit manufactories, such as paper-mills, so as to witness on the large scale the practical working of those arts, the principles of which have been explained in the lectures.\n\nAlthough the class is smaller than last year, chiefly, as is believed, owing to the commercial distresses of the country, and is taught under great disadvantages, in a most inconvenient lecture-room, at a distance from the temporary depository of Museum specimens, the students are unabated in their zeal, and, as in former years, have largely contributed to the Museum.\n\nAs the general public cannot be reached through the University lectures on technology, the Director has embraced various opportunities which have offered to interest the community at large in the Industrial Museum. In particular, he has availed himself of his position as President of the Royal Scottish Society of Arts, to urge in an address which the Society has since printed, the continued co-operation of that large and influential body in supporting the Museum.\n\nBy request of the Merchant Company of Edinburgh, he has delivered to its members and a large circle of guests a lecture \"On the Industrial Museum of Scotland in its relation to commercial enterprise.\" Through the liberality of James Richardson, Esq., Master of the Company, the lecture in question has been printed and distributed widely throughout the country. It has already led to the gift of specimens to the Museum.\n\nFour lectures have been delivered to the Philosophical Institution on a selected number of industrial arts; and a large section of the community who cannot be addressed in any other way have through this channel been awakened or revived to an interest in the progress of the Museum.\n\nIV. The library has been formally organized during the last year, but it has been carefully limited to a few works on industrial science and art, which were essential for the guidance of the Director and his assistants in classifying and acquiring objects for the Museum, and in prosecuting economic researches in the laboratory.\n\nIn concluding this Report, the Director cannot in duty omit calling your special attention to the deep disappointment which has been occasioned in Scotland by no vote having been taken in the House of Commons last session for the erection of the promised new Museum buildings.\n\nMemorials urging the importance of these being proceeded with were presented to Government by the Magistrates and Town Council of Edinburgh, the Senate of its University, the Highland and Agricultural Society of Scotland, the Royal Scottish Society of Arts, the Educational Institute of Scotland, the Merchant Company of Edinburgh, the Edinburgh Chamber of Commerce, and the Technological students of the University, in addition to the representations to the same effect made by Professor Allman and the reporter, as Curators of the Natural History and Industrial Museums. The Highland Society also, as well as the Town Council and Merchant Company of Edinburgh, sent deputations to London to confer with the Treasury on the site and character of the buildings.\n\nIt has been matter accordingly of equal surprise and pain to the general community of Scotland that any doubt should exist on the part of the Legislature as to the interest which the public has in the Industrial Museum, or as to the confidence with which it looks to the fulfilment of the promises made in 1854.\n\nThe Director simply reports these facts in justice to the many...\n\nPage 804\n\n10\n\n510\n\n9\n\nB", "txt_file_path": "txt/2diw2n4r2/CO129-072 - Indviduals - 1858.txt", "external_url": "", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 283166, "series_id": 27, "series_slug": "histsyn-co129-engine", "series_title": "CO129 Colonial Office Hong Kong Records 理藩院香港檔案", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "CO129-147 - Public Offices - 1870", "page_number": 374, "title": "CO129-147 - Public Offices - 1870", "content_text": "# THE MANILA and HONGKONG SUBMARINE TELEGRAPH COMPANY (Limited)\n\nIncorporated under the Companies Act, 1867. To establish telegraphic communication between Manila, the adjacent islands, Hongkong, and Singapore. By virtue of an exclusive concession from the Spanish Government for 43 years. Capital £300,000, in 30,000 shares of £10 each, of which £270,000 in paid-up shares are taken by the contractor. Deposit on application £1 per share, and on allotment £1 per share. Further payments: On the 1st April, 1870, £2; on the 1st May, 1870, £2; on the 1st July, 1870, £2; and on the 1st September, 1870, £2. **Interest at the rate of 5 per cent per annum will be paid by the contractors upon the paid-up capital of the Company until the opening of the line**.\n\n## DIRECTORS\n\n* Chairman - **WILLIAM T. MERCER**, Esq., late Colonial Secretary and Acting Governor of Hongkong\n* John B. Darvall, Esq., Q.C., Director of the Bank of Australia\n* Charles K. Dier, Esq., Lord's, Director of the British and Irish Magnetic Telegraph Company\n* William Maitland, Esq., formerly of Mackillop, Stewart, and Co., Calcutta, and President of the Bengal Chamber of Commerce\n* William T. Harvey, Esq., late of Martin, Dyce, and Co., Java, Singapore, and Manila\n* Wentworth Sturgeon, Esq., 8, Gloucester-place, Portman-square\n* Jarous Whitlow, Esq., late of Gilman, Wray, and Co., China\n* Robert de la Condamine, Esq., late of Ker & Co., Manila; Syme & Co., Singapore; Pattle, Syme, and Co., Batavia\n\n## ENGINEERS, BANKERS, SOLICITORS, AUDITORS, BROKERS, SECRETARY\n\n* Engineers - Sir Samuel Canning (Consulting Engineer); Robert Sabine, Esq., C.E.\n* Bankers - For London, Messrs. Robarts, Lubbock, and Co.; for China, The Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation\n* Solicitors - Messrs. Steven Wilkins and Harrison, Nicholas-lane, Lombard-street\n* Auditors - Messrs. Jorrocks, Dover, Wintle, and Evans (And one to be appointed by the Shareholders)\n* Brokers - Messrs. Seymour and Elwyn\n* Secretary - George Armstrong, Esq., late of Hongkong\n\n## PROSPECTUS\n\nThis Company has been formed to purchase and carry out the exclusive concession, granted for 40 years by the Spanish Government, dated the 24th November last, to establish telegraphic communication between Manila, the Philippine Islands, Hongkong, and Singapore.\n\nThe proposed line and its connexions are marked upon the map accompanying the prospectus.\n\nThe capital now proposed to be raised will be to complete the first section, which will be laid from Hongkong to Manila, a length of about 659 nautical miles. Cables with the necessary connexions for connecting the principal places in the adjacent islands with Manila, estimated at a farther length, including land lines and cables, of 470 miles.\n\nCommunication with Europe, England, and America will be established by one of the following routes:\n| Route |\n| --- |\n| 1. Through the lines now in the course of construction by the British Indian Extension Company, the Anglo-Mediterranean, the Falmouth, Gibraltar, and Malta Telegraph Companies. |\n| 2. Through the proposed cable between Singapore and Calcutta, and thence through the Indian and Indo-European Company's lines, or those of the British-Indian, Anglo-Mediterranean, the Falmouth, Gibraltar, and Malta Telegraph Companies. |\n| 3. Through the Great Northern Company's lines, from Hongkong via Possietta. |\n\nCalculations have been made as to the probable results likely to accrue to the shareholders by the operations of this Company, and there is reason to believe that, taking messages between Hongkong and Manila, the messages which will be sent to Manila from the Port of Singapore, by way of Hongkong, and those which will be sent to Manila from Shanghai, Amoy, Foochow, and the various ports of China and Japan, and further calculating the increasing intermediate traffic of Manila with the rest of the Philippines, the results will eventually show, allowing 300 working days in the year, an annual income which will yield large dividends on the capital, after deducting £32,000 per annum for working expenses and £10,000 per annum to form a reserve fund for the repairs of the cables, &c.\n\nThe Spanish Government will aid the objects of the concession with ships of the navy as far as the service will permit.\n\nA tender has been accepted from Mr. W. T. Henley, of North Woolwich, which provides for the manufacture and laying of the cables, and for the erection of the overland wires, within 12 months, at a cost of £229,000. Until the submarine cable has been completely laid, £41,000 yet unpaid, and of this sum £25,000 will remain in the Company's hands until the line has been maintained in good working order for 6 months.\n\nThe contract also provides for the payment of interest, at the rate of 5 per cent, per annum, upon the paid-up capital by the contractor, payable half-yearly until the opening of the line, and the contractor takes £70,000 in fully paid-up shares.\n\nA copy of the Concession published officially in the Madrid Gazette, with the notarial stipulations; and copies of the agreement with the Concessionaires for the purchase of their interest, also of the Memorandum and Articles of Association, and of the contract with Mr. W. T. Henley, can be seen at the office of the Company.\n\nApplication for shares, to be made in the accompanying form, should be left at the Company's London bankers.\n\nIn all cases where no allotment is made, the deposit will be returned without deduction of any kind.\n\nThe following contracts have been entered into:\n* 1870, February 14 - Order of Mr. W. T. Henley - accepted by W. T. Mercer, Chairman of the Company, on behalf of the Company.\n* 1870, February 3 - Agreement between Ward Lean and Charles William Graham, and William Thomas Mercer, William Maitland, and Wentworth Sturgeon, Esquires, on behalf of the Company.\n\n## FORM OF APPLICATION\n\nTo the Directors of the Manila and Hongkong Submarine Telegraph Company.\n\nGentlemen - Having paid to your bankers the sum of £----, being a deposit of £1 per share, I request you will allot shares of £10 each in your Company, upon the terms of the Prospectus and Memorandum and Articles of Association; and hereby agree to accept the said shares, or any smaller number which you may allot to me, and to become a member of the Company, and I request you to place my name on the register of Shareholders in respect of the shares which may be allotted to me.\n\n1. Through the lines now in the course of construction by the British Indian Extension Company, the Anglo-Mediterranean, the Falmouth, Gibraltar, and Malta Telegraph Companies.\n2. Through the proposed cable between Singapore and Calcutta, and thence through the Indian and Indo-European Company's lines, or those of the British-Indian, Anglo-Mediterranean, the Falmouth, Gibraltar, and Malta Telegraph Companies.\n3. Through the Great Northern Company's lines, from Hongkong via Possietta.\n\nThis Company will thus be enabled to avail itself of the advantage of three competing lines of communication with the United Kingdom, Europe, and America, while it may be added that the through route, by way of Russia to England, will be most immediately completed by means of the section now in course of construction between Kiakhta and Shanghai, two competing lines being about to open communication between Shanghai and Hongkong.\n\nI am, Gentlemen, your obedient servant,\n\nSignature in full,\n\nAddress in full,\n\nDate,\n\n## BANKERS' RECEIPT\n\nThe Manila and Hongkong Submarine Telegraph Company (Limited). Bankers' Receipt (to be retained by Applicant). No. Received the day of 1870, on account of the Manila and Hongkong Submarine Telegraph Company (Limited), from [Name], the sum of £----, being a deposit of £1 per share on application for shares of £10 each.\n\nFor the Manila and Hongkong Submarine Telegraph Company (Limited).\n\n## MEMORANDUM OF ASSOCIATION\n\n1. The name of the Company is the Manila and Hongkong Submarine Telegraph Company (Limited).\n2. The registered office of the Company will be situate in London.\n3. The objects for which the Company is established are the constructing, maintaining, working, and using telegraphic communication between Manila, Hongkong, Singapore, and the islands of the Eastern Archipelago, or some of such or points adjacent thereto, or forming part of the intended route or routes between those places, or some of them, and between such places or any of them, and (as and when authorized by extraordinary meeting of the shareholders) branches from and extensions of any of those lines to such countries or places as the Company thinks fit, the establishment of telegraph stations, and generally carrying on the business of a telegraph company; the acquiring, working, leasing, using, and disposing of such lands, telegraph lines, vessels, concessions, privileges, leases, and other patent rights, and any shares or interest therein respectively as may be useful or desirable for the purposes aforesaid, or any of them; the dealing with all or any of these matters or things in conjunction with any other company or person; the registration or constitution of the Company as a Société Anonyme or otherwise; the subscribing for and acquiring shares of or amalgamating with any sharing in the profits or undertakings of any other telegraph company or concern, and the making and carrying into effect of working, traffic, and other agreements with governments, railway, postal, telegraph, and other companies and authorities, and the doing of all such other things as are incidental or conducive to the attainment of the above objects.\n\n4. The liability of members is limited.\n\n5. The capital of the Company is £300,000, divided into 30,000 shares of £10 each.", "txt_file_path": "txt/2diw2n4r2/CO129-147 - Public Offices - 1870.txt", "external_url": "", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 336429, "series_id": 27, "series_slug": "histsyn-co129-engine", "series_title": "CO129 Colonial Office Hong Kong Records 理藩院香港檔案", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "CO129-237 - Governor Des Voeus Acting Governor Stewart - 1888 [1-6]", "page_number": 145, "title": "CO129-237 - Governor Des Voeus Acting Governor Stewart - 1888 [1-6]", "content_text": "## Allowance to Officers who have served fifteen years on the temporary establishment.\n\n1. Existing claims.\n\n2. Subject as aforesaid, every public Officer (other than a Judge of the Supreme Court) who, having been in the service of the Crown elsewhere than in the Colony, is transferred from such service to the Fixed Establishment of the Colony, and whose aggregate service under the Crown in the Colony and elsewhere would have entitled him, had it been wholly in the Colony, to pension or retiring allowance under this Minute, shall, on his retirement from the service of the Colony, if he at the same time retires from the service of the Crown, and if he had served for a period of at least twelve months in the Colony, be entitled to a pension at the rate of one seven-hundred-and-twentieth the amount of his annual salary at the date of such retirement for each calendar month of his service in the Colony, and in every such case there may be added, at the discretion of the Governor in Council, in computing the period of the retiring Officer's service in the Colony, a number of months not exceeding:\n\n| Condition | Description |\n| --- | --- |\n| (a) | One-third of the aggregate of his service elsewhere than in the Colony. |\n| (b) | Two-thirds of his service in the department or Colony from which he was so transferred; |\n| (c) | In any case eighty-four months. |\n\n## No. 15.\n\nIn the case of an Officer who is not qualified for a pension or retiring allowance under this Minute, but has continuously served on the Temporary Establishment of the Colony for fifteen years or upwards, and is at the date of his retirement in receipt of a salary exceeding $240 per annum, a monthly allowance may be granted to such Officer not exceeding three-fourths of the pension to which he would have been entitled had he been employed on the Fixed Establishment, or in lieu of such allowance there may be paid to him, with the approval of the Secretary of State, a capital sum equal to the amount of sixty of such monthly payments, but no such capital sum shall be paid in any case of retirement on the ground of ill-health, and in the case of such an officer whose salary does not exceed $240 per annum, a gratuity may be granted as under Clause 1, paragraph 2.\n\n## No. 16.\n\nNothing contained in this Minute shall interfere with the pension rights of persons who entered the service of the Colony before the date of the Minute, or shall restrict or diminish any superannuation allowance, compensation, or gratuity which, if this Minute had not been issued, might have been granted to any such person, but except as aforesaid, the provisions of the Minute shall apply as well to persons who have already entered the Public Service as to those who may hereafter enter the Public Service of Hongkong.\n\n## Enclosure 2.\n\n### List of Officers\n\n| Officer |\n| --- |\n| Surveyor General |\n| Puisne Judge |\n| Colonial Chaplain |\n| Colonial Surgeon |\n| Superintendent of Civil Hospital |\n| Surgeon of Loook Hospital |\n| Assistant Engineer |\n| Land Surveyor |\n| Sanitary Surveyor |\n| Inspector of Live Stock (being a Veterinary Surgeon) |\n\n### Minute by the Governor dated 3 September, 1864 attached.\n\nRECEIVED `12 MAR 29`", "txt_file_path": "txt/2diw2n4r2/CO129-237 - Governor Des Voeus Acting Governor Stewart - 1888 [1-6].txt", "external_url": "", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 348306, "series_id": 27, "series_slug": "histsyn-co129-engine", "series_title": "CO129 Colonial Office Hong Kong Records 理藩院香港檔案", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "CO129-254 - Governor Sir Robinson - 1892 [1-4]", "page_number": 39, "title": "CO129-254 - Governor Sir Robinson - 1892 [1-4]", "content_text": "Pensions not to be assignable.\n\nThe Governor in Council may (subject to the approval of such Secretary of State for the Colonies) require any Judge or other Public Officer to retire from the Public Service of the Colony at any time after he attains the age of sixty years.\n\n## No. 19.\n\nNo pension granted under this Minute shall be assignable or transferable or liable to be attached, sequestered, or levied for or in respect of any debt or claim whatsoever upon or for or before any Court on bankruptcy or conviction.\n\n## No. 20.\n\nIf any person to whom a pension has been granted under this Minute is convicted in any Court in Her Majesty's dominions of any crime or offence for which he is sentenced to death or penal servitude or transportation or to any term of imprisonment with hard labour or exceeding twelve months and does not within two months after such conviction receive Her Majesty's free pardon, or if any such person becomes bankrupt, then in every such case such pension shall forthwith cease: provided always that in any case where a pension ceases by reason of the bankruptcy of the pensioner, it shall be lawful for the Secretary of State for the Colonies, or if such pensioner is resident in the Colony, then for the Governor in Council, from time to time during the remainder of such pensioner's life, or during such shorter period or periods, either continuous or discontinuous, as such Secretary of State or Governor in Council shall think fit, to pay all or any part of the moneys to which such pensioner would have been entitled by way of pension had he not become bankrupt, to or apply the same for the maintenance and personal support or benefit of all or any, exclusive of the other or others, of the following persons, namely, such pensioner and any wife, child, or children of his, in such proportions and manner as such Secretary of State or Governor in Council from time to time thinks proper.\n\n### THE SCHEDULE.\n\n#### Rule 3, section 2.\n\nThe number of years to be added to the period of service in cases coming under this Rule for the purpose of computing pensions is as follows:\n\n| Class | Years |\n| --- | --- |\n| 1st Class | 5 |\n| 2nd Class | 11 |\n| 3rd Class | 17 |\n\n1st Class: \n- Attorney General\n- Surveyor General\n- Resident Engineer\n- Colonial Surgeon\n\n2nd Class: \n- Harbour Master\n- Registrar Supreme Court\n- Deputy Registrars\n- Assistant Surveyor General\n- Superintendent Civil Hospital\n- Assistant Superintendent Civil Hospital\n- Surgeon to Victoria Gaol\n\n3rd Class: \n- Executive Engineers\n- Assistant Engineers\n- Marine Surveyors\n- Assistant Harbour Master\n- Land Surveyors\n\n## DRAFT.\n\nSir W. Robinson no.81\n\nMINUTE.\n\nMr. Johnson 25 Man.\n\nLucas 28\n\nMr. Fairfield. Mr. Wingfield. 28\n\nMr. Bramston.\n\nMr. Meade.\n\nBaron de Worms.\n\nLord Knutsford.\n\nfor Carson 4\n\nPage 36\n\n8th Jan, forwarding copies of the revised Pension Minute issued 28th October.\n\nIt appears that the Schedule to this Minute includes the office of Deputy Registrar...", "txt_file_path": "txt/2diw2n4r2/CO129-254 - Governor Sir Robinson - 1892 [1-4].txt", "external_url": "", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 349216, "series_id": 27, "series_slug": "histsyn-co129-engine", "series_title": "CO129 Colonial Office Hong Kong Records 理藩院香港檔案", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "CO129-255 - Governor Sir Robinson - 1892 [5-7]", "page_number": 168, "title": "CO129-255 - Governor Sir Robinson - 1892 [5-7]", "content_text": "# Pensions not to be assignable.\n\nPension to cease on bankruptcy or conviction.\n\nState for the Colonies to the approval of such Secretary of State) require any Judge or other Public Officer to retire from the Public Service of the Colony at any time after he attains the age of sixty years.\n\n## No. 20\n\nNo pension granted under this Minute shall be assignable or transferable or liable to be attached, sequestered or levied upon for or in respect of any debt or claim whatsoever.\n\n## No. 21\n\nIf any person to whom a pension has been granted under this Minute is convicted before any Court in Her Majesty's dominions of any crime or offence for which he is sentenced to death or penal servitude or transportation or any term of imprisonment with hard labour or exceeding twelve months and does not within two months after such conviction receive Her Majesty's free pardon; or if any such person becomes a bankrupt, then in every such case such pension shall forthwith cease: provided always that in any case where a pension ceases by reason of the bankruptcy of the pensioner, it shall be lawful for the Secretary of State for the Colonies, or if such pensioner is resident in the Colony, then for the Governor in Council from time to time during the remainder of such pensioner's life, or during such shorter period or periods, either continuous or discontinuous, as such Secretary of State or Governor in Council shall think fit, to pay all or any part of the moneys to which such pensioner would have been entitled by way of pension had he not become a bankrupt, to or apply the same for the maintenance and personal support or benefit of all or any, exclusive of the other or others, of the following persons, namely, such pensioner and any wife, child or children of his, in such proportions and manner as such Secretary of State or Governor in Council from time to time thinks proper.\n\n## THE SCHEDULE.\n\n### Rule 3, section 2.\n\nThe number of years to be added to the period of service in cases coming under this Rule for the purpose of computing pensions is as follows:-\n\n| Class | Years |\n| --- | --- |\n| 1st Class | 5 years |\n| 2nd | 3 |\n| 3rd | 2 |\n\n1st Class,--- \n* Attorney General.\n* Spain Director of Public Works.\n* Resident Engineer.\n* Colonial Surgeon.\n\n2nd Class,--- \n* Harbour Master.\n* Registrar Supreme Court.\n* Deputy Registrar.\n* Superintendent Civil Hospital.\n* Assistant Superintendent Civil Hospital.\n* Surgeon to Victoria Gaol.\n\n3rd Class,--- \n* Executive Engineers.\n* Assistant Engineers.\n* Marine Surveyors.\n* Assistant Harbour Master.\n* Land Surveyors.\n\n## DRAFT.\n\nAkay 12844 167 bi os Sin C. C. Muith §.C.M.G. Straits re Confidential du 10 Subzisge MINUTE.\n\n3. Johnsen 28/h Lucas 29 \n* Mr. Fairfield.\n* Mr. Wingfield.\n* Mr. Bramston.\n* Mr. Meade.\n* Baron de Worms.\n* Lord Knutsford.\n\nStraits. 122304/90 -29 (22304/10) is with Z: Round who has Preparing Memorandum. whole subject. of Judges pension [rules] for cousin Eastern no. 2 Drafts 59 56/2888 Confe coday Si In zu Aug despatch no.407 of 20 October 1890 you Enclosed a letter from W. Banser, in which he raised the question of the suspension relating to rules affecting the pensions to be awarded to judges, affecting specially ...", "txt_file_path": "txt/2diw2n4r2/CO129-255 - Governor Sir Robinson - 1892 [5-7].txt", "external_url": "", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 352154, "series_id": 27, "series_slug": "histsyn-co129-engine", "series_title": "CO129 Colonial Office Hong Kong Records 理藩院香港檔案", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "CO129-259 - Governor Sir Robinson - 1893 [5-8]", "page_number": 319, "title": "CO129-259 - Governor Sir Robinson - 1893 [5-8]", "content_text": "Pensions not to be assignable,\n\nPension to cease on bankruptcy or conviction.\n\nState for the Colonies to the approval of such Secretary of State) require any Judge or other Public Officer to retire from the Public Service of the Colony at any time after he attains the age of sixty years.\n\nNo. 10. 20\n\nNo pension granted under this Minute shall be assignable or transferable or liable to be attached, sequestered or levied upon for or in respect of any debt or claim whatsoever.\n\nNo. 20. 2/\n\nIf any person to whom a pension has been granted under this Minute is convicted before any Court in Her Majesty's dominions of any crime or offence for which he is sentenced to death or penal servitude or transportation or any term of imprisonment with hard labour or exceeding twelve months and does not within two months after such conviction receive Her Majesty's free pardon; or if any such person becomes a bankrupt, then in every such case such pension shall forthwith cease: provided always that in any case where a pension ceases by reason of the bankruptcy of the pensioner, it shall be lawful for the Secretary of State for the Colonies, or if such pensioner is resident in the Colony, then for the Governor in Council, from time to time during the remainder of such pensioner's life, or during such shorter period or periods, either continuous or discontinuous, as such Secretary of State or Governor in Council shall think fit, to pay all or any part of the moneys to which such pensioner would have been entitled by way of pension had he not become a bankrupt, to or apply the same for the maintenance and personal support or benefit of all or any, exclusive of the other or others, of the following persons, namely, such pensioner and any wife, child or children of his, in such proportions and manner as such Secretary of State or Governor in Council from time to time thinks proper.\n\nTHE SCHEDULE.\n\nRule 3, section 2.\n\nThe number of years to be added to the period of service in cases coming under this Rule for the purpose of computing pensions is as follows:---\n\nFor the 1st Class 5 years.\n\nEnclosure 2.\n\nMinute by the Colonial Secretary.\n\nC.O. 14233\n\nRec. AUC 93!\n\nA further alteration is, I think, inferentially necessitated, viz.: the deletion of the words in brackets in clause 4, paragraph 2.\n\n314\n\nI am not clear why, in view of the addition made to clause 15, paragraph 1, a similar addition was not suggested to clause 15, paragraph 2. Possibly it was overlooked because Sir C. Smith's case raised a question about clause 15, paragraph 1 only; possibly it is considered unnecessary in view of the existing provision in paragraph 2 for adding to the Hong-Kong service of such officers as are there contemplated.\n\n(Initd.) G. T. M. O'B.\n\n2nd March 17\n\n3\n\n*7\n\n1st Class,--\n\nAttorney General.\n\nSurveyor General\n\nSecretary of P. W. ('92)\n\nResident Engineer.\n\nColonial Surgeon.\n\n2nd Class,--\n\nHarbour Master.\n\nRegistrar Supreme Court.\n\nDeputy Registrars,\n\nAssistant Surveyor General.\n\nSuperintendent Civil Hospital.\n\nAssistant Superintendent Civil Hospital.\n\nSurgeon to Victoria Gaol.\n\n3rd Class,--\n\nExecutive Engineers.\n\nAssistant Engineers.\n\nMarine Surveyors.\n\nAssistant Harbour Master.\n\nLand Surveyors.\n\nC.O. 81/92\n\n8th June 1893", "txt_file_path": "txt/2diw2n4r2/CO129-259 - Governor Sir Robinson - 1893 [5-8].txt", "external_url": "", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 370666, "series_id": 27, "series_slug": "histsyn-co129-engine", "series_title": "CO129 Colonial Office Hong Kong Records 理藩院香港檔案", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "CO129-290 - Governor Sir Blake - 1899 [1-4]", "page_number": 267, "title": "CO129-290 - Governor Sir Blake - 1899 [1-4]", "content_text": "## IN THE MATTER OF HONGKONG MARINE LOT No. 184 \n## AND \n## THE PRAYA RECLAMATION ORDINANCE 1889.\n\n### Paragraph \n\nWE, ROBERT KENNAWAY LEIGH of Victoria in the Colony of Hongkong, Civil Engineer, Land Surveyor and Valuator, and JAMES ORANGE of the same place, No. 36, Vineer, Land Surveyor and Valuator, do solemnly and sincerely declare and say as follows, that is to say.\n\n#### (a) I, the said ROBERT KENNAWAY LEIGH, for myself say :- \n\nI am a Member of the Institution of Civil Engineers, London, and I was for three years an Assistant Engineer in the Public Works Department, Hongkong, and since that time I have, for the past 16 years, been in private practice in Hongkong as a Civil Engineer, Land Surveyor and Valuator, and have had during such last mentioned 16 years considerable experience in ascertaining and computing the value of lands and buildings in various parts of Hongkong, and I believe myself well qualified to judge of the value of Marine Lot No. 184, Hongkong, hereinafter mentioned, and of like property in the vicinity thereof.\n\n#### (1) And the said JAMES ORANGE, for myself say :- \n\nI am a Member of the Institution of Civil Engineers, London, also a Member of the American Society of Civil Engineers, New York, also a Member of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, London, and a Member of the Society of Architects, and I was for six and a half years an Assistant Engineer in the Public Works Department of Hongkong, and resident Engineer of the Tytam Water Works, Hongkong, and since that time I have, for the past 9 years, been in private practice in Hongkong as a Civil Engineer, Land Surveyor and Valuator, and have had during such last mentioned 9 years considerable experience in ascertaining and computing the value of lands and buildings in various parts of Hongkong, and I believe myself well qualified to judge of the value of Marine Lot No. 184, Hongkong, hereinafter mentioned, and of like property in the vicinity thereof.\n\n#### And we, the said Robert Kennaway LEIGH and JAMES ORANGE, severally declare, \n\nthat we have, in pursuance of instructions received from Messrs. STEPHENS & WARD, the Owners of the said Marine Lot 184, made a careful survey, estimates and Valuations of the said Marine Lot 184, and in so doing we have taken into consideration the tenure and situation of the said Lot, the nature of the business for which the buildings erected thereon had been erected and used, and what would be a fair price to be realised on a sale thereof, both as a Marine Lot before the Praya Reclamation Ordinance was carried into effect, and as an Inland Lot now that the works of the Praya Reclamation are proceeding in front of the said Lot, and we have embodied our said Estimates and Valuations in our Report, dated the 28th day of December 1898, which Report is hereunto annexed, marked `A`.\n\nPage 263", "txt_file_path": "txt/2diw2n4r2/CO129-290 - Governor Sir Blake - 1899 [1-4].txt", "external_url": "", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 372899, "series_id": 27, "series_slug": "histsyn-co129-engine", "series_title": "CO129 Colonial Office Hong Kong Records 理藩院香港檔案", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "CO129-293 - Governor Sir Blake - 1899 [8-9]", "page_number": 256, "title": "CO129-293 - Governor Sir Blake - 1899 [8-9]", "content_text": "the death\n\nJenally has been\n\nCommeted and that\n\nthe\n\ntheid has been pardoned and liberatid\n\nThan th\n\nNo.\n\n206\n\n899\n\nauf\n\nerious Paper.\n\nHONG KONG\n\nNo 25798\n\nNo.\n\n(Subject.)\n\nMr. J. J. Boulton.\n\n253\n\nDESPATCH.\n\n0.0.\n\n23708\n\nProf KL SEP\n\n7808\n\n|| (PR)-~52086~ 1 GORIC-32-45\n\nsequent Paper.\n\n733\n\n00\n\nEngi\n\nPraya. Reclamation.\n\nSubmits with\n\nbe\n\nCorres. proposal of Dis of hub loks that be\n\ntransf\n\nARMAC\n\nto permanent device for pension from date\n\nMr. Lucas\n\nThe\n\nCase\n\n(Minutes.)\n\nof Colony, commuting\n\n7\n\nabsolutely different that I am surprised that Mr. Ormsby should have quoted it. Il.\n\nMudre was\n\nan officer who\n\nwas\n\nprovisionally\n\naffixed to a permanent post in 1889, and confirmed in the said post in 1890. Through mistake he was engaged on agreement to\n\nwork\n\non\n\nthe Praya Reclamation was, in 1892, and the agreement\n\nwas renewed in\n\n1895. But it was discovered that he had received the permanent post in 1890,\n\nand\n\nwas\n\nrestored to the permanent establishment (in 1898), his status being that of an Executive Engineer seconded for\n\nwork on the Praya Reclamation works.\n\nWished to know what were the terms of the Colonial Secretary's letter", "txt_file_path": "txt/2diw2n4r2/CO129-293 - Governor Sir Blake - 1899 [8-9].txt", "external_url": "", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 378974, "series_id": 27, "series_slug": "histsyn-co129-engine", "series_title": "CO129 Colonial Office Hong Kong Records 理藩院香港檔案", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "CO129-302 - Public Offices - 1900", "page_number": 788, "title": "CO129-302 - Public Offices - 1900", "content_text": "776 \n\n: \n\n2 \n\nThe people were curious about us and collected in great crowds, as indeed they did in all the places we passed.\n\nAbove this town for some distance the hills sink into the plain or recede to a considerable distance. The country is apparently sparsely populated and only partially cultivated. It consists largely of undulating grassy downs, which look like excellent grazing land, but which at present lie unused. Ta Huang Chiang (75) is a prosperous-looking little town prettily situated at a bend of the river, with high hills in the background. It imports a considerable quantity of foreign goods, and there is a daily steamer passenger service to Wuchow.\n\nFor the following 20 or 30 miles the river is enclosed by high, sloping banks, which afford splendid pasture, but scarcely any cattle are seen. 15 miles further on is the Prefectual city of Hsün Chou (98) which has a population of some 30,000 or 40,000 and is situated at the foot of high, sloping grass-covered hills. It was devastated by the Taipings, and has not yet recovered. The principal products of the district are silk and rhea. The aspect of the country continues much the same up to Kuei Hsien (153), a town of some 30,000 inhabitants. Two steam-launches run between it and Ta Huang Chiang. I was told that rifles and revolvers were being freely sold in the town.\n\nThe land in the neighbourhood is generally flat, broken by ragged limestone hills and ridges of rocks a few feet high, which suggest that a part of the country was once the bed of a river or lake.\n\nAbout 18 miles distant, at San Ma Shan, there are some mines of silver, gold, and lead worked by a Chinese Company registered in Hong Kong, under the superintendence of a native engineer educated in England. Some 400 people are employed, but there is a lack of skilled labourers and experienced overseers. The capital of 300,000 dollars has all been spent, and an attempt is now being made to raise more money. The establishment is provided with American machinery, and large offices built in foreign style.\n\nOn leaving Kuei Hsien the river contracts to about a quarter of a mile in width, and the country seems better cultivated. A broad fertile plain extends on both sides, and there is everywhere evidence of a sufficient and industrious population. The principal products are maize and rice.\n\nAt Wu Sun-po (178) we anchored for a week for the water to rise to enable us to get over the rapids a mile or so farther on. These rapids are the most dangerous on the river, and during our stay six junks were wrecked there out of a total of four or five that passed every day. The danger lies not so much in the want of a sufficiently deep channel as in the difficulty of making the sharp turns amongst the rocks. The pilot was of opinion that a launch of 4 feet draught with narrow beam could get over if she were fitted with sufficiently strong steering gear. It being often said that where a junk can go a steamer can also go, it is well to point out that the junks are fitted with very large rudders and are also steered from the bows by means of an immense car.\n\nAs the water continued to fall, and information reached us of the critical state of affairs in the north, we went back to Kuei Hsien, where orders were received to return to Wuchow.\n\nWe met with no accident during the journey, and I think Commander Carr is to be congratulated on taking his step safely through so many hidden perils.\n\nThere is no doubt that the navigation above Wuchow is dangerous, and is only possible with a most thorough knowledge of the river. It seems probable that shallow draught steamers could run all the year round as far as Kuei Hsien (153), that is about half-way, but beyond that for not more than three months, subject, even then to liability to delay by a temporary fall of the river, a not infrequent occurrence. Even if it is possible for specially-constructed steamers to run to Nanning the whole year round, they would probably be of such a kind as to be fit only for towing purposes. The best method, I think, would be to run two sets of towing launches, one to the rapids above Kuei Hsien, and the other from above the rapids to Nanning, leaving the tows to be tracked over.\n\nI am of opinion, however, that the volume of trade is at present not large enough to attract foreign capital, especially under the Regulations now in force, which would prevent a Wuchow-Nanning steamer from calling at places en route, and would prevent a steamer plying from Wuchow to inland places from entering Nanning.\n\nThere is no town up to Kuei Hsien of 50,000 inhabitants, and the rural population is, for China, very sparse.\n\nUntil the mineral wealth of the province is developed and the population and production largely increase, there is not likely to be much scope for profitable steam navigation. Moreover, the inducements the native authorities would be sure to hold out to merchants to ship by junk must be kept in view. The duties on steamer cargo are fixed and immutable, whilst the duties on junk cargo may be lowered at the will of the authorities. For instance, at present scarcely any cassia is shipped by steamer because the native Customs levy a much lower duty on it if shipped by junk than would be levied by the foreign Customs if shipped by steamer. It seems impossible to prevent this kind of preferential treatment unless a certificate of payment of duty to the native Customs be accepted by the foreign Customs as freeing the goods covered thereby from further charges.\n\nNanning was declared a Treaty port more than a year ago, but it still awaits the establishment of a foreign Custom-house before it is effectively open to foreign trade. A considerable quantity of goods is already sent there from Wuchow under transit pass, and the only advantage the opening of the port is likely to bring is that foreign goods for consumption in the port will pay only the import duty of 5 per cent. ad valorem, instead of import duty and transit duty (7 per cent.).\n\nGoods distributed from Nanning will, for the most part, be in the same position as regards payment of duties as when distributed from Wuchow. As Nanning itself is probably not a very great consumer the gain thus accruing will not be of much value. Against this advantage, too, would have to be set the expense of maintaining agents there for putting merchandise through the customs, which would probably more than balance the saving of the transit duty of 2.5 per cent. on goods actually consumed in the port.\n\nIt is possible that the interport trade may benefit by the foreign Customs competing with the native Customs, but even so steamers are not likely to gain much, for the native authorities will doubtless find means of favouring the junk-borne trade as they do now in the lower part of the river. Moreover, unless steamers run to Nanning, or the Yang-tsze system of chartered junks be adopted, merchandise will not come under the Treaty Tariff levied by the foreign Customs, and the opening of the place does not take effect. In any case I am of opinion that in the present state of the country and under the conditions now obtaining, no benefits of great value will accrue to trade from the inclusion of Nanning amongst the Treaty ports.\n\n(Signed) H. A. LITTLE.\n\nSamshui, July 6, 1900.", "txt_file_path": "txt/2diw2n4r2/CO129-302 - Public Offices - 1900.txt", "external_url": "", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 381926, "series_id": 27, "series_slug": "histsyn-co129-engine", "series_title": "CO129 Colonial Office Hong Kong Records 理藩院香港檔案", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "CO129-306 - Governor Sir Blake - 1901 [8-9]", "page_number": 639, "title": "CO129-306 - Governor Sir Blake - 1901 [8-9]", "content_text": "36\n\nThe Attorney General-Of course, there are two sets of costs. As regards the costs of the action against Sir William Robinson, your Lordship had only the advantage of hearing one side in that matter. You heard the full argument of Mr. Francis.\n\nMr. Francis-You heard the Attorney General for days.\n\nHis Lordship-If I remember rightly you argued it fully.\n\nThe Attorney General said he had prepared a very elaborate argument which, he thought, would have had the result of a verdict in his favour with costs, but he never had an opportunity of putting before the Court his view. The actual facts were all on record. A mandamus was applied for in the previous action for the Court to order Sir William Robinson to take into consideration and investigate the claim. His learned friend argued in favour of that. He (the Attorney General) prepared an argument in reply, but owing to pressure of business the Court did not continue the hearing, and in the meantime Sir William Robinson had gone.\n\nThereupon Mr. Francis asked that instead of Sir William Robinson Major-General Black's name be inserted. His reply to that was that the Court could not be asked to grant a mandamus until the person to whom the mandamus was to be issued had refused to do a thing he had been asked to be made to do, and Major-General Black had never been asked to make any award. It was left in that way.\n\nHe contended that in that case the proceedings were absolutely unnecessary; they came to nothing.\n\nHis Lordship said-There is not enough before me to induce me to depart from my finding, but I will express this opinion:-Supposing the issues of fact had been tried before the issues of law had been tried and determined, and you had proved to me that your allegations were well founded, I should not have awarded the costs to the defendants. But on the issue of law as now decided, I must give the defendant his costs. I think the best course will be to submit the matter to the Governor.\n\nAfter\n\nMr. Francis-If your Lordship thinks the Governor or the Attorney General will admit anything to be true, I am afraid it will be a very great mistake. The extremely liberal promises that were made in Court by the Attorney General, it is utterly hopeless to expect anything in the shape of justice.\n\nHis Lordship-If these allegations are in any substantial degree well founded, the Governor might properly forego the costs.\n\nMr. Francis-Your Lordship will see these allegations are well founded.\n\nHis Lordship-I am speaking of the allegations as to the mode of conducting the inquiry.\n\nThe Court was then adjourned.\n\nAppendix VII.\n\nIN THE MATTER OF HONGKONG MARINE LOT No. 181\n\nAND\n\nTHE PRAYA RECLAMATION ORDINANCE 1889.\n\nWE, Robert Kennaway Leigh of Victoria in the Colony of Hongkong Civil Engineer, Land Surveyor and Valuator, and James Orange of the same place Civil Engineer, Land Surveyor and Valuator, do solemnly and sincerely declare and say as follows that is to say ---\n\n37\n\n636\n\nAnd first. I, the said Robert Kennaway Leigh for myself say:\n\n1.-I am a Member of the Institution of Civil Engineers, London, and I was for three years an Assistant Engineer in the Public Works Department of Hongkong and since that time I have for the past 16 years been in private practice in Hongkong as a Civil Engineer, Land Surveyor and Valuator, and have had during such last mentioned 16 years considerable experience in ascertaining and computing the value of lands and buildings in various parts of Hongkong and I believe myself well qualified to judge of the value of Marine Lot No. 184, Hongkong, hereinafter mentioned and of like property in the vicinity thereof.\n\nAnd I, the said James Orange for myself say:--\n\n2.—I am a Member of Institution of Civil Engineers, London, also a Member of the American Society of Civil Engineers, New York, also a Member of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, London, and a Member of the Society of Architects, and I was for six and a half years an Assistant Engineer in the Public Works Department of Hongkong and Resident Engineer of the Tytam Water Works, Hongkong, and since that time I have for the past 9 years been in private practice in Hongkong as a Civil Engineer, Land Surveyor and Valuator, and have had during such last mentioned 9 years considerable experience in ascertaining and computing the value of lands and buildings in various parts of Hongkong and I believe myself well qualified to judge of the value of Marine Lot No. 184, Hongkong, hereinafter mentioned and of like property in the vicinity thereof.\n\nAnd we the said Robert Kennaway Leigh and James Orange severally say:-\n\n3-We have in pursuance of instructions received from Messrs. Stephens & Howard, the owners of the said Marine Lot 184, made a careful survey, estimates and valuations of the said Marine Lot 184, and in so doing we have taken into consideration the tenure and situation of the said Lot, the nature of the business for which the buildings erected thereon had been erected and used and what would be a fair price to be realised on a sale thereof both as a Marine Lot before the Praya Reclamation Ordinance 1889 was carried into effect and as an Inland Lot now that the works of the Praya Reclamation are proceeding in front of the said Lot, and we have embodied our said Estimates and Valuations in our Report dated the 28th day of December, 1898, which Report is hereunto annexed marked A.\n\n4.--We say that our said Report is a true and correct statement of the facts and figures therein given and set forth to the best of our knowledge information and belief.\n\nAnd we severally make this solemn Declaration conscientiously believing the same to be true by virtue of the provisions of \"The Statutory Declarations Act, 1835.\"\n\nSEVERALLY DECLARED by the said ROBERT KENNAWAY LEIGH & JAMES ORANGE at the Supreme Court House Victoria in Hongkong this Seventeenth day of February 1899.\n\n(Signed) R. K. LEIGH,\n\n(Signed) J. ORANGE.\n\nBefore me,\n\nTHE SEAL OF THE\n\nSUPREME COURT OF HONGKONG.\n\nLS\n\n(Signed) A. SETH.\n\nActing Registrar of the Supreme Court of Hongkong, and a Commissioner to Administer Oaths.", "txt_file_path": "txt/2diw2n4r2/CO129-306 - Governor Sir Blake - 1901 [8-9].txt", "external_url": "", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 407568, "series_id": 27, "series_slug": "histsyn-co129-engine", "series_title": "CO129 Colonial Office Hong Kong Records 理藩院香港檔案", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "CO129-338 - Public Offices & Others - 1906", "page_number": 32, "title": "CO129-338 - Public Offices & Others - 1906", "content_text": "## 28 \n\n6 \n\nthe Shansi Concession) before commencing other operations, but I was unable to encourage the idea. His Excellency also deprecated any immediate attempt to work the other four fields in Shansi, namely Yuhsien, Luanfu, Tsechou, and Pingyang.\n\nI impressed upon his Excellency the urgent importance of closing all the new mines recently opened within the area covered by the Syndicate's Application for Permit in Pingtingchou, but I could not obtain a definite promise that this should be done, although I pointed out that the Syndicate was being all the time thereby unfairly placed more and more at a disadvantage while the case was still under discussion. On this point I shall probably have some representations to make to your Excellency before long.\n\nHis Excellency En Shou concurred with me in thinking that it would be advisable for me to come to an understanding with the Wai-wu Pu on main principles and then visit Taiyuan Fu to settle details when his Excellency would be more conversant with the local circumstances and the situation generally.\n\nThanking your Excellency for the full assistance given me in this matter, I have, &c.,\n\n**GEORGE BROWN.**\n\nSir,\n\n(Signed)\n\n## Inclosure 5 in No. 1.\n\nPeking Syndicate to Mr. Carnegie.\n\nTien-tsin, August 2, 1908.\n\nI HAVE the honour to inform you that the discussion of the rights of the Peking Syndicate in Shansi, which arose from the refusal of the Shansi Governor in October last to grant the permit to open a coal mine, has at length reached another phase. After much procrastination, all previous attempts to obtain a further meeting with the Wai-wu Pu having been ingeniously turned aside, I succeeded in arranging a conference for the afternoon of Friday, the 27th ultimo. Their Excellencies Tong Shao Yi and Chu Pa Fei with Mr. Un (a junior) received me and they were afterwards joined by his Excellency Lien Fang.\n\nI at once opened the business by remarking that the losses incurred by the Syndicate through its not being allowed to carry on its work in Shansi were very heavy and the matter was becoming more serious every day; that I had been very patient and had given every opportunity for the consideration of the question, but that my Board of Directors were now most urgently pressing for a settlement and I trusted to their Excellencies to bring this about at once and to instruct the Governor of Shansi to issue the permit to which we were entitled. The text of the Agreement was referred to and I pointed out that by the terms of the second paragraph of Article 1 the Governor was to report to the Tsung-li Yamên and \"at the same time issue a permit for the mines to be opened without the least delay.\" His Excellency Tong pointed out that the Governor was to see that the proposed works were not injurious to the place and said that if, as Mr. Jamieson proposed, all the people were to be driven away from the permit area this would be injurious. I denied that Mr. Jamieson had suggested such a thing. His Excellency said that the natives could not be prohibited from mining with native methods. I said that the Syndicate had no desire to interfere with natives mining in a small way for local consumption, but that it would object to their competing with the Syndicate. At present the Syndicate which held the Agreement was not allowed to mine, whereas others, who had no Agreement, were mining and putting coal on the train of the approaching Cheng Tai Railway. I had also heard reports of foreign capital and machinery being obtained from Tien-tsin firms. His Excellency Tong gave me his word that this was not so, and attested that no other foreign interest than that of the Syndicate would be admitted. He then went on to say that the permit applied for covered too great an area. The Tongshan Colliery, the second largest in the world, he asserted, covered only 2 or 3 li, while the Syndicate wanted 40 li. Only a small piece of ground could be wanted on the surface for the mine which could extend underground for any distance. I explained that we must protect our workings from being invaded by shafts sunk in proximity to ours. As to the size of our permit area,\n\nI would submit on Tuesday, the 31st (his Excellency having assured me that I should be welcome at the Wai-wu Pu on any Tuesday or Friday afternoon), maps showing the extent of our application and also the new mines sunk within our claim to which we objected and the encouragement of which I said was grossly unfair; they ought to be stopped at once.\n\n7 \n\nFurther desultory argument ensued and we touched on the subject of sole right which arose through his Excellency remarking that we had not the monopoly. I asked whether the Chinese Government, assuming for the moment its willingness, had the right to make an agreement similar to that held by the Syndicate with any other foreign Company for the five specified districts of Shansi. He said emphatically \"No.\" That admission I contended showed that the Syndicate had the monopoly and therefore the sole right. I left with his Excellency a short statement of the object of my visit of which I have the honour to furnish a copy. On Tuesday the 31st I took two maps to the Wai-wu Pu, one showing the permit area applied for last October, as well as all adjacent native mines old and new with their histories, and the other showing the permit area and the new mines opened in and around its borders up to April last. Their Excellencies Tong Shao Yi and Chu Pa Fei with Mr. Un received me, and evidently took great interest in the maps. His Excellency Tong said that the Wai-wu Pu would like to have some guarantee that the Syndicate would not, after receiving the permit, hang it up and do nothing. They wanted to know that a proper sum would be spent in earnest mining. I said that the Syndicate's work in Honan showed that it was prepared to devote its energies and funds to the business thoroughly. There, unprecedented difficulties had been met with and had been resolutely faced one after another with expenditure of money and hard work. The last overwhelming inrush of water just as coal had been won was a terrible disappointment, but the Syndicate had not been deterred, and had at heavy cost ordered more pumping machinery to cope with it. His Excellency said that he would examine the maps carefully, and I proposed that I should call again on Tuesday the 7th. His Excellency, however, expressed himself as anxious for a long discussion at our next meeting which he fixed for Thursday the 9th at 3:30 PM., when there would be freedom from interruption, and he agreed that I should ask Mr. Reid, the Syndicate's Engineer-in-chief to attend and furnish expert information and personal knowledge of the locality.\n\nI have the honour to inclose copies of the two maps.\n\nI have, &c.,\n\n(Signed)\n\n**GEORGE BROWN, Agent-General.**\n\n## Inclosure 6 in No. 1.\n\nStatement by Mr. G. Brown.\n\nTHE Agent-General of the Peking Syndicate would once more point out the serious losses that are being incurred through the failure of the Chinese authorities to carry out the provisions of the Shansi Concession which was sealed by the Tsung-li Yamên and formally approved by the Throne.\n\nThe advantages that would accrue to the people of Shansi, to the people of China generally, and to the Chinese revenue from the faithful carrying out of the agreement and the utilization of the mineral resources of the Shansi Province, which are at present lying idle and undisturbed of little good to any one, have long ago been fully set forth and explained. The Syndicate would regret to see on the part of the Chinese officials and people an attitude of apathy and indifference to the benefits to be so easily, so inexpensibly, and so speedily obtained. But the Syndicate is a commercial undertaking, and is concerned in the first place with the objects for which it was created. There is no dispute that under the terms of the Concession the Syndicate has most important rights in Shansi. It is debarred from exercising these rights and deriving legitimate profit therefrom by the refusal of his Excellency the late Governor of Shansi to grant a permit. This deprivation means a heavy loss day by day to the Syndicate. The new Governor, his Excellency En Shou, has now had ample time to study the question in the light of local conditions. His Excellency Tong Shao Yi, to whom the matter was referred for consideration, has certainly been able to master the details and see where justice lies. The Agent-General therefore trusts that he may be able to report to his Board in London without delay that the Chinese Government has ordered the issue of the permit and that the rights of the Peking Syndicate are no longer under a ban.\n\n(Submitted to their Excellencies of the Wai-wu Pu the 27th July, 1906.)\n\n`[2183f-4]` \n\nD \n\n...", "txt_file_path": "txt/2diw2n4r2/CO129-338 - Public Offices & Others - 1906.txt", "external_url": "", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 408950, "series_id": 27, "series_slug": "histsyn-co129-engine", "series_title": "CO129 Colonial Office Hong Kong Records 理藩院香港檔案", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "CO129-340 - Governor Nathan Acting Governor May - 1907 [4-6]", "page_number": 16, "title": "CO129-340 - Governor Nathan Acting Governor May - 1907 [4-6]", "content_text": "19\n\nthe duration of which is to be 30 years.\n\nThe construction is to be under the direction of a Chinese Managing Director with whom are to be associated a British Engineer-in-Chief and a British Chief Accountant. The agreement provides that a further one for the joint working of the British and Chinese sections of the railway should be arranged between the Viceroy of Canton and the Governor of Hongkong. Negotiations for this further agreement were not started before the end of the year,\n\nThe Final Loan Agreement for the Canton-Kowloon Railway also lays down that \"it is understood that the Chinese Government will not build another line competing with this railway to its detriment.\" In this connection it may be mentioned that a proposal of the Chinese authorities to build a line towards Amoy which for some 40 miles must have followed approximately the same course as the Canton-Kowloon Railway called forth considerable opposition from Hongkong where it was held that the construction of such a line was contrary to the preliminary agreement of March 1899.\n\nWhile the survey work on the British section of the Canton-Kowloon Railway was being completed in the early part of the year construction was proceeding on the line between Tai Po and Lo Fu ferry under the Public Works Department and by the end of April about 24 miles of bank had been formed not including, however, any bridge or heavy earthwork. On the 23rd March Mr. W. G. Eves who had been appointed by the Consulting Engineers—Sir JOHN WOLFE BARRY & Co.,—to be Chief Resident Engineer, arrived in the Colony and took charge of the work being assisted by an engineering staff of one executive and four assistant engineers who arrived subsequently. During the Summer sickness among staff and workmen and some difficulties with labour delayed the progress of the work which consisted at first in preparing for the piercing of the tunnel through the Kowloon Hills. By the end of the year quarters for staff and labourers and work-shops were completed on the South but were still under construction on the North side of the tunnel. A store yard, with arrangements for landing plant and material, had been formed at Tai Kok Tsui and connected by about 3,000 yards of temporary metre gauge railway with the South face while a service road some 1,500 yards long formed with part of the existing Public Works Department road a communication to the North face from a temporary landing place at Lok Lo Ha in Tide Cove. As regards permanent work, by the end of the year a heading had been started from the open at either end of the tunnel but in neither case had advanced more than a few feet inside what will be the ultimate tunnel face. A shaft 90 feet deep had been sunk 330 feet inside this face at the South end and headings commenced in both directions from it. Another shaft to be 268 feet deep, 5,100 feet from the first, and 1,350 feet inside the North face, had been decided on but not yet started. At the end of the year work was also proceeding on 4 bridges South of the tunnel and on 2 North of it in the Shatin Valley. A considerable portion of the earthwork for about a mile on either side of the tunnel and about that between Tai Po and the Lo Fu ferry had been completed. The reclamation for the station site in Hung Hom Bay had been put in hand. The total expenditure that had actually been incurred by the 31st December was $599,546.\n\nTurning to the minor incidents of the year and reverting to commercial matters it may be mentioned that with a view to making Hongkong products better known in England and also to assisting the general trade of the Colony, collections of specimens of its manufactures and also of the various articles which are included in its export trade, have been sent to England to constitute a permanent exhibition in the Imperial Institute buildings at South Kensington.\n\n23\n\nIn the Colony itself two exhibitions were held which it is hoped will be repeated annually. On the 1st and 2nd February the new Horticultural Society, revived on the lines of the old Society which organised annual flower shows from 1873 to 1883, successfully held its first show in the Botanical Gardens. On the 1st, 2nd and 3rd November an \"Arts and Crafts exhibition collected in the City Hall some good specimens of local photography, needlework, book printing and binding, and domestic furniture and some fine pieces of pottery and other works of art lent by European and Chinese Residents.\n\nAn interesting event in the early part of the year was the visit of the mission with H.R.H. Prince ARTHUR of CONNAUGHT at its head, which was conveying the Garter to H. I. M. the Emperor of Japan. The mission was in Hongkong from the 9th to the 13th February. In March advantage was taken of the presence of a Japanese squadron to return some of the hospitality that had been shown in the previous Summer to the British fleet in Japanese waters, and of the visit of the French squadron of the Far East to bear witness to the cordial understanding between England and France. In September a Joint Naval and Military Committee under the presidency of Sir JOHN OWEN, K.C.B., visited the Colony for the consideration of certain matters connected with its defence.\n\nChanges during the year in personnel outside the Colony but closely affecting it were the substitution of CHOU Fu formerly Acting Governor-General Liang Kuang for Ts'en CH'UN-HSÜAN as Governor General Liang Kuang, and the appointments in May of Sir JOHN N. JORDAN, K.C.M.G., to replace Sir ERNEST SATOW, G.C.M.G., as Minister at Peking, and in April of Mr. R. W. MANSFIELD, C.M.G., to replace Mr. J. SCOTT as Consul-General at Canton. During the year the British Naval and Military Commanders were both changed. Vice-Admiral Sir ARTHUR W. MOORE, K.C.B., K.C.V.O., C.M.G., succeeding Admiral Sir GERARD H. U. NOEL, K.C.B., K.C.M.G., as Commander-in-Chief of the China Station in March and Major-General R. G. BROADWOOD, C.B., following Major-General V. HATTON, C.B., in command of the Troops in South China in December.\n\nReference has already been made to the lamented deaths of Bishop HOUAR and Capt. BARNES-LAWRENCE. The latter has been succeeded as Harbour Master by Commander B.R.H. TAYLOR, R.N. On the 31st October, Sir HENRY S. BERKELEY, Kt., K.C., retired from the office of Attorney General, Mr. W. REES DAVIES, who did not arrive in the Colony before the end of the year, being appointed to succeed him. In the Legislative Council Mr. E. A. HEWETT on the 30th April succeeded Mr. R. SHEWAN as elected representative of the Chamber of Commerce and on the 1st June, Mr. W. J. GRESSON of Messrs. Jardine, Matheson & Co. took the place of Mr. C. W. DICKSON of the same firm as a nominated member. Mr. E. OSBORNE temporarily relieved Mr. G. STEWART in a similar position when the latter went on leave early in the year.\n\nOn the 15th December, Mr. F. H. MAY, C.M.G., who had arrived from England a week previously took over the administration of the Colony on my having to proceed on short leave to Java for the recovery of health. Mr. SERCOMBE SMITH who had been acting as Colonial Secretary during the whole period of Mr. May's absence from the Colony served in the same capacity on the latter assuming the charge of the Government.\n\nI have the honour to be,\n\nMy Lord,\n\nYour Lordship's most obedient, humble Servant,\n\nM. Nathan\n\n13", "txt_file_path": "txt/2diw2n4r2/CO129-340 - Governor Nathan Acting Governor May - 1907 [4-6].txt", "external_url": "", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 410973, "series_id": 27, "series_slug": "histsyn-co129-engine", "series_title": "CO129 Colonial Office Hong Kong Records 理藩院香港檔案", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "CO129-343 - Public Offices & Foreign Office - 1907", "page_number": 150, "title": "CO129-343 - Public Offices & Foreign Office - 1907", "content_text": "## Confidential Memorandum\n\nThe Chinese \"Yünnan-Szechuan and Tengyueh Railways Company\" themselves claim that if we obtain the Concession \"the Yunnanese can only await extinction,\" and that Yunnan will cease to belong to the Empire,\" is of course pure rodomontade. Yünnan would obviously be in a safer position politically if a British railway to her capital were competing against the French railway that will be running thither before three years are up; while the benefits to the Yunnanese at large would be inestimable, and the Yunnanese know it. The esoteric meaning of this hold on the profits is the retention by a numerically minute clique of the power to squeeze.\n\nIndeed, it is evident that the present telegram was largely concocted by the leaders of that clique at Yunnan-fu, the overbearing avaricious Treasurer, Lin Ch'un-lin, and the youthful pedants on the teaching staff of the \"University,\" his ready tools. Ting Chon-to, the Governor-General, is exceedingly timid and weak; moreover, he expects in a few months, or even weeks, to be relieved of his post here, and is therefore disinclined to take up a position that would expose him to attack from men who can get attention both at Peking and in the native press.\n\nI had not long sent off my telegram to you summarizing the missive of the 25th October, when my writer brought me a copy of the later telegram (2nd November) of which I inclose translation. When, as I have explained in my last despatch, I arranged with the Governor-General's intermediaries to accept and acknowledge a note from his Excellency asking me to telegraph to the Government of India the statement that the Wai-wu Pu had been asked to consult with the British Minister, and that it was inexpedient that the engineers should cross the frontier, I made it clear that I would do nothing more than transmit this message. Accordingly, I requested that if a further telegram was sent to the Wai-wu Pu, I might be permitted to see it. I cannot, of course, be sure that the telegram exhibited to me contains the whole of the consequent message from Yunnan to Peking, but I have little doubt that this is the case. As it was voluntarily shown to me by the Foreign Department, under instructions from the Governor-General, it need not be regarded (as I would ask you to regard its predecessor of the 25th October) as secret. Its contents are only the more remarkable; and its communication to me may be held, according to the point of view, to mark on the part of the Yunnan Government either extreme simplicity, deep astuteness, or great effrontery.\n\nTo begin with, the telegram is so worded as almost, if not altogether, to convey the impression that I had myself asked the Indian Government to consider the question at issue as finally disposed of in favour of the \"Company to build themselves the Tengyueh line.\"\n\nI have sent my writer to point out to the Foreign Department the fact that the telegram should, in fairness to the Wai-wu Pu if not to me, have stated that I have to await a reply from India. Meanwhile, it is to be expected that the Wai-wu Pu will confront Sir John Jordan with the assertion that his local representative (myself) has admitted the Chinese contention.\n\nA more serious feature of the telegram is the advice given to the Wai-wu Pu to \"politely but firmly refuse.\" I have instructed my writer to observe that these words must be taken to refer to, at any rate, the Tali reconnaissance, if not to the Tengyueh Railway. His Excellency, however, is perfectly well aware that he gave, six months ago, his consent to this reconnaissance; it is therefore hardly acting in good faith to now urge his Central Government to oppose it. I do not imagine that verbal remonstrances at second hand will have much effect; but whereas his Excellency has admitted to my writer the fact that he consented last May to the reconnaissance, it is certain that he would under present circumstances feel constrained to deny to myself in person that his promise had passed, especially if the Treasurer were present.\n\nAfter all, the question of the reconnaissance is only a part of the main issue. If we insist on effect being given to the Agreement of March 1902, we can make surveys of all routes that lie anywhere between our frontier and Yünnan-fu. In telegraphing to you yesterday and to Sir John Jordan, I accordingly again ventured to suggest that we ought now to insist on a railway right through to Yunnan-fu, on terms precisely similar to those accorded (in 1903) to the French. We may eventually, if we see fit, consent to accept less; but we shall hardly succeed in getting anything at all if we begin by demanding less.\n\nThe Government of India has, I cannot doubt, solid reasons for hesitation. Until it becomes sufficiently certain that capitalists will come forward to take over such a Concession, the Indian Government may not wish to require it of the Chinese Government. While our right to equality in Yunnan with the French remains merely a doctrine, admitted by China as a doctrine only, and is not materialized into a definite demand for such or such a Concession, the Chinese Government cannot name a time limit within which it must be availed of under penalty of forfeiture; whereas it would not be unreasonable to call on us to give effect within a term of years to a particular Concession such as this railway to Yünnan-fu - so as not to block the way to others less dilatory.\n\nWhile admitting the force of such arguments, I would submit that in the present temper of the Chinese Government (or perhaps I should say, while the Chinese Government is swayed by the party now in power) it will not be possible to obtain even the Concession of an Anglo-Chinese Joint-Stock Light Railway from the Kulikha to Tengyueh, without invoking the Agreement of 1902. But the Indian Government has instructed me (by the telegram sent through your Government on the 3rd October last) that nothing should imply that the Tengyueh Railway Concession would exhaust our right to equality with the French. Why should we not therefore in the first instance formulate that right as \"the Concession of a railway from our frontier to Yunnan-fu on precisely similar terms to those accorded to the French in 1903\"? The admission of this claim by China - and it is hard to see how she could refuse to admit it - would give us at once what we now desire, the Tengyueh Railway and the Tali reconnaissance. The Tali reconnaissance (followed, as I trust it would certainly be, by a reconnaissance from that city to Kunlong in the one direction and to Yunnan-fu in the other) would provide us at last with the means of deciding whether it is worth our while to carry into effect the Concession as a whole. If we decide that it is, we should have no difficulty in obtaining the necessary capital; if that it is not, we should only have expended the cost of the various reconnaissances.\n\nFinally, if we do not now enforce our rights, we shall find them in the future increasingly difficult to maintain. The Chinese will hasten to create paper Chinese Railway Companies for every possible avenue of approach from the Burma frontier towards Yunnan-fu; and although nothing further will be done beyond hampering native trade with \"percentages for railway construction\" that will merely fill the pockets of Treasurer Liu and his successors, yet will the Chinese Government point to our acquiescence in 1906 in the \"Tengyueh Railway Company's\" monopoly as a valid argument why our later remonstrances must be regarded as unreasonable. Meanwhile, the less amenable French will have established and strengthened their commercial hold - and political influence - over not Eastern Yunnan alone, but over all Yünnan as far west as Yungchang and as far north as the Szechuan border.\n\nI have, &c.\n\n**(Confidential.) (Translation.) (Telegraphic.)**\n\n(Signed) \nW. H. WILKINSON.\n\n## Inclosure 2 in No. 1.\n\n**Governor-General Ting Chen-to to the Wai-wu Pu.** \nOctober 25, 1906.\n\nLETTERS and despatches were received on various occasions from the British Consul-General in Yünnan stating that he was in receipt of telegrams from the Government of Burma saying that it is proposed to build a light railway from the Kulikha through to Tengyueh for the convenience of traders and the conveyance of their goods, and that engineers would have to be sent to ascertain by survey whether the construction is possible, and to prepare plans for examination, when further negotiations would be held with the Yunnan Government for the final arrangements. It was asked that deputies should be sent to join in the survey and to afford protection.\n\nThe Governor-General gave orders at the time to the Intendant of Western Yünnan, who sent deputies on two occasions, the seasons of 1904 and 1905, to join in the survey and afford protection.\n\nAssent, however, has now been given to a Memorial that Yünnan shall build the Yunnan-Szechuan and Tengyueh Railways, and in pursuance of the Regulations it has been memorialized to establish a Company for the raising by ourselves of funds and for the construction of the line, so as to preserve our hold on the profits. Unexpectedly within the last month or so a series of notes has been received from the British Consul-General stating that he was in receipt of telegrams from the Governments of Burma and India saying that Engineer Lilley, earlier sent by them, would, on the 1st January, that is, the 17th of the 11th moon of the Chinese calendar, leave Bhamo for the country between Tengyueh and Tali to make a reconnaissance of the routes, and asking that...\n\nPage 150 \nPage 151", "txt_file_path": "txt/2diw2n4r2/CO129-343 - Public Offices & Foreign Office - 1907.txt", "external_url": "", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 411899, "series_id": 27, "series_slug": "histsyn-co129-engine", "series_title": "CO129 Colonial Office Hong Kong Records 理藩院香港檔案", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "CO129-344 - Public Offices & Foreign Office - 1907", "page_number": 399, "title": "CO129-344 - Public Offices & Foreign Office - 1907", "content_text": "## Inclosure in No. 1.\n\n**Mr. Bland to Sir J. Jordan**\n\nDear Sir John,\n\nPeking, April 24, 1907. RE the Japanese Railway Convention and our conversation of this morning, I find it easier to put my views in letter form than in a Memorandum, and I hope you will not mind.\n\nThere are naturally two sides to the question—the political side and the legal rights of the Northern Railways bondholders. With the former I am not concerned; nevertheless, it seems to me that if the Japanese claim, and we admit, that they are entitled to a reversion of the Russians' real and potential rights in the Manchurian provinces, the purposes for which we supported Japan in the war and the avowed objects of our alliance are alike defeated. Reading the recently concluded Convention, it would appear that the South Manchurian Railway takes the place and the policy of the Russian Bank, and these we always contested. If railways in the three provinces can only be built under Japanese direction and with Japanese capital, the \"open door\" is a myth. But these are matters for the British Government.\n\nAs regards the interests of the Northern Railways, it seems to me indisputable that the Japanese Convention violates our rights and the security of the bondholders. By the Agreement of October 1898, it is laid down that the construction of any branches or extensions connecting with the lines named in that Agreement (which include the line to Hsin Min Tun) must be undertaken by the Imperial Chinese Railways, and if the latter's funds are not sufficient for the purpose, it must apply to the British and Chinese Corporation.\n\nThis stipulation was confirmed and amplified by the Agreement made between Sir Ernest Satow and Yuan Kungpao in April 1902, wherein it was laid down, \"in order to secure the existing interests of the railways,\" that \"the construction of any new railway within a distance of 80 miles of any portion of the existing lines, for which Concessions have not been signed previous to the date of this Agreement, shall be undertaken by the Administrators-General of the Imperial Northern Railways.\"\n\nIt was agreed between England and Russia in 1899, by a Convention in regard to their respective railway interests, that Great Britain would not seek on her own account, or for British subjects, any railway Concessions to the north of the Great Wall. Great Britain, per contra, obtained a free hand, as far as Russia was concerned, in the Yang-tsze Valley. But the Agreement above referred to (April 1902) shows clearly that this Convention was not intended to infringe the vested rights of the Northern Railways, and in the case of the Japanese lines, we are entitled to inquire and to be informed whether the Agreements are based on the reversion of Russian rights, or whether they are simply commercial undertakings. In the latter case, it can easily be shown that to secure the existing interests of the Northern Railways, it is essential that the extension from Hsin Min Tun to Moukden should form part of the Imperial Chinese Railways system.\n\nBut if this Agreement is final, it should at least be clearly understood that the Japanese control of the line ceases at the Liao River, and that the section west of that river is administered as part of the Imperial Chinese Railways system. The Agreement speaks of the line as the Fengtien-Hsin Min Tun Railway, which, until the loan for its reconstruction is redeemed, is under the control of the Japanese Engineer and Accountant. Whether this Japanese control will stop at the Liao River must depend, I think, on the attitude of the Imperial Chinese Railways, and this will depend on the policy of the Chinese Government and the action taken by the Corporation. In any case, even if the Japanese cease to function at the river, it will create a most anomalous and unsatisfactory state of affairs. The position will be similar to that on the Kowloon frontier of the Canton-Kowloon Railway, only that in this case, the Japanese Agreement takes no note of the British interests on the west bank of the Liao, and the Agreement certainly reads as if the railway were going to be under one and the same (i.e., Japanese) administration from Moukden to Hsin Min Tun.\n\nIt appears to me that the Chinese Government should at least undertake that, conforming to the Agreements of 1898 and 1902, the Imperial Chinese Railway Administration should extend up to the Liao River, and the Japanese interests and control should be limited to the line east of that boundary. This, as it is nominally in Chinese possession, they can do if they wish. The effect of the Japanese Agreement will be very prejudicial to the Northern Railways interests, as its Director, Mr. Chow, admits it has already injured their traffic considerably, and the whole intention of our Agreements was to insure that, within a reasonable distance of our lines, there should not be any rival railways competing with them to their detriment.\n\nI propose to wire in this sense to the Corporation unless you see objection to my doing so.\n\nBelieve me, &c.\n\n**(Signed)**\n\nJ. O. P. BLAND\n\n337", "txt_file_path": "txt/2diw2n4r2/CO129-344 - Public Offices & Foreign Office - 1907.txt", "external_url": "", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 412507, "series_id": 27, "series_slug": "histsyn-co129-engine", "series_title": "CO129 Colonial Office Hong Kong Records 理藩院香港檔案", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "CO129-345 - Public Offices & Foreign Office - 1907", "page_number": 267, "title": "CO129-345 - Public Offices & Foreign Office - 1907", "content_text": "## Inclosure 1 in No. 1\n\ninterest in the question and gave evidence of a lively desire to further the negotiations. His Excellency was, however, dominated by his fear of the literati of the three provinces, who, if the wishes of the more reasonable and representative among them were not taken into account, would cause the people under their influence to obstruct land purchase and construction work. The Government of China was at this moment not in a position to withstand this pressure. It was therefore necessary to steer a middle course between the foreign claims based on the Preliminary Agreement and the demands of the gentry. Only thus could anything beneficial accrue from the undertaking. His Excellency promised to bring all his influence to bear on the literati if Mr. Cordes would lend his assistance in that sense. Towards the end of the interview, during which Mr. Cordes confined himself to an explanation of the draft Agreements, the Viceroy noted down fifteen points which seemed to his Excellency to embody the essentials of a satisfactory solution. A copy of them was supplied to Mr. Cordes for communication to Mr. Liang. These fifteen points were not to be considered as unalterable demands on the part of the Viceroy, but merely contained the expression of his Excellency's view of what was required, according to his knowledge of the conditions as above expressed, to direct the negotiations into the proper channel.\n\nThe points were as follows:-\n\n| Point | Description |\n| --- | --- |\n| 1 | Loan not to exceed 5,000,000%. (China only took up 5,000,000l. for the Lu-Han line; the most economical arrangements possible in the circumstances must be made.) |\n| 2 | A single track to be laid first of all. (The Viceroy added verbally that it would be well to buy in advance the land for a double track.) |\n| 3 | The whole line to be completed in three years' time. |\n| 4 | The Yellow River bridge at Lao K'ou (Lokow) to be likewise completed within that period. (Verbally. An effort should at any rate be made--the time limit might be extended.) |\n| 5 | Loan to be at 94. Interest 5 per cent. per annum. |\n| 6 | Interest only payable for first ten years. Amortization to begin from eleventh year. If funds allow the loan can be paid off in full in the eleventh year, or the instalments can be increased. |\n| 7 | If the capital sum should be repaid in the eleventh year, no premium of 2 per cent. to be paid. |\n| 8 | The line shall not be pledged as security for the loan, but certain revenues of the three provinces will be pledged. Yüan Shih-kai will decide which. |\n| 9 | A German engineer will be engaged for the northern section, and a British engineer for the southern. Both will be independently selected and appointed by the high Chinese authorities intrusted with the management of the line. These engineers will be under the control and orders of the Chinese Directors. |\n| 10 | The British and German engineers have only to concern themselves with the work of construction and may not interfere in other matters. |\n| 11 | It has hitherto been stipulated that the Syndicate (and) the engineers shall receive 20 per cent. of the working profits. This must be renounced in order to prevent delay in amortization. Mr. Liang will discuss means to concede an extra bonus in commutation. |\n| 12 | The arrangements regarding the amount of commission accruing to the banks on purchase of material, or in the event of a different solution of this question (by commutation) shall be made by Mr. Liang. (The Viceroy explained that a sum as commutation might be computed on the lines of the 35,000l. allowed by the Canton-Kowloon Agreement.) |\n| 13 | Work must be simultaneously begun on the northern section from Tien-tsin and on the southern section from Pukow, as well as on the central section north and south from Chinan. (This means no delay.) |\n| 14 | Germany shall construct no competing line in Shantung. |\n| 15 | If, when the construction nears completion, the amount of the loan does not suffice, the Deutsch-Asiatische Bank and Hong Kong and Shanghae Banking Corporation can negotiate a supplementary loan.\n\nJuly 2, 1907.\n\n(Translation.)\n\nPage 3\n\n## Inclosure 2 in No. 1\n\nNotes on Mr. Cordes' Interview with Mr. Liang, July 12, 1907.\n\nCHANG CHIH-TUNG'S fifteen points were discussed with Liang. Mr. Cordes declared that the finding of a good security was the most important point, and urged Liang to ask the Viceroy Yüan, in whose hands the decision lay, at Chang Chih-tung's own suggestion, what provincial revenues he had in mind, and whether the salt revenues of the three provinces could be earmarked; or, failing that, the li-kin of Chihli, Shangtung, and Kiangsu. This did not commend itself to Liang. He was doubtful how the Viceroy would take such a question, even if asked verbally. Liang personally would prefer the Maritime Customs revenue to be pledged. He did not care to deal with the provincial Governments, which were entirely in the hands of the unreasonable gentry. He had that day received a most unreasonable telegram from the Shantung Governor regarding the Shantung portion of the security for the railway loan. The obligations arising from the Preliminary Agreement were Chinese Imperial ones, and the provinces should have no more to do with the unravelling of the affair than was absolutely necessary. Liang then wrote to Sir Robert Bredon asking the amounts of customs receipts in recent years and the total sum hypothecated for foreign loans. Later, Sir Robert Bredon called on Mr. Cordes in the bank and stated that he estimated about 15,000,000 taels were not hypothecated to the service of foreign loans. But according to the Protocol of 1901 the indemnity of 450,000,000 taels was secured on the customs.\n\n[Protocol to that effect quoted.]\n\nPeking, July 12, 1907.\n\n## Inclosure 3 in No. 1\n\n(Signed)\n\nH. CORDES.\n\n## Draft Tien-tsin-Yang-tsze Final Agreement: Chinese Offer\n\n**ARTICLE 1**. The Imperial Government of China authorizes the Syndicate banks to issue a 5 per Cent. Gold Loan for an amount of 5,000,000l. and called \"the Imperial Chinese 5 per Cent. Tien-tsin-Yang-tsze Railway Loan.\"\n\n**Art. 2**. The loan is designed to provide the capital for the construction of a Government Railway line from a point connecting the Imperial Railways of North China at or near Tien-tsin through Techon and Tsinanfu to Theien, near the southern frontier of Shantung, hereinafter known as the northern section of the Tien-tsin-Yang-tsze Railway line, and from Ihsien to Pukou (opposite Nanking, on the Yang-tsze-kiang), hereinafter known as the southern section of the Tien-tsin-Yang-tsze Railway line, the total length of these two sections being about 1,085 kilom., equal to about 2,170 Chinese *li* (Roughly 700 miles). The survey line shall be open to revision by the Director-General.\n\n**Art. 3**. The capital so provided will be solely devoted to the construction of the above railway line, and will include the funds required for the purchase of land, rolling-stock, and other equipment and for working the line, together with interest on the loan during the period of construction, which should not exceed three years from the actual beginning of the works, the commencement of the works not to be delayed beyond six months after this Agreement has been signed, within which period the sum of 500,000l. shall be placed at the disposal of the Director-General, in China or Europe as he may direct, as a first instalment on account of the proceeds of the loan. This amount of 500,000l., together with interest thereon not exceeding a charge of 6 per cent. per annum, shall be deducted from the proceeds of the first sale of the bonds.\n\n**Art. 4**. The rate of interest for the loan shall be 5 per cent. per annum on the nominal principal, and shall be paid for account of the Imperial Chinese Government during the time of the construction out of the proceeds of the loan and afterwards out of...", "txt_file_path": "txt/2diw2n4r2/CO129-345 - Public Offices & Foreign Office - 1907.txt", "external_url": "", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 412516, "series_id": 27, "series_slug": "histsyn-co129-engine", "series_title": "CO129 Colonial Office Hong Kong Records 理藩院香港檔案", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "CO129-345 - Public Offices & Foreign Office - 1907", "page_number": 276, "title": "CO129-345 - Public Offices & Foreign Office - 1907", "content_text": "## Inclosure 1 in No. 1.\n\n### Memorandum\n\nIn accordance with Chang's wish, Chang told me, to increase the amount of the loan at present. If the Wai-wu Pu could be induced to sanction the amount of 1,500,000l. now proposed, this would serve as a precedent for the further borrowing later if required. In the event of the Wai-wu Pu's opposition to this loan proving insuperable, the Viceroy hoped that we would allow him to resort to the contract advance system, of which he asked me to draw up a Memorandum.\n\nFrom the point of view of the present business, I do not look upon my mission from Chang as a very serious one. It seems to me almost an insult to expect that the financiers of the three great markets will form themselves into so important a combination, for a participation of 500,000l. each, in order to assist Chang's incoherent schemes. To humour his preference for provincial borrowing and sectional construction in order to deprive him of any pretext for going back on his engagements to the British is one thing, but to put in motion such important machinery for the attainment of this temporary object is quite another.\n\nThe experience I have derived from the negotiations of the past few weeks forces me to the belief that no sound progress can be looked for in railway construction if the initiative is left to the provincial authorities. The force of local opinion, the irresponsible criticism of the native press, the selfish indifference of the Peking Government, who, not being particularly interested as to whether the provinces have railways or not, show a natural reluctance to accept responsibility, the jealous concern of the people for China's sovereign rights, and their still active belief in their ability to raise share capital themselves are all factors which confront a progressive Viceroy in his efforts to promote the development of his province and improve his straitened resources.\n\nThat any province will ever be able to contend successfully against these difficulties and work out its own salvation seems almost out of the question; and yet these factors have to be reckoned with by any reformer who sets himself to solve the problem on comprehensive lines.\n\nBearing these lessons and principles in mind, it has occurred to me to consider how far the latest phase of the present negotiations may be turned to practical account. There is no doubt that there is an intense desire on the part of a large mass of the people for railway construction, provided it can be achieved with due consideration for their prejudices; and, although they may persist for a time in their attempts to raise share capital, it is certain that, so long as present conditions continue, this experiment cannot succeed to any appreciable extent, and in the end recourse must be had to foreign borrowing. A combination of the British, French, and German markets would practically hold the door of foreign capital; and, if the objections to the borrowing of foreign capital can be satisfied, the era of extended railway construction may thereby be brought appreciably nearer.\n\nMy approaching interview with the Wai-wu Pu seems to furnish an occasion for pressing upon them a comprehensive scheme of this nature; and I subjoin herewith the outline of such a scheme which I propose to lay before Sir J. Jordan, and, if it meets with his approval, to submit to you by wire.\n\n### Scheme for International Railway Loan\n1. The Hong Kong and Shanghae Bank, the Banque de l'Indo-Chine, and the Deutsch-Asiatische Bank to form a combination, with the approval of their Governments, for the issue of an Imperial Chinese Government 3 per Cent. Gold Loan of 18,000,000l., the Governments concerned undertaking to support the combination against other banks or firms of their nationals competing to the detriment of its objects.\n\n2. The objects of the loan to be:\n| Object | Amount |\n| --- | --- |\n| (a) The redemption of the Peking-Hankow Railway | 6,000,000l. |\n| (b) The construction of the Canton-Hankow Railway | 5,000,000l. |\n| (c) The construction of the Hankow-Szechuan Railway | 7,000,000l. |\n\nThe last two railways representing a mileage of, say, 1,500 miles, at an average of 8,000l. a mile.\n\n3. The loan to be floated in series, say, one of 6,000,000l., and four of 3,000,000l. The term of the loan to be thirty-five or forty years.\n\n4. Payment of principal and interest to be unconditionally guaranteed by the Imperial Chinese Government. No specific security to be hypothecated; but, in the event of the Chinese Government at any future time hypothecating internal revenues for other loans, the present loan to have priority. In the event of default, the Chinese Government undertakes to arrange with the Powers concerned, in consultation with the trustees for the bondholders, for the assignment under suitable guarantees of internal revenues sufficient for the payment of the annual loan service.\n\n5. The Chinese Government may redeem the whole or any portion of the loan within the first ten years at 2½ per cent. premium, and after ten years at par:\n| Redemption Source |\n| --- |\n| (a) From internal revenues of any sort; |\n| (b) From the profits of the railway lines; |\n| (c) From subscribed native share capital. |\n\n6. The Chief Engineer of the lines under construction to be British, in consideration of the fact that Great Britain, by its assent to this scheme, sacrifices the preference secured for British capital under the Conventions of 1903 and 1905. The sectional engineers, accountants, traffic managers, and other responsible officers to be employed during construction to be qualified Europeans (or, in the case of Hupei sections, Japanese engineers in the proportion of one-half) appointed by the Chinese Government and approved by the banks, or by the Chief Engineer. After construction is completed, it will rest with the Chinese Government to retain the services of all or any of these officers or not.\n\n7. All materials of foreign origin used for construction (conditions of price and quality being equal to those of other markets) to be either British, French, or German. No commission to be charged on materials.\n\nI do not know how your market would be disposed to look upon a Chinese loan unsecured by the hypothecation of specific revenue; but if any value be still attached to this form of security, I can only say that, in my opinion, and as applied to internal revenue, it is altogether sentimental. It is quite obvious, and experience has demonstrated, that, if called upon to do so, European officials would be quite incapable of effectively administering either li-kin or land tax. The real security is now, and must be in future, the credit and good faith of the Chinese Government and the latent wealth of the country, which it needs only financial pressure and improved conditions to bring out.\n\nIn the present instance, the compensation for the absence of the threadbare formula of hypothecation is the fact that the solemn promise of China to pay witnessed by the three Great Powers, who, in case of default, are to call upon China to assign such revenues as may be necessary to secure the debt.\n\nThe merits which I venture to claim for the scheme are that:\n1. Its terms are so liberal that the Chinese would find it difficult to allege grounds for refusing it.\n2. It offers a strong inducement to the Chinese in the redemption of the Peking-Hankow Railway.\n3. It is free from the least shadow of infringement of China's sovereign rights.\n4. It disarms the objections of the patriot who still clings to the belief that sufficient native share capital for railways can be obtained in the country, since it presents to him the opportunity of redeeming the loan whenever he likes, and for any amount which he is in a position to raise by the issue of native shares.\n\nMy dear Fraser,\n\nYours, &c.\n(Signed) E. G. HILLIER.\n\n## Inclosure 2 in No. 1.\n\n### Mr. Hillier to Consul-General Fraser\n\nJuly 23, 1907\n\nIn conformity with my promise to the Viceroy, I went this morning to see Na-tung by appointment in order to explain to him the nature and scope of my recent negotiations in Hankow. He received me alone at his private residence. His Excellency knew, of course, that I had been in Hankow, and had been in negotiation with Chang Kung-pao, but Chang had kept him and his colleagues quite in the dark as to the terms proposed. He asked what amount Chang proposed to borrow, and I told him 1,500,000l., adding that more than twice that amount would be required for the railway scheme Chang had in view, and I thought it a pity that he did not negotiate for all his requirements at one time. I then went into the various points which Chang Kung-pao had asked me to explain, the obstacle to borrowing directly for railway purposes... \n\nPage 4\nPage 5 \n\n... \nPage 273", "txt_file_path": "txt/2diw2n4r2/CO129-345 - Public Offices & Foreign Office - 1907.txt", "external_url": "", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 417445, "series_id": 27, "series_slug": "histsyn-co129-engine", "series_title": "CO129 Colonial Office Hong Kong Records 理藩院香港檔案", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "CO129-353 - Public Offices - 1908", "page_number": 157, "title": "CO129-353 - Public Offices - 1908", "content_text": "(Secret.) Sir,\n\n2\n\nInclosure 2 in No. 1.\n\nGovernor Sir F. Lugard to Sir J. Jordan.\n\nGovernment House, Hong Kong, August 6, 1908.\n\nI HAVE the honour to inform you that I received by last mail a Secret despatch of the 26th June, 1908, from the Secretary of State for the Colonies, calling my attention to the urgent necessity of moving in the question of a Joint Working Agreement between the Chinese and Hong Kong Governments on the subject of the Canton-Kowloon Railway. I attach the duplicate copy of this despatch, in the last paragraph of which I am directed to keep you fully informed, and in which it is suggested that I should consult with you in the matter. I shall therefore be glad of any observations and suggestions which your Excellency may be good enough to make. I attach also a copy of my reply.\n\n2. In the course of a conversation which I had with your Excellency at the end of March last, you expressed the view that the interests of this Colony would best be served if the negotiations on the part of the Chinese Government were to be left entirely in the hands of the Governor-General of the two Kwang provinces, who should be fully empowered in that behalf as the Representative of the Central Government. By this means you anticipated that the interminable delays which took place in the former negotiations relative to this railway might to some extent be averted and the inconveniences arising from the distance which separates the parties to the negotiations might be avoided. You undertook to use your best efforts to this end, and I have the honour to inquire whether your Excellency has any information to give me in this respect. For the reasons given in the third paragraph of my despatch to the Secretary of State it would seem advisable to press rather for the general control of the line to be vested in the Viceroy than to allude specifically to the matter of negotiations regarding the Joint Working Agreement.\n\n3. Lord Crewe in the despatch inclosed considers that \"the question has assumed a new aspect\" owing to the fact that the Chinese Government has refused to appoint Sir John Wolfe Barry and Partners as Consulting Engineers to the Chinese section of the line. From this remark I conclude that it has hitherto been the impression of the Colonial Office that Sir John Wolfe Barry and Partners, as Consulting Engineers to both sections, would have a preponderant voice in advising as to the terms of the Joint Working Agreement. I understand that though the Chinese Government is not unwilling to accept the services of that firm in an informal way as regards preparation of designs of bridges and so on it has been finally decided that they shall occupy no formal position as Consulting Engineers, and that in such a matter as the negotiation of a Joint Working Agreement they would not be consulted?\n\n4. It is obvious that the first step for this Government to take in this matter is to ascertain with whom negotiations are to be carried on. If the Central Government should entirely refuse to empower the Viceroy at Canton to act on their behalf it will become necessary for the Board of Communications (or whoever else may exercise the power of delegation) to name an official to conduct the negotiations with this Government. In that case I presume that the Chinese Government would recognize the desirability, if not the absolute necessity, of their Delegate coming to Canton in order to judge on the spot of the local conditions, and negotiate with me (or the officer deputed by me in that behalf) in person. It has, however, been pointed out to me that if the Central Government were urged to send a Peking official to Canton for this purpose, he would probably supersede the local Managing Director, Mr. Wei Hun, who is a man of broad views, and is on excellent terms with the Chief Resident Engineer. The appointment would, moreover, dislocate the present régime and probably result in the replacement of Mr. Wei Hun and others. For this reason I hesitate to do more at the present stage than to ask your Excellency to press for the control to be vested in the Viceroy, and the Managing Directorship in Mr. Wei Hun.\n\nThe terms of the Agreement will involve the consideration of many matters of a highly technical nature, and it is possible that I may find it advisable to secure the advice of a Railway Traffic Manager of experience. I shall, therefore, require to have ample notice of the date on which negotiations are likely to begin.\n\n5. The Secretary of State puts forward three \"possible dangers\" to the interests of this Colony. Regarding the first—the selection of a Chinese port for the terminus of the trunk line—I have had occasion to address you from time to time. I am not aware that the project has of late found favour, and I am informed that the insufficient depth of water at Whampoa affords a very strong objection to the scheme. Should it be revived it will, as heretofore, be strenuously opposed under Article 15 of the Loan Agreement.\n\n6. The second danger is that \"the Chinese Government may strangle goods traffic by the imposition of li-kin charges.\" I am aware that your Excellency has already brought this question to the notice of the Chinese Government in the case of the Shanghae-Nanking Railway, and I have seen a printed copy of your despatch No. 123 of the 16th March, 1908, but none of later date, to the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs on this subject. The terms of the Loan Agreement for the Kowloon-Canton Railway are not identical in this matter with those of the Shanghae-Nanking Railway, and they appear to provide for exemption \"from any special taxes\" only until the loan has been paid off. I am also in doubt, seeing that Kowloon is not a Treaty port, whether \"exemption certificates\" may be claimed for goods consigned to Canton or eventually to Hankow. The question of li-kin charges would of course form one of the matters for negotiation under the Joint Working Agreement, but I confess that I am at present at a loss to see what rights this Government possesses which would be violated by the imposition of li-kin dues, or what lever it can use to prevent such action on the expiry of the Loan Agreement.\n\nTo put the matter bluntly, this Government has embarked on a project costing probably about 1,000,000l., but has no Agreement of any kind whatever with the Chinese Government, with whose railways it is to connect. Such few and unsatisfactory safeguards as it possesses (such as the stipulation for no competing line) are contained in the Loan Agreement between the Chinese Government and the British and Chinese Corporation to which this Government is not a party, and which I presume could be modified by mutual consent, and in any case lapses twenty-five years after the line is completed if the loan is duly repaid. In these circumstances I feel that I have but little to negotiate upon in framing the Joint Working Agreement beyond the terms of Article 18, which binds the Chinese Government to make an Agreement \"for the joint working of the two sections.\"\n\nI shall be grateful to your Excellency for any information on the subject of railway li-kin, and any suggestions which you may be able to offer as to the conditions in this matter which this Government could reasonably ask, both during the continuance of the Loan Agreement and subsequently, and the arguments by which such claims could be supported.\n\n7. The third point to which the Secretary of State invites my attention is that \"it is conceivable that the line may be so badly laid out, the permanent way so light, and the bridges so inadequate in strength, that the Hong Kong trains could not safely run over them, and it is even conceivable that the gauge might be altered.\" It would seem to me that in this matter the Secretary of State has lost sight of the fact that the Loan Agreement stipulates that \"the line shall be built and equipped in accordance with the best modern system\" (Article 2), and the Engineer-in-chief is responsible for its \"efficient construction\" (Article 6). Emphasis is laid on the fact that as the railway itself forms the first mortgage security of the British and Chinese Corporation it is essential to their interests that it should be thoroughly efficient. That they will safeguard those interests is the guarantee to this Government. As regards a change of gauge, I should maintain that such an act would be a violation of Article 18, which pledges the Chinese to the joint working of the two lines as two sections of the same line. It will, moreover, be essential to their interests that their line should have access to the sea. In the matter of efficient and economical construction, I have every confidence in the Chief Resident Engineer, Mr. Grove. Hitherto, at any rate, he has received support from his colleague, Mr. Wei Hun, and I have no reason to think that the Chinese authorities are inclined to interfere with his technical work, or to bring pressure to bear upon him to make it of a less efficient character.\n\n8. There is, however, a danger which appears to me to be of a more tangible and real character. The Chinese Government are offering what appear to be exorbitant prices for the land required. In this connection I inclose a Memorandum regarding the rates offered in the British and Chinese sections respectively. Since it is alleged that the peasants refuse even these offers, it is conceivable that they may be increased or purchase indefinitely postponed and, since all land has to be paid for out of the loan, the contingency is not remote that the available capital would be insufficient for the completion of the construction. The raising of further capital, whether by Chinese subscriptions or by a further loan from the British and Chinese Corporation, would, if the completion were indefinitely delayed, probably afford opportunities for interminable delays.\n\nPage 153", "txt_file_path": "txt/2diw2n4r2/CO129-353 - Public Offices - 1908.txt", "external_url": "", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 417485, "series_id": 27, "series_slug": "histsyn-co129-engine", "series_title": "CO129 Colonial Office Hong Kong Records 理藩院香港檔案", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "CO129-353 - Public Offices - 1908", "page_number": 197, "title": "CO129-353 - Public Offices - 1908", "content_text": "193\n\n2\n\nshould entirely refuse to empower the Viceroy at Canton to act on their behalf, it will become necessary for the Board of Communications (or whoever else may exercise the power of delegation) to name an official to conduct the negotiations with this Government. In that case I presume that the Chinese Government would recognize the desirability, if not the absolute necessity, of their Delegate coming to Canton in order to judge on the spot of the local conditions, and negotiate with me (or the officer deputed by me in that behalf) in person. It has, however, been pointed out to me that if the Central Government were urged to send a Peking official to Canton for this purpose, he would probably supersede the local Managing Director Mr. Wei Hun—who is a man of broad views, and is on excellent terms with the Chief Resident Engineer. The appointment would, moreover, dislocate the present régime, and probably result in the replacement of Mr. Wei Hun and others. For this reason I hesitate to do more, at the present stage, than to ask your Excellency to press for the control to be vested in the Viceroy and the Managing Directorship in Mr. Wei Hun.\n\nThe terms of the Agreement will involve the consideration of many matters of a highly technical nature, and it is possible that I may find it advisable to secure the advice of a railway traffic manager of experience. I shall therefore require to have ample notice of the date on which negotiations are likely to begin.\n\n5. The Secretary of State puts forward three \"possible dangers\" to the interests of the Colony. Regarding the first—the selection of a Chinese port for the terminus of the trunk line—I have had occasion to address you from time to time.\n\nI am not aware that the project has of late found favour, and I am informed that the insufficient depth of water at Whampoa affords a very strong objection to the scheme. Should it be revived, it will as heretofore be strenuously opposed under Article 15 of the Loan Agreement.\n\n6. The second danger is that \"the Chinese Government may strangle goods traffic by the imposition of li-kin charges.\" I am aware that your Excellency has already brought this question to the notice of the Chinese Government in the case of the Shanghae-Nanking Railway, and I have seen a printed copy of your despatch No. 123 of the 16th March, 1908, but none of later date, to the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs on this subject. The terms of the Loan Agreement for the Canton-Kowloon Railway are not identical in this matter with those of the Shanghae-Nanking Railway, and they appear to provide for exemption \"from any special taxes\" only until the loan has been paid off. I am also in doubt, seeing that Kowloon is not a Treaty port, whether \"exemption certificates\" may be claimed for goods consigned to Canton or eventually to Hankow. The question of li-kin charges would, of course, form one of the matters for negotiation under the Joint Working Agreement, but I confess that I am at present at a loss to see what rights this Government possesses which would be violated by the imposition of li-kin dues, or what lever it can use to prevent such action on the expiry of the Loan Agreement.\n\nTo put the matter bluntly, this Government has embarked on a project costing probably about 1,000,000l., but has no Agreement of any kind with the Chinese Government, with whose railways it is to connect. Such few and unsatisfactory safeguards as it possesses (such as the stipulation for no competing line) are contained in the Loan Agreement between the Chinese Government and the British and Chinese Corporation, to which this Government is not a party, and which, I presume, could be modified by mutual consent, and in any case lapses twenty-five years after the line is completed, if the loan is duly repaid. In these circumstances, I feel I have but little to negotiate upon in framing the Joint Working Agreement, beyond the terms of Article 18, which binds the Chinese Government to make an Agreement for the joint working of the two sections.\n\nI shall be grateful to your Excellency for any information on the subject of railway li-kin, and any suggestions which you may be able to offer as to the conditions in this matter which this Government could reasonably ask, both during the continuance of the Loan Agreement and subsequently, and the arguments by which such claims could be supported.\n\n7. The third point to which the Secretary of State invites my attention is that \"it is conceivable that the line may be so badly laid out, the permanent way so light, and the bridges so inadequate in strength that the Hong Kong trains could not safely run over them, and it is even conceivable that the gauge might be altered.\" It would seem to me that in this matter the Secretary of State has lost sight of the fact that the Loan Agreement stipulates that the line shall be built and equipped in accordance with the \"best modern system\" (Article 2), and the Engineer-in-chief is responsible for its \"efficient construction\" (Article 6). Emphasis is laid on the fact that, as the railway itself forms the first mortgage security of the British and Chinese Corporation, it is essential to their interests that it should be thoroughly efficient. That they will safeguard those interests is the guarantee to this Government. As regards a change of gauge, I should maintain that such an act would be a violation of Article 18, which pledges the Chinese to the joint working of the two lines as two sections of the same line. It will, moreover, be essential to their interests that their line should have access to the sea. In the matter of efficient and economical construction, I have every confidence in the Chief Resident Engineer, Mr. Grove. Hitherto, at any rate, he has received support from his colleague, Mr. Wei Hun, and I have no reason to think that the Chinese authorities are inclined to interfere with his technical work, or to bring pressure to bear upon him to make it of a less efficient character.\n\n8. There is, however, a danger which appears to me to be of a more tangible and real character. The Chinese Government are offering what appear to be exorbitant prices for the land required. In this connection I enclose a Memorandum regarding the rates offered in the British and Chinese sections respectively. Since it is alleged that the peasants refuse even these offers, it is conceivable that they may be increased or purchase indefinitely postponed, and since all land has to be paid for out of the loan, the contingency is not remote that the available capital would be insufficient for the completion of the construction. The raising of further capital, whether by Chinese subscriptions or by a further loan from the British and Chinese Corporation, would probably afford opportunities for interminable delays. If the completion were indefinitely delayed, it seems to me that the Canton-Hankow line would have a claim, which it would be very difficult to resist, to find a terminus at the sea, if in fact such a terminus, with sufficient depth of water, can be created. Mr. Grove informs me that if the requisite land can be secured towards the end of the year, he hopes to complete in two and a half years from this date, but that if a delay occurs in securing land it will be four years from now before he can hope to finish construction.\n\n9. Lord Crewe considers that \"it is essential that steps should be taken without further delay to obtain from the Chinese Government satisfactory assurances on the points raised, and the method in which he suggests that this should be done is detailed in paragraph 7 of the despatch. Any representations of the nature indicated must be made through yourself; but I am inclined to think that the questions specified—the replies to which, so far as they can at present be given, are already known to us—would be categorically answered without bringing us any nearer to the object in view, which is, in brief, the organization of the joint working of the two sections and the determination of the basis on which profits are to be shared. In this connection I may observe that, in a conversation which I had with Mr. Grove (Chief Resident Engineer of the Chinese section) early in January last, he informed me that it would be a year or eighteen months before he would be ready to discuss the details of a Working Agreement. He added that any proposals for joint arrangements at the present stage would render the Chinese suspicious. For my own part, it appears to me very essential that the negotiations, which may be protracted, should be begun in ample time, for if they were not completed when the line, or any part of it, was open to traffic, each section would naturally retain its own profits, and it would be difficult to then introduce a division based on a recognition of the much greater proportionate outlay by this Government.\n\n10. I have indicated in the second paragraph of this despatch the steps which at present appear to me to be advisable to take, and I would venture in this connection to remind your Excellency that the interests of the Hong Kong Government and those of the British and Chinese Corporation are not identical in this matter. When the railway is completed, the interests of the Corporation are limited to obtaining prompt payment of the interest on the bonds, and to this end (and in order to establish their reputation with a view to further railway business) they are concerned in obtaining for the Chinese section the maximum profits vis-à-vis the Hong Kong section.\n\nI have, &c.\n\n(Signed)\n\nF. D. LUGARD.\n\nP.S.—Since drafting the foregoing despatch, I have received from the Consul-General at Canton a copy of his letter to your Excellency No. 21, Confidential, of the 25th July. This despatch confirms what I suggested in my paragraph 8, and adds point to the views expressed in paragraph 2, since it shows that the disastrous and unnecessary charges for land (as well as the delays caused by placing futile orders with Chinese firms) are consequential upon the action of the central authority in depriving the Provincial Government of the control, which was contemplated by the Loan Agreement. The views of Mr. Fox and of Mr. Grove appear to coincide with my own, that\n\n[1993 t-3]\n\n3\n\nPage 194\n\nPage 194\n\n2\n\n[End of Document]", "txt_file_path": "txt/2diw2n4r2/CO129-353 - Public Offices - 1908.txt", "external_url": "", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 420567, "series_id": 27, "series_slug": "histsyn-co129-engine", "series_title": "CO129 Colonial Office Hong Kong Records 理藩院香港檔案", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "CO129-358 - Governor Sir Lugard - 1909 [10-11]", "page_number": 457, "title": "CO129-358 - Governor Sir Lugard - 1909 [10-11]", "content_text": "Colonial Secretary's Office,\n\nHongkong, 9th January, 1906.\n\n41369\n\nI am directed to acknowledge the receipt of\n\nand to thank you for your letter No. 379/29/114 dated the 5th instant asking for my views on the proposal of the War Department to redeem the Crown Rent of Inland Lot No. 427 and charge the amount against the credit now standing in their favour.\n\nThis proposal has been considered by the Governor who understands that it is made with a view to the sale of the balance of the present lease to private persons and regrets that the tenor of the Secretary of State's instructions as to the tenure of land in the Colony by such persons being in every case subject to a Crown Rent forbids His Excellency from entertaining the proposal now made.\n\nAs you are aware Rent from Crown Lands in private occupation forms a considerable portion of the annual revenue of this Colony from which, after deducting 20 per centum for Military Contribution, its annual expenditure is met. To start a new system of commuting rent and thus alienating (in this case indirectly) this asset to private persons would tend to affect the future revenue and military contribution of the Colony in a manner which appears to His Excellency undesirable.\n\nI have etc.,\n\n(sd.) T. Sercombe Smithe\n\nActing Colonial Secretary.\n\n*To the Commanding Royal Engineer.", "txt_file_path": "txt/2diw2n4r2/CO129-358 - Governor Sir Lugard - 1909 [10-11].txt", "external_url": "", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 421618, "series_id": 27, "series_slug": "histsyn-co129-engine", "series_title": "CO129 Colonial Office Hong Kong Records 理藩院香港檔案", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "CO129-360 - Public Offices - 1909", "page_number": 407, "title": "CO129-360 - Public Offices - 1909", "content_text": "# C. O.\n## CHINA RAILWAYS\n### CONFIDENTIAL\n\n**No. 1.**\n\nSir J. Jordan to Sir Edward Grey.-(Received January 13, 1909.)\n\n**(No. 576.)**\nSir,\n\nPeking, December 23, 1908.\n\nI HAVE the honour to transmit to you herewith copy of a despatch from His Majesty's Consul-General at Hankow inclosing a translation of a series of queries which the Viceroy there has addressed to the local gentry and merchants, who are anxious to have the Hankow-Ichang section of the future Szechuan Railway made an unofficial enterprise.\n\nAs Mr. Fraser points out, the Viceroy fully exposes the hollowness of the attempts which have hitherto been made by the provinces to finance railway undertakings, and his Excellency's own suggestion to provide funds by an extra assessment on land is not likely to appeal to the rural population who have already had some experience of Government methods in the depreciated currency from which they are suffering so much, and whose daily needs are too pressing to admit of their indulging in visionary schemes of remote profit.\n\nMr. Fraser has also kept me fully informed from time to time of the various phases through which the Canton-Hankow Railway question is passing. The upper section, from Wuchang to Yochow, which appears to have made a good start under Mr. St. George Moore, has received a sudden set-back by orders issued from this by Chang Chih-tung, the result of which is that all work has been absolutely stopped and salaries at the rate of £12,000 per annum continue to be paid with no return.\n\nOn the Hunan section, the British engineer, Mr. Ross, has unfortunately been invalided home, but Mr. Hewlett's reports from Changsha go to show that the Hunanese have at last made up their minds to accept the inevitable and acquiesce in a foreign loan. German intervention promises to introduce a slight complication in this section. A short line of about 13 miles, from Ch'u-chow to Ichia-wan, is to be built this summer in connection with the Ping-hsiang mines in which the Germans are much interested, and negotiations with this object in view are going on between the German manager of the mine and the notorious Shêng Kung-pao, who seems to have secured control of this section from the Hunan Company. I concur, however, with Mr. Fraser in thinking that we cannot well protest as the construction will be carried on by a purely Chinese Company, but, acting upon his suggestion, I have furnished Mr. Bland with full particulars, and asked him to warn the Chinese negotiators that we shall expect this line to be eventually incorporated in the main line.\n\nA much more serious complication, of which my telegram No. 199 of the 12th instant will have informed you, has occurred in connection with the negotiations here. Early in the month, Mr. Gulland, a Scotchman, who is manager of the International Bank at Shanghai, an American concern whose capital is said to be largely Belgian, came to Peking and called upon the American Minister, myself, and Mr. Bland.\n\nMr. Gulland explained that until recently he had been under the impression that the American money market was not prepared to advance capital to China, and that he was therefore surprised to receive instructions to come to Peking and ascertain the Chinese Government's wishes and proposals regarding the Canton-Hankow line.\n\nI said that if the United States' money market was seriously disposed to embark on Chinese Government loans, British financiers would possibly be willing to renew the friendly relations which formerly existed, but I expressed grave doubts as to bona fide American capital wanting to find an outlet in China at present. China, in my opinion, had been receiving foreign money of late on easier terms than, in view of her financial condition, she had any right to expect, and it was as much to her own interest as to that of the foreign investor that railway loans should be accompanied with stricter safeguards.\n\nThe American Minister subsequently called upon me to discuss the same question. Mr. Rockhill told me that he was in receipt of telegraphic instructions which had special reference to the Canton-Hankow Railway, and the necessity of securing equality of opportunity for American capital in competing with that of other nationalities.\n\n[2104 a-1]", "txt_file_path": "txt/2diw2n4r2/CO129-360 - Public Offices - 1909.txt", "external_url": "", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 421849, "series_id": 27, "series_slug": "histsyn-co129-engine", "series_title": "CO129 Colonial Office Hong Kong Records 理藩院香港檔案", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "CO129-360 - Public Offices - 1909", "page_number": 638, "title": "CO129-360 - Public Offices - 1909", "content_text": "## The draft Agreement after having been read was considered clause by clause and agreed subject to the following points:- \n\n(4) The insertion of an additional clause that all parties to the Agreement should bind themselves not to be interested in any competing business within the scope of the Agreement without disclosure of such interest, and the consent of the other parties thereto. This was agreed to in principle. The British and Chinese Corporation having communicated to the Meeting their Agreement with the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation of 30th June 1908, it is understood that the present Agreement is conditional on the continued adhesion of the Bank to the said Agreement and terminates automatically the moment the said Agreement is denounced.\n\n(B) The insertion of a Clause ensuring the internationalisation of future Loans. The Corporation pointed out that this was a matter for the decision of the Stock Exchange Committee but that they would be prepared to recommend it provided that the consent of the Paris Market was first obtained. The Banque de l'Indo Chine states that if the internationalisation of future loans were to be obtained in Paris, the expenses concerning stamp duty and publicity ought to be shared in common by the three parties.\n\n## CLAUSE 6\nThe question of appointing a representative of one of the parties to conduct the negotiations with the Chinese Government was considered, and it was agreed that it should stand over for further consideration.\n\n## CLAUSE 10 (A)\nThe question of the appointment of an Engineer in Chief was considered at length and it was not contested that in regard to this point the Engineer in Chief to the Hankow Canton Railway must be British as provided in Clause 7A of the Addis Memorandum. Accordingly it was proposed by the Corporation and the French Group that subject to the exclusion of the Hankow Canton Railway and the Pookow Sinyang Railway all Railway business in China should be shared in as nearly as possible equal terms by the three Groups. The matter was held over in order to allow the German Group time to refer it to their Consortium in Berlin.\n\nThe Banque de l'Indo Chine as a condition of their approval of the present scheme raised the question of being permitted to participate in the Agreement between the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation and the Deutsch-Asiatische Bank of 1895 and 1905 and Mr. Addis and Mr. Rehders undertook to refer this matter to the consideration of their respective Directors.\n\nThe meeting was then adjourned until to-morrow morning.\n\n## 3 \n## MINUTES OF ADJOURNED MEETING held at 3 Lombard Street E.C. on the 13th March 1909.\n\nAll the above gentlemen were present, Mr. W. Keswick in the Chair.\n\nThe draft Minutes of the meeting held on the 12th March 1909 were read considered and approved in the terms above set forth and ordered to be printed for distribution and to be signed by the Chairman as correct.\n\nSigned as correct. \n**W. KESWICK**, \nChairman. \n633", "txt_file_path": "txt/2diw2n4r2/CO129-360 - Public Offices - 1909.txt", "external_url": "", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 421902, "series_id": 27, "series_slug": "histsyn-co129-engine", "series_title": "CO129 Colonial Office Hong Kong Records 理藩院香港檔案", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "CO129-360 - Public Offices - 1909", "page_number": 691, "title": "CO129-360 - Public Offices - 1909", "content_text": "This Document is the Property of His Britannic Majesty's Government.\n\n**C.O.**\n10492\n**CHINA RAILWAYS.**\n**CONFIDENTIAL.**\n\n[7860]\n\nNo. 1.\n\nRECR(REG25MAR09\n686\n\n[February 26.]\n\n## SECTION 1.\n\n**Memorandum by Mr. C. S. Addis respecting Hankow-Canton Railway Loan Negotiations.**— (Communicated by Mr. Addis, February 26, 1909.)\n\nThe present position is as follows:---\n\n1. By an exchange of notes the Governments of England and France have declared themselves opposed to their nationals making railway loans to China unless accompanied by suitable guarantees that the money will be devoted to the object for which the loan was ostensibly raised.\n\n2. The Germans, having been refused participation in the Anglo-French group, are now competing with them for the Hankow-Canton Railway Loan by an independent offer to the Chinese of Tien-tsin--Pukow terms in which the control of the railway funds is vested in the Chinese Director-General.\n\n3. The Anglo-French group are accordingly faced with the alternative of either coming to terms with China by accepting Tien-tsin-Pukow (non-control) terms or of coming to terms with the Germans by admitting them to participation.\n\n4. The German and French groups having both expressed their willingness to enter into a general Anglo-Franco-German understanding in China, the following arrangement is suggested:\n\n| Agreement Basis | Participating Banks/Groups |\n| --- | --- |\n| The Agreement between the Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation and the Deutsch-Asiatische Bank | British and Chinese Corporation, Banque de l'Indo Chine, and Deutsch-Asiatische Bank |\n\nThis Agreement to include the Hankow-Canton Railway.\n\n5. To enable this to be done, the British group agrees to waive the preference on material secured to them by the Anglo-Chinese Convention of 1905.\n\n6. In return for participation, the German group agrees to withdraw their offer to the Chinese and to adhere along with the Anglo-French group to Canton-Kowloon terms of control as a minimum.\n\n7. The Canton-Kowloon terms include--\n\n(a) Appointment of Engineer to be approved by the lenders. It is understood that France and Germany would not object to the appointment of a British Engineer in the case of the Hankow-Canton Railway. It is suggested that similar concessions might be made in future to other groups where their interests can be shown to predominate.\n\n(b) Commission to be shared between the three groups as may be hereafter arranged.\n\n(c) The British preference having been abandoned, an endeavour would be made to substitute a preference to the \"lenders,\" the Chinese retaining, within these limits, the right to purchase railway material in the open market.\n\nLondon, February 26, 1909.\n\n[2150 ce-]", "txt_file_path": "txt/2diw2n4r2/CO129-360 - Public Offices - 1909.txt", "external_url": "", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 421908, "series_id": 27, "series_slug": "histsyn-co129-engine", "series_title": "CO129 Colonial Office Hong Kong Records 理藩院香港檔案", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "CO129-360 - Public Offices - 1909", "page_number": 697, "title": "CO129-360 - Public Offices - 1909", "content_text": "# CHINA RAILWAYS\n## **CONFIDENTIAL**\n### No. 1\n\n**Memorandum by Mr. C. S. Addis respecting the Hankow-Canton Railway Loan Negotiations**\n\n-(Received at Foreign Office, March 5.)\n\nTHE present position is as follows:\n\n1. By an exchange of notes the Governments of England and France have declared themselves opposed to their nationals making railway loans to China unless accompanied by suitable guarantees that the money will be devoted to the object for which the loan was ostensibly raised.\n\n2. The Germans, having been refused participation in the Anglo-French group, are now competing with them for the Hankow-Canton Railway Loan by an independent offer to the Chinese of Tien-tsin-Pukow terms, in which the control of the railway funds is vested in the Chinese Director-General.\n\n3. The Anglo-French group are accordingly faced with the alternative of either coming to terms with China by accepting Tien-tsin-Pukow (non-control) terms or of coming to terms with the Germans by admitting them to participation.\n\n4. The German and French group having both expressed their willingness to enter into a general Anglo-French-German understanding in China, the following arrangement is suggested:\n\nThe Agreement between the Hong Kong and Shanghae Banking Corporation and the Deutsch-Asiatische Bank to be taken as the basis for an Agreement between the British and Chinese Corporation, the Banque de l'Indo-Chine, and the Deutsch-Asiatische Bank for all railway loan business which any of the three groups may obtain in China. This Agreement to include the Hankow-Canton Railway.\n\n5. To enable this to be done, the British group agrees to waive the preference on material secured to them by the Anglo-Chinese Convention of 1905.\n\n6. In return for participation, the German group agrees to withdraw their offer to the Chinese and to adhere along with the Anglo-French group to Canton-Kowloon terms of control as a minimum.\n\n7. The Canton-Kowloon terms include:\n\n| Term | Description |\n| --- | --- |\n| (a) | Appointment of engineer to be approved by the lenders. It is understood that France and Germany would not object to the appointment of a British engineer in the case of the Hankow-Canton Railway. It is suggested that similar concessions might be made in future to other groups where their interests can be shown to predominate. |\n| (b) | Commission to be shared between the three groups as may be hereafter arranged. |\n| (c) | The British preference having been abandoned, an endeavour would be made to substitute a preference to the \"lenders,\" the Chinese retaining, within these limits, the right to purchase railway material in the open market. |\n\nLondon, February 26, 1909.\n\nAccepted in principle, subject to confirmation by the British and Chinese Corporation.\n\n(Signed) **CHARLES STEWART ADDIS**\n\nParis, February 27, 1909.\n\nAccepté en principe, sous réserve de l'approbation du groupe français représenté par la Banque de l'Indo-Chine.\n\n(Signé) **STANISLAS SIMON** \n`[2193 e-1]`", "txt_file_path": "txt/2diw2n4r2/CO129-360 - Public Offices - 1909.txt", "external_url": "", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 422117, "series_id": 27, "series_slug": "histsyn-co129-engine", "series_title": "CO129 Colonial Office Hong Kong Records 理藩院香港檔案", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "CO129-361 - Public Offices - 1909", "page_number": 146, "title": "CO129-361 - Public Offices - 1909", "content_text": "# C.O. 146\nThis Document is the Property of His Britannic Majesty's Government \nCHINA RAILWAYS.\n\n## CONFIDENTIAL\n\nNo. 1. \nSECTION 3.\n\nMr. C. S. Addis to Foreign Office.--(Received March 22)\n\nDear Mr. Alston,\n\nHong Kong and Shanghae Bank, 31, Lombard Street, London, March 22, 1909.\n\nI inclose a copy of the German reply, which I received this morning. Some of the provisions will require careful consideration, but prima facie there is nothing, so far as I see, to prevent a resumption of the negotiations at the point where they left off.\n\nThe letter will be considered by the English Delegates at a meeting to be held here this week.\n\nYours truly, \n(Signed) C. S. ADDIS.\n\n### Inclosure in No. 1\n\nDeutsch-Asiatische Bank to Mr. C. S. Addis.\n\nBerlin, March 20, 1909,\n\nIn confirmation of our yesterday's telegram, as per inclosed copy, we beg to inform you that our Syndicate has agreed to continue the negotiations re the proposed Anglo-French-German Agreement on the point where they have been suspended, and that Messrs. Urbig, Erich, and Rehders have been authorized to resume and conclude these negotiations on the following conditions:\n\n1. Two Agreements are to be made simultaneously, viz.:\n\n (1) The first Agreement has to be made between the Hong Kong and Shanghae Banking Corporation, the Deutsch-Asiatische Bank, and the Banque de l'Indo-Chine. It shall relate to all loans and advances which may be concluded with the Chinese Imperial or Provincial Governments or under the guarantee of such Governments, taking as basis the Agreement made by us with your esteemed Bank on the 27th July, 1895.\n\n (2) The second Agreement has to be made between the British and China Corporation (Limited), the Chinese Central Railways (Limited), the Deutsch-Chinesische Eisenbahn-Gesellschaft m.b.H., and a Railway Syndicate to be formed by the Banque de l'Indo-Chine. This second Agreement shall relate only to loans and advances for railway purposes.\n\n2. The conclusion of Agreements, as described above, shall be subject to the following provisions:\n\n| Provision | Description |\n| --- | --- |\n| (a) | Spheres of interest not to be allowed, the railways in the Province of Shantung not to fall into the scope of the Agreement. |\n| (b) | Chief Engineers to be appointed alternately by the three groups with the exception of the railway line Pukow-Sinyang, in which case the Chief Engineer shall be English, and the railway lines Techou-Chentingfu and Yenchoufu-Kaifeng, in which case the Chief Engineer shall be German. |\n| (c) | The position of the Peking representative of the German Syndicate in negotiations with Chinese authorities shall be in parity with the position of the representative of one or the other group. |\n| (d) | An additional clause shall be inserted that all parties to both Agreements shall bind themselves not to be interested in any competing business within the scope of the Agreement without disclosure of such interest and the consent of the other parties thereto. |\n| (e) | As long as the first Agreement to be concluded remains in force, the Agreement made on the 30th June, 1898, between the Hong Kong and Shanghae Banking Corporation... |\n\n[2193 y-3]", "txt_file_path": "txt/2diw2n4r2/CO129-361 - Public Offices - 1909.txt", "external_url": "", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 422172, "series_id": 27, "series_slug": "histsyn-co129-engine", "series_title": "CO129 Colonial Office Hong Kong Records 理藩院香港檔案", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "CO129-361 - Public Offices - 1909", "page_number": 201, "title": "CO129-361 - Public Offices - 1909", "content_text": "## Memorandum\n\n**(a.)** Spheres of interest not to be allowed; the railways in the Province of Shantung not to fall into the scope of the Agreement.\n\n**(b.)** Chief Engineers to be appointed alternately by the three groups, with the exception of the railway line Pukow-Sinyang-in which case the Chief Engineer shall be English--and the railway lines Techou-Chengtingfu and Yenchonfu-Kaifeng, in which cases the Chief Engineer shall be German.\n\n**(c.)** The position of the Peking representative of the German Syndicate in negotiations with Chinese authorities shall be in parity with the position of the representative of one or the other group.\n\n**(d)** An additional clause shall be inserted that all parties to both Agreements shall bind themselves not to be interested in any competing business within the scope of the Agreement without disclosure of such interest and the consent of the other parties thereto.\n\n**(e.)** As long as the first Agreement to be concluded remains in force, the Agreement made on the 30th June, 1898, between the Hong Kong and Shanghae Banking Corporation and the British and Chinese Corporation, cannot be cancelled or altered.\n\n**(f.)** Both Agreements shall not come into force before fulfilment of the conditions hereafter specified under No. 3.\n\n3. After conclusion of both Agreements, M. Cordes shall immediately be instructed to reopen negotiations for a modification of the preliminary Agreement for the Canton-Hankow Railway Loan, if necessary under assistance of the British, French, and German Legations in Peking, so that the provisions concerning the control over the employment of loan funds may be improved to Canton-Kowloon terms as a minimum.\n\nThe British and French groups will then be free to enter into the Canton-Hankow Agreement (Hunan and Hupeh sections), provided always that the Hankow-Chengtu Loan (Hupeh section) will be concluded simultaneously. The Chief Engineer for the former line shall then be appointed by the British group, but for the Hupeh section of the Hankow-Chengtu line the power of appointing the Chief Engineer rests under any circumstances with the German Syndicate.\n\n4. All efforts must be made by the three groups to the effect that the internationalization of all loans coming under both Agreements be ensured.\n\nIf necessary it can be granted that the expenses for stamp duty and publicity are shared in common by the three groups.\n\nThe time and notice of termination to be given for both Agreements should be twelve months instead of six months, and both Agreements should not terminate sooner than the 31st December, 1911.\n\nWe hope you will agree to continue the negotiations on these lines, and we shall be prepared to meet you and the other English and French friends in Brussels or Paris during the week commencing the 20th instant, but not before the 1st proximo.\n\n## Inclosure 2 in No. 1.\n\n## Agreement\n\nWe remain, &c.\nDeutsch-Asiatische Bank,\n(Signed) ERICH.\nREHDERS.\n\nMEMORANDUM of Agreement made the ... day of ... 1909, between the British and Chinese Corporation (Limited), having its registered office at 3, Lombard Street, in the City of London (hereinafter called \"the Corporation\") of the first part, Chinese Central Railways (Limited), having its registered office at 110, Cannon Street, in the said City (hereinafter called \"the Central Company\") of the second part, the Banque de l'Indo-Chine, having its head office at 15 bis, Rue Lafitte, Paris (hereinafter called \"the French Bank\") of the third part, and the Deutsch-Asiatische Bank, having its head office at 14 to 16, Bebrenstrasse, Berlin (hereinafter called \"the German Bank\") of the fourth part.\n\nWHEREAS by an exchange of notes the Governments of England and France have declared themselves opposed to the subjects of either country making loans to the Empire of China for railway purposes, unless accompanied by suitable guarantees that the moneys will be devoted to the object for which the loan was ostensibly raised.\n\nAnd whereas the German Syndicate for Chinese business hereinafter referred to having been in negotiations with the Government of the Chinese Empire in competition with the Corporation and the French Syndicate in connection with Chinese business to which this Agreement relates, and being satisfied that the principle adopted by the Governments of England and France should be adopted on their behalf, also as affording the most beneficial and economical manner of providing sufficient security for the service of loans made by them have accordingly expressed their willingness to enter into a general Anglo-Franco-German understanding for the purpose of governing the action of the Corporation and the French and German Syndicates in connection with the negotiations for and making to the Chinese Empire loans for railway purposes.\n\nNow it is hereby agreed by and between the parties hereto as follows:\n\n1. In the matter of this Agreement the French Bank is acting on behalf of the French Syndicate for Chinese business consisting of the parties whose names are set forth in the First Schedule hereto, and the German Bank is acting on behalf of the German Syndicate for Chinese business consisting of the parties whose names are set forth in the Second Schedule hereto.\n\n2. This Agreement relates to all loans and advances for railway purposes to be floated out of the Chinese Empire, which may be made with the Chinese Imperial Government, but does not relate to loans to be floated within the Chinese Empire.\n\n3. Any business of the kind hereinbefore defined to which this Agreement relates, which may be offered to either of the contracting parties of the first, third, and fourth parts (hereinafter jointly referred to as \"the lenders\") must be dealt with jointly by them in accordance with the stipulations of this Agreement, and any loans or advances to Government Departments and Companies for railway purposes and having Chinese, Imperial, or Provincial Government guarantees are to be treated in the same manner.\n\n4. As regards joint action in respect of financial operations for railway purposes not having such guarantees special Agreements will have to be made in each separate case.\n\n6. This Agreement is made on the principle of equality, namely, equal terms in every respect between the lenders, and each of the lenders enters into this Agreement for their respective groups, and shall take an equal share in all operations, and jointly sign all contracts, except as hereinafter provided, and shall bear in equal shares all charges in connection with any business (except charges of and connected with the realization by each of the lenders in their respective markets of their participation in the operations), and conclude all contracts with equal rights and obligations as between themselves.\n\nProvided always that in cases where the introduction of third parties is calculated to prejudice the success of the negotiations any business falling within the scope of this Agreement may be entertained and negotiations entered upon by either of the lenders alone, with or without notice to the other lenders, and should it appear in the course of such negotiations that the conditions imposed upon the business preclude joint negotiations and (or) joint signatures by the lenders in terms of this Agreement, the negotiating party may conclude and sign the Agreement and negotiations alone, but upon the terms of the other lenders being entitled to all rights or participation under this Agreement other than those involving or arising from joint negotiation and joint signature, but it is understood that all the lenders will use their best endeavours to obtain the joint signatures to any contract wherever possible, except where for any reasons this is found to be impracticable, when the party signing the contract shall by the insertion of a special clause or execution of a separate declaration of trust, or otherwise insure to the other lenders the same rights as regards the taking over the issue and service of the loan which it has obtained under the contract for itself, and also the authority required for obtaining official quotations in the respective markets of the said other parties.\n\n6. All contracts shall, so far as possible, be made so as not to impose joint liability on the lenders, but each of the parties to the said contracts shall severally liquidate its own engagements and liabilities towards the party of the other side in China. The parties to the said contracts will, so far as possible, come to an understanding with regard to the realization of the operations, but so that such realization...", "txt_file_path": "txt/2diw2n4r2/CO129-361 - Public Offices - 1909.txt", "external_url": "", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 434366, "series_id": 27, "series_slug": "histsyn-co129-engine", "series_title": "CO129 Colonial Office Hong Kong Records 理藩院香港檔案", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "CO129-382 - Public Offices - 1911", "page_number": 367, "title": "CO129-382 - Public Offices - 1911", "content_text": "## Enclosure 2 in No. 1\n\nno doubt deemed prudent to tone the proposals down. The fact was that the meeting was got up in a hurry, simply as a sop to the Ministers, and the president was utterly unprepared with any proposals. It has, however, brought us a substantial step in advance; we have the president's repeated assurance, confirming that given by the Wai-wu Pu, that the principle of the initialled agreement shall not be touched, and that only verbal alterations will be asked for, a memorandum of which will be submitted to us at our next meeting on the 3rd January. That assurance must be our sheet anchor, and, although I feel sure that we still have much weary negotiation before us, I am hopeful that if we all stick together we may pull the business through. After our next meeting with the Board I may have something to wire to you; at present there is really nothing to justify the cost of a wire.\n\nReported Anglo-Belgian Syndicate.--I am informed by Casenave that there are in Peking at the present moment two gentlemen, one a M. Libert Oury, Belgian by birth and British by nationality, and the other, M. de Séguier, a Frenchman, in the interests of the Peking syndicate. At the same time, so they inform the French Minister, they represent a new Anglo-Belgian syndicate, in which the Russian Bank is interested, which contemplates competing with us for Chinese Government loan business. Casenave is writing to Paris on the subject, and I shall be glad if you will give me any information you can about the concern, and especially how it is that the Peking syndicate, who are interested in our inter-group combination through the Chinese Government railways, should, as it appears, be connected with it. I hear that it was recently decided by our groups to offer the Russians a small participation in the Hukuang loan, should it come off, and that the offer was refused by them on the ground of their connection with the above syndicate. It is important to have all the information we can about any such attempts to create outside competition.\n\nYours very truly,\n\n**E. G. HILLIER**\n\n### Liang Shih-yi's Proposed Alterations in the Hukuang Loan Agreement\n\n(Translation)\n\n| Clause/Article | Proposed Alteration |\n| --- | --- |\n| Heading | Change to \"The Company-General of the Hunan-Hupei Section of the Canton-Hankow Railway, and the Hupei Section of the Szechuan-Hankow Railway\" instead of his Excellency Chang Chih Tung, &c. |\n| Article 2 | Delete reference to branch lines of the Szechuan-Hankow Railway. |\n| | Delete names of places through which the line is to pass. |\n| | The director-general shall decide the point where the work shall commence. |\n| Article 3 | Clearly state that funds formerly provided by the Chinese Government and funds contributed for shares by merchants shall be reckoned as part of the capital of the railway. |\n| | Delete reference to date of commencement and completion of the work. |\n| Article 4 | Add \"reckoned from the date of receipt of the funds by China\" after \"5 per cent. per annum\". |\n| Article 7 | Add \"or payments may be made in national currency\". |\n| Article 9 | Alter to \"The Imperial Chinese Government shall give instructions to the provinces concerned that out of the li-kin and other revenue stated sufficient funds to meet the amount of principal or interest in arrears shall be paid over to the banks.\" |\n| Article 17 | Delete \"in accordance with the methods now in operation on the northern section of the Chin-Pu Railway.\" |\n| Article (Engineer-in-Chief) | Alter to \"A Chinese engineer-in-chief shall be employed. Divisional engineers for each line shall be one British, one French, one German, and one American.\" |\n| Article 18 | Add \"Before purchase of materials is made, the price and quality must be submitted to the director-general for his approval.\" |\n| Article 19 | Entirely delete. |\n| | Delete clause \"The Chinese officials acting in the matter of this loan do not receive any commission whatsoever.\" |\n| | Cancel all supplementary letters. |\n| | Insert the question of purchase of materials and auditing the accounts in the preliminary agreement. |\n| | Insert \"Board of Posts and Communications\" and \"the Board of Finance\" wherever required. |\n| | Insert \"France\" and \"America\" wherever required. |\n\n### Enclosure 3 in No. 1\n\n**Notes of Interview at Yu-chuan Pu, December 29, 1910**\n\nPresent:\n- Shen Yun Pei, Acting President\n- Messrs. Hillier, Cordes, Straight, and Casenave\n\nThe president recapitulated the difficulties they experienced in dealing with the provincial gentry. He referred to the recent interview of the four Ministers with the Wai-wu Pu, and said that the statements he had made to us at our last meeting of the 3rd October appeared to have been misunderstood. There was no intention to change the \"sung chih,\" or general basis of the agreement; what was proposed was merely to make a few changes in the \"tzu chu,\" or wording.\n\nThe objections of the gentry were particularly directed against the Tien-tsin-Pukow terms which had been incorporated in the present agreement.\n\nWe again explained that the whole of the present agreement was based upon the Tien-tsin-Pukow agreement by the special request of the late Grand Secretary Chang Chih Tung.\n\nThe president said that in this respect his Excellency Chang had made a mistake; the two railways were separate, and the basis of negotiations should have been kept quite distinct.\n\nThen followed a repetition of the discussion which took place at the last interview with regard to the validity of the present agreement and the powers of his Excellency Chang to bind the Imperial Government.\n\nThe president was verbose and inconclusive, and, as it was impossible to keep him to the point, it was suggested that he should state, for the information of the representatives, what were the verbal alterations to which he had referred. He said that he would furnish us with a memorandum of them in the course of a day or two. It was suggested that, since we were all present, it was a good opportunity to discuss the more important of them at once. The president repeated that the proposed alterations were unimportant and he was obviously anxious to postpone the discussion. He was pressed to send for the Chinese text of the agreement in order that he might go through it, clause by clause, and inform us of the nature of the alterations proposed, but this he persistently declined to do, pleading as an excuse the absence of his Excellency Liang Shih Yi, on whom he evidently depended for assistance.\n\nFinally, the president proposed another meeting on the 3rd January, at 3 p.m., for the discussion of the promised memorandum.\n\nA copy of the English text of the supplemental agreement, dealing with American participation in the loan, was handed to the president for translation in the Board, and the meeting terminated.\n\nPeking, December 30, 1910.\n\nPage 365", "txt_file_path": "txt/2diw2n4r2/CO129-382 - Public Offices - 1911.txt", "external_url": "", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 434705, "series_id": 27, "series_slug": "histsyn-co129-engine", "series_title": "CO129 Colonial Office Hong Kong Records 理藩院香港檔案", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "CO129-383 - Public Offices - 1911", "page_number": 119, "title": "CO129-383 - Public Offices - 1911", "content_text": "# CHINA RAILWAYS\n## CONFIDENTIAL\n\n[9386]\n\nNo. 1.\n\n117 C 13346\n\n[March 14.]\n\n### SECTION 1\n\nDear Sir Francis,\n\nMr. Addis to Sir F. Campbell.-(Received March 14.)\n\nHong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation,\n31, Lombard Street, London, March 10, 1911.\n\nI ENCLOSE Hillier's telegram of to-day. There are three mutilated cyphers which are now being repeated, and I hope to be in a position to send you a corrected copy to-morrow.\n\nThe proposal is to exclude the Chingmen-Hanyang section from the scope of the Hukuang agreement. The approximate length of the section is 325 kilom., and if the Germans and Americans are prepared to make the required sacrifice it is not for us to object. I enclose a sketch map of the railway showing the section in dispute.\n\nIn a subsequent telegram just received, Hillier wires that I am to receive particulars of the American currency loan agreement to-morrow.\n\nA copy shall be sent you as soon as received.\n\nYours truly,\n**C. S. ADDIS**\n\n### Enclosure in No. 1\n\nCopy of Telegram received from Peking Office, March 10, 1911.\n\nHUKUANG railway communicate the following to respective groups from E. G. Hillier, H. Cordes, M. Casenave, W. D. Straight:-\n\nAt the meeting 7th March, Board of Communications, Peking, refused to reopen negotiations unless groups consent to omission from agreement of branch line Chingmen to Hanyang, on the grounds that construction right for all branch lines had been granted to Hupeh (Yang-tsze Provinces) Provincial Company. Considering long delay and Provincial agitation, Chinese demand regarding branch line seems not unreasonable, but they have also proposed change affecting other terms of agreement which cannot be accepted. We are now confronted by deadlock, which can only be removed either by further diplomatic pressure or by compromise in view of Provincial opposition. We doubt if diplomatic pressure would succeed in forcing Chinese to include branch line in final contract, and believe that it may have to be invoked in any case to oblige them to adhere to other terms of original agreement. We fear that if legation now press for including of branch line, resulting delay will afford opportunity to new competing Anglo-Belgian Russian groups, with whom we suspect Li Ching Fong to be in communication. We are, therefore, strongly of opinion situation calls for compromise, and we recommend that Ministers should be requested to lay following terms before Chinese Imperial Government, on behalf of groups, for immediate acceptance: Amount and other terms of original and supplementary agreement to remain unaltered; Hanyang branch line to be constructed with native funds by Provincial Company within three years, at the expiration of which, if it is not yet completed, same will be completed under German chief engineer with supplementary loan borrowed from group.\n\nProposed arrangement will necessitate American group temporarily waiving sub-section in consideration of corresponding sacrifice German group, German and American rights will revive in the event of Hanyang branch constructed with foreign capital, or, if not, sacrifice to be compensated by corresponding preference in subsequent business.\n\n\"We believe foregoing, without sacrificing principle of original agreement or causing loss to groups, will enable Chinese to meet difficulty which we cannot reasonably ignore.” \n\n[1920-1]", "txt_file_path": "txt/2diw2n4r2/CO129-383 - Public Offices - 1911.txt", "external_url": "", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 452639, "series_id": 27, "series_slug": "histsyn-co129-engine", "series_title": "CO129 Colonial Office Hong Kong Records 理藩院香港檔案", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "CO129-419 - Individuals - 1914", "page_number": 485, "title": "CO129-419 - Individuals - 1914", "content_text": "# HONGKONG TELEGRAPH SUPPLEMENT\n\nIt would appear from the story of the Chief Engineer that the pirates were armed with Mauser pistols, and that whilst they were employed in trying to break down the grille, the Europeans and the guard fired deadly shots into them. It is conjectured that the firing of the ship was not so much to take life as it was to give the pirates an opportunity of being covered from the marksmanship of those on the bridge as they tried to escape, the smoke from the burning vessel obscuring all that took place at the stern until the vessel was turned round. At the time, all was darkness, the pirates' first move being to destroy to a disastrous extent the electric installation.\n\nAbout mid-day, those on board the Shui On and the Shun Lee, after being kept out in the Harbour under armed guard all the morning, were allowed to land. They seemed quite relieved to find themselves on shore again. Hundreds of Chinese flocked round the landing passengers, and each and every one was subjected to a running fire of questions. Others, who had relatives and friends on the Tai On, were making anxious inquiries all the morning, and the scene round the Harbour Office and the wharves was an animated one.\n\nThe facts of the affair as ascertained by the police were communicated to the Press by Mr. T. H. King, Deputy Superintendent of Police. He stated that the Tai On left Hongkong at 7 o'clock at night with 300 or 400 Chinese on board. At about 10 o'clock, when off Ki O Island, near where the S.S. Shing Tai was recently pirated, the captain heard noises on board and firing of revolver shots. He jumped up and found that a gang of pirates was attempting to rush the ship. On account of the guard, consisting of Portuguese and Indians, the pirates could not get possession of the bridge. The officers put up a fight, and a regular melee ensued on the ship for the space of about half an hour.\n\nIn the struggle, and as far as the police know, the Chief Engineer was wounded, and the mate is still missing. The pirates took possession of the whole of the lower part of the steamer and they put out the lights and damaged the steering gear. Seeing that they were failing in their endeavours to get possession of the bridge, the gang set fire to the ship, whereupon the captain let off rockets and burnt blue lights. By this means, he attracted the attention of passing ships, and apparently, the first boat to come along was the S.S. Hoisang. When it was realised that the vessel was on fire, everybody jumped overboard, officers, passengers, and pirates, and the captain was in the water for at least half an hour. Eventually, the ship was burnt down to the very water's edge, and she drifted aground on the shore at Ki O, where she still remains.\n\nLater, the S.S. Kwong Wai, a Wuchow boat, came along and picked up the captain and three others from the water, and put them on board the Hoisang, which vessel brought them to Hongkong. The steamers Shun Lee and Shiu On also came along and stood by from midnight until about 4:30 in the morning. These boats participated in the rescue work, and between them, they managed to pick up some 168 persons, whom they brought to Hongkong. As these two boats came into harbour, they flew signals, and the police boarded the boats, and took the rescued people off. These were composed of passengers and possibly some pirates; seven or eight of them were wounded. Several pirates were also shot by the officers on board the Tai On. The whole of the rescued people are being detained by the police for further investigations.\n\nThe Tai On is a steel screw steamer of 706 tons gross displacement. She was sent out to Hongkong in pieces from Home and put together by a local firm in 1891 to the order of the Yik On S.S. Company, Ltd. Her length is 172 feet 3 inches, breadth 35 feet 1 inch, and depth 10 feet 1 inch. She flew the British flag.\n\nThe vessel was built for the express purpose of competing on the Hongkong-Canton service line until some three years ago; she continued her run on that line when she changed ownership and was put on the Hongkong-Kongmoon run, on which she has ever since been employed.\n\nA praiseworthy, if unsuccessful, effort was made on Tuesday to fetch the wreck of the Tai On to Hongkong. Torpedo boats 035 and 037 left for Ki O with armed guards. Commander Basil Taylor also left in the Stanley. The Hon. Mr. U. McI. Messer was in one of the torpedo boats, and with him were Inspector Terret and Sergeants Ingham and Appleton, together with European and Indian constables. On the Stanley, as guard, were Lance-Sergeant Grimmitt and two Indian policemen. The torpedo boats were unable to find any traces of pirates. Some junks, which were near the wreck, cleared off promptly on the approach of the torpedo boats. The Stanley made a fine effort to fetch the burning wreck to Hongkong, but was forced to abandon the attempt.\n\nA Telegraph representative who was aboard the Stanley writes:-\n\nThere was nothing exciting in the trip up until we had passed Castle Peak and were nearing Ki O. Then the question was, where exactly was the Tai On lying? It was necessary to find out more particularly, so enquiry was made at first one and then another fishing boat. They did not savvy any grey smoke in the distance caught the eye; and almost immediately after came something else to indicate nearness to the disaster. This was the body of a woman, face downward, which floated past. Of course, a body drowned twelve hours before should not have been floating; but when this one was picked up by the boat, a possible explanation came from the fact that she had been hit with much force over the head before she entered the water. Later in the day, the bruises showed up terribly. If she was from the Tai On, she must have got in the way of some desperate pirate.\n\nThe smoke ahead was from the Tai On, as we discovered just after two, when the Stanley was bearing her. Anything more pitiable could not well be imagined. She was the merest framework of a vessel, the steel of the upper portions of her hideously crumpled and twisted and fallen. The shell of the vessel was there - rather, the caricature of the shell - and from this skeleton of a steamer, smoke and flames still arose. Forward, she seemed nearly to have burnt herself out; aft, she was blazing fiercely. A little way off lay torpedo boats 035 and 037, and near the vessel was the steam launch Lee Fat of Hongkong, which had a rope attached to the Tai On.\n\nOn the burning vessel, water was played on a bollard aft, and a wire rope fastened round it; the bollard forward was cleared of smoking rubbish, and another rope attached. The torpedo boats came up and watched intently, as it seemed. Came a shouted enquiry as to how we stood; thanks, we would be all right now. We were moving; three to four knots an hour. For a little, the torpedo boats hung around, watching the Stanley chug-chugging towards British waters. Then, a wave of the hand, and they bounded forward. Sixteen knots - and the Stanley four at most!\n\nCommander Taylor left for torpedo boat 037, on which was Mr. Messer, and a few minutes later, he was aboard the Lee Fat. There was no hesitation shown. Almost immediately, the Stanley was crawling astern first towards the burning vessel. We were to tow her! The approach was delicate work, for the propeller was churning up as much mud as water, and the lead was always going. There was just water enough, and presently the Stanley had the Tai On in tow. She crept out into deeper water, the burning vessel, her rudder jammed and useless, forcing her always to port, and then Commander Taylor changed his plan. The Stanley must get alongside and be made fast to her there. Towing would then be easier.\n\nEvery man aboard lent a hand in this work; a hose was turned on the burning vessel. Now the wreck was seen close at hand. Indescribable smells rose from it, but chiefest of all was the smell of burning bones, which cannot be mistaken if one has once known it. Chiefly, it came from forward. Presently, Lance-Sergeant Grimmitt, greatly daring, ventured along the wrecked steelwork. It trembled and shook in places, but it held. It was possible to explore forward, and the hose was kept going steadily there in order that danger should be reduced. A Sikh policeman also lent a hand, and relics began to be found. A Mauser pistol first, then a couple of Winchesters, and two Colt revolvers, another Winchester, two Browning pistols, two Savage revolvers, and a shot gun, which was probably that of Captain Weatherall. Remember that these arms, all up-to-date, resulted from a search which was not, and could not be, thorough, and it will be seen that the pirates must have been well armed.\n\nBones were seen - bones that fell into powder at a touch. There were the bones of perhaps eight or ten or a dozen people forward, so far as could be seen. But there were almost certainly others, and in one spot was the smell of burning flesh - the most terrible of all smells when one knows that the flesh is that of human beings. These poor creatures had been caught like rats in a trap. The mind reeled from the thought of what they had suffered before death mercifully came to them.\n\nAmongst other things found were twenty-cent, ten-cent, and dollar coins melted and assuming the most fantastic shapes. Two watches were picked up forward; one had stopped at 12:55, and the other at 12:25. There were some Philippine coins too, so that there were probably a Filipino or two on board.\n\nIt was 4:20 when the Stanley finally set off with the Tai On, and about five o'clock, the Kwong Lee came alongside. She had been sent by the owners from Hongkong to assist. Her skipper wanted to go ahead and help, but, as the Tai On's rudder was jammed, towing ahead was not satisfactory, as had been proved already. He was asked to go alongside the Tai On, and, with a launch on each side, Hongkong would have been reached last night; but the skipper did not appear to relish the job. Anyhow, after hovering around for a time, the Kwong Lee cleared off, and the Stanley was left to battle alone with its burden. Now the Stanley was not built for this kind of work, yet it did its part for a long time as though it had been a tug built for the purpose. By 6:30, Castle Peak was looming up in the distance, and ten minutes later, fire broke out in the after hold. Water was poured into it, but it was clear that the fire was a long way from being subdued. There was kerosene oil forward in the hold, and altogether, the Stanley was facing an unpleasant task.\n\nBy seven o'clock, Castle Peak was still in sight, but evidently no nearer. The tide was running strongly against us, and in half an hour, the Stanley had made hardly an inch. Ten minutes later, it was decided to abandon the Tai On. A brave effort had been made to fetch the burning hulk to Hongkong, and if it had failed, that was not from want of resolution or foresight. Happily, her port anchor could be dropped; this was done, and the windlass worked after a fashion.\n\n## Page 473", "txt_file_path": "txt/2diw2n4r2/CO129-419 - Individuals - 1914.txt", "external_url": "", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 464359, "series_id": 27, "series_slug": "histsyn-co129-engine", "series_title": "CO129 Colonial Office Hong Kong Records 理藩院香港檔案", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "CO129-436 - Acting Governor Claud Sever & Governor Sir May & Public Offices - 1916 [11-12]", "page_number": 623, "title": "CO129-436 - Acting Governor Claud Sever & Governor Sir May & Public Offices - 1916 [11-12]", "content_text": "Therefore, when Mr. Robinson says that on this matter the decision rests with the Secretary of State and not with the Lords Commissioners of the Treasury or Admiralty, the answer is that of course it does, but that this Office has adopted the Treasury rule because it was the Treasury rule and that as we have adopted the Treasury rule, we naturally follow the Treasury interpretation of the rule. Any other course, moreover, would lead to a hopeless muddle. The Treasury interpretation of what was meant by \"allowances\" is the reasonable one, and so far as I am aware, it is what was intended. It is not a very easy thing to put into words, but \"compensatory payments\" is as good as any. In other words, by \"pay\" or \"salary\", the cash remuneration for the service of an officer of his rank or grade in a given post or capacity is meant - by whatever names the payments are called by the Admiralty (whose nomenclature, like that of many of the Colonies, is quite chaotic on this point), while \"allowances\" means something additional in cash or in kind to cover specific expenditure or special discomfort, not to remunerate the officer for special responsibility or work.\n\nAs Commander Taylour's case has shown the danger of one member of the Office going off in a directly contrary direction to the uniform policy hitherto pursued by the rest of the Office, it may be useful if I set down a precis of the existing decisions of which I have cognisance. There may, of course, be others.\n\nThe strongest case in favour of our adhering fixedly to Treasury practice is that of Army or Navy Officers who draw \"Consolidated pay\" as Army Officers.\n\n| Case | Decision By | File Reference |\n| --- | --- | --- |\n| Consolidated Pay | Sir G. Fiddes | Crow Agents/51317/15 |\n| Engineer Pay | Fr. Collins | S/33076/15 M.S. |\n| Armament Pay | Sir G. Fiddes | - |\n| Coros Pay | - | - |\n| Extra Pay | - | - |\n| Command Money | Pr. Strachey | File/4361(34) West Africa |\n\nThis was raised on Crow Agents/51317/15 - we went to the Treasury and they replied `57150/15 General` that after very full consideration, they had decided that the whole of such consolidated pay must be regarded as pay within the meaning of their Circular of 20th August 1914. We accepted and applied this decision, though it seems clear that consolidated pay covered certain undoubted \"allowances\" which the officer would have drawn if he had not been put on \"consolidated pay\".\n\nThese are specifically classed as \"pay\" for this purpose by Treasury circular of 20th August, 1914. The classification of Engineer pay as pay was discussed and decided upon on `S/33076/15 M.S.`. It was again raised by Captain Gwyther, Public Works Department, Gold Coast, `File5988(10) West Africa`, and the decision was re-affirmed.\n\nLieutenant Commander Greig, R. N. Nigerian Marine Department raised this `File/4361(34) West Africa`. We replied (29th October 1915) that \"as the Admiralty have informed the Crown Agents that Command money is for this purpose regarded as pay and not as an allowance, the Secretary of State was unable to authorize the Crown Agents to disregard the amount of his command money in computing the amount of his Colonial Allowance.\n\nA similar representation was received in August 1916 from Lieutenant C. J. Burn, Royal Naval Reserve, Marine Officer, Nigeria (`File/1803(56) West Africa`).", "txt_file_path": "txt/2diw2n4r2/CO129-436 - Acting Governor Claud Sever & Governor Sir May & Public Offices - 1916 [11-12].txt", "external_url": "", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 474967, "series_id": 27, "series_slug": "histsyn-co129-engine", "series_title": "CO129 Colonial Office Hong Kong Records 理藩院香港檔案", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "CO129-445 - Public Offices - 1917", "page_number": 661, "title": "CO129-445 - Public Offices - 1917", "content_text": "The Philippine Islands. While the trade between the United States and the Philippine Islands is open to the ships of all nations, the coasting trade among the islands is generally reserved for American ships. I am informed, however, that regular Hong Kong steamers sometimes secure licences to trade between island ports.\n\nChina. The coasting trade of China is largely in the hands of two strong British companies, the China Navigation Co. (Managers, Messrs. Butterfield and Swire) and the Indo-China Steam Navigation Co., Ltd. (Managers, Messrs. Jardine, Matheson & Co., Ltd.). The principal competition experienced before the war was from Japanese companies. In 1910 the proportion of the share of the Chinese coasting trade taken by British and Japanese companies was 39 per cent. and 14 per cent, respectively. In 1911 the British share was 40 per cent. and the Japanese had risen to 20.4 per cent. Chinese competition was strong but tended to remain constant, while the German steamers on the Yangtse and Tsingtao runs were not remunerative, and their competition on the whole was not serious.\n\nAs an indication of the phenomenal increase in Japan's share of the shipping trade of the Far East, the amount of Japanese tonnage entered at Hong Kong may be taken as an index. In 1889 the amount was 95,000 tons. In 1915 the high-water mark was reached with 2,275,000 tons. In 1913 the British tonnage entered at the port was 6,200,000 tons, and in 1915, owing to the war, the figures declined to 5,700,000 tons.\n\nThe Japanese shipping companies operating on the China coast and the Yangtse river are almost all subsidised. The Nisshin Kisen Kaisha, which is the principal competitor on the Yangtse, received a subsidy of £53,775 in 1915, and although in that year a dividend of 9 per cent. was paid, and a large sum placed to reserve, the record during the past years proves that without the subsidy the company could not have paid its way. The Japanese enjoy other advantages. With a much lower scale of salaries for their deck and engineer officers, they can run their ships at a lower cost than is possible for British shipowners. My attention has been called to the desirability that Board of Trade regulations affecting British steamers employed in the Far East should not be imposed without due regard being given to the special conditions and requirements of the trade. In this connection, special attention may be drawn to the regulations in respect of the Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea, signed in London on January 20th, 1914. These regulations were made primarily relating to the Atlantic passenger trade. The conditions of the passenger trade on the China coast are so different that the application of the proposed rules without modification would be a burden upon British shipping in the Far East. It is held that the experience of many years' trading on the China coast has not shown the need for further and more stringent regulations, and that any addition or alteration of existing regulations should not be made until after careful consideration of local conditions. The shipping companies in the Far East, broadly speaking, deprecate Government interference with their activities and are quite prepared to face the competition of the future relying upon their own experience and knowledge of the trade.\n\nJapan. The coasting trade of Japan is closed to all foreign ships. British steamers calling at Japanese ports may load and discharge cargo consigned to or from foreign ports, but may not carry either passengers or cargo between Japanese ports.\n\nAlthough, strictly speaking, the subject does not lie within the purview of this report, it appears desirable to raise the question of the very serious competition which is being experienced in the coasting trade between India, Burma and the Straits Settlements. This competition became serious a year or two before the outbreak of war, a rate war ensued between the British India Steam Navigation Company and the Nippon Yusen Kaisha, and the former company retaliated for the entry of the Japanese into the coasting trade of India by placing its steamers on the China and Japan run. The great strength of the Japanese in the trade is derived from their heavy purchases of cotton in India, which provide the ships with a sure and certain freight, and enable them to maintain a regular service. The Japanese mill-owners collectively arrange the rates of freight with the Japanese shipping company before each shipping season, and specially low rates are secured in return for a pledge to confine shipments to Japanese steamers. The British company complain that while they are excluded from the coasting trade of Japan, the latter country is seriously competing with them in the large and valuable interport trade in India.\n\nPage 119\n\nDuring the war, owing to the shortage of tonnage and the higher rates of freights, competition has increased to a serious extent. The British company has been unable to meet this competition, owing to the fact that fully half its fleet has been requisitioned by the Government, and the company realises that while it is supporting the Government in every possible way in order to win the war, advantage is being taken of its disabilities by an Allied Power in order to secure a strong hold of its normal trade. The company states:-\n\n\"Unless Government assistance is given to win back what we have lost, the Japanese may be permanently established in the coasting trade to the detriment of the interests of India. There is no doubt that the Japanese object in getting a foothold in the trade on the coast of India has a political end more than a commercial end in view, and the Directors would advocate such measures being taken as would altogether exclude them, after the war, from the trade between British Indian ports and generally between ports in the British Possessions in the East.\n\n\"The Japanese do not allow foreign tonnage to trade between ports in Japan, and they should not be allowed to trade between British ports. At the same time, it should be mentioned that the privilege to trade between Japanese ports would not be a quid pro quo for the privilege to trade between British India ports, as the trade between the former is negligible, whereas the trade between the British India ports is important.\"\n\nThis is obviously a question which should be referred to the Shipping Committee. From the point of view of British political interests and prestige in India, I am inclined to agree that the coasting trade between British India ports should be confined to British ships after the war. I would strongly commend this question to H.M. Government as being one which calls for early investigation and decision.\n\nSECTION 10.- Review of the British Insurance Position in the Far East.\n\n(a) FIRE INSURANCE. The whole future of fire insurance business in the Far East turns upon the agency question, and the desirability of British fire offices being free to accept any legitimate risks which they may care to take, and to appoint the most suitable agents in the countries served, irrespective of nationality.\n\nThe local agents in the Far East are usually merchant firms who carry on insurance business as an adjunct to their ordinary commercial transactions. The fire business influenced by these agents is largely connected with their own property and that of the traders with whom they have dealings, and, in places where German commercial interests have acquired considerable influence, British companies have frequently appointed German firms as agents, thus securing a business which they would otherwise not have obtained. This system of absolutely free intercourse with all nationalities, together with an active forward policy on the part of the companies themselves—who usually maintained managers and staffs in the Far East to supervise the work of the agents—has resulted in the British insurance offices holding a predominant position in the field.\n\nWhile I am of opinion that agencies for British manufacturers should be held so far as possible by British merchants in the countries under review, I contend that insurance agencies should not be subject to any restrictions. The appointment of a leading German merchant as agent for a British company in an Eastern port does not, as a rule, affect the position or trade of the British merchants in that port, and results in that British company securing the premia on the German shipments which they would otherwise not have obtained. In most Eastern ports it is the custom for a large fire office to have two agents, and very often one of these is British and the other German or French as the case may be. In this way the trade of the port, whether in British or in foreign hands, is secured. This result could usually not have been obtained if the company had been restricted to the British house.\n\nI therefore entirely endorse the following statements of the Fire Offices Committee, and commend them to the attention of H.M. Government:\n\n\"The number of German companies and their strength will naturally increase if the British companies refuse German business, and the refusal to appoint German agents will, under certain circumstances, be tantamount to refusing German business. The release of any mass of insurance business will, without doubt, result in the opening of agencies for German, Dutch, American,...\n\nPage 656", "txt_file_path": "txt/2diw2n4r2/CO129-445 - Public Offices - 1917.txt", "external_url": "", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 476077, "series_id": 27, "series_slug": "histsyn-co129-engine", "series_title": "CO129 Colonial Office Hong Kong Records 理藩院香港檔案", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "CO129-447 - Governor Sir May - 1918 [1-3]", "page_number": 441, "title": "CO129-447 - Governor Sir May - 1918 [1-3]", "content_text": "## HONG KONG\n**REC** 434\n**C.O.** 21248\n**REG 1 MAY 18**\n21248\n1918\n11 Mch\n81\n\nLast previous Paper.\n\nAusd 132\nvcopy\ncames\nCapto 10 June /12 433\n\nReficiency in stamps in custody sends report of Col. Treasurer\n| Description | Details |\n| --- | --- |\n| B: | with reforts & Br of Enquiry |\n| Auditor!: | asho whether Ms Thomson phd be called on to refund $300. |\n\nb Cont\n\n> Just to ca for any\n\n## Correspondence\n\nby the Horsley Company to the Railway Dept., and referring to this letter from the Crown Agents, The Colonial Secretary, Hong Kong, on the 20th of April, stated that 21247/18. This office £60 by the Horsley Company appears to have been accepted by the C.A., on the receipt of ... was adopted. The recommendation of the Computing Engineer was accepted.\n\n3. In these circumstances, I do not consider that any further action can usefully be taken.\n\nHONG KONG\n| Reference | Details |\n| --- | --- |\n| C.O. | 21248 |\n| REG | 1 MAY 18 |\n\nI attach report by the printers, Messrs. For La Rue, and our inspection. There are three reports, taking them in order of date.\n\n(1) In 1904, it was found that 50 Sheds of 4 canti postage stamps were ... D & S. G 122: 41.\n\nNext subsequent Paper.\nSa 184005.\nCrown Agents\nMr Collinis\n(14174—1) Wt, 6426-18. 60m), 11/27\nFor: Cowell.\n\n3.5-gatonce", "txt_file_path": "txt/2diw2n4r2/CO129-447 - Governor Sir May - 1918 [1-3].txt", "external_url": "", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 492532, "series_id": 27, "series_slug": "histsyn-co129-engine", "series_title": "CO129 Colonial Office Hong Kong Records 理藩院香港檔案", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "CO129-475 - Governor Sir Stubbs & Acting Governor Claud Severn - 1922 [5-7]", "page_number": 462, "title": "CO129-475 - Governor Sir Stubbs & Acting Governor Claud Severn - 1922 [5-7]", "content_text": "Enclosure 3.\n\nSir,\n\nThe Hongkong General Chamber of Commerce,\n\nHongkong, 9th June, 1922;\n\nI have the honour to acknowledge receipt of your letter No.3310/1916 of 12th ult., covering copy of a circular despatch from the Secretary of State for the Colonies on the question of \"the possibility of substituting British for American motor vehicles in the Colonial markets\":\n\nWith reference to paragraph 2 of your letter, the Chamber has followed your suggestion and has obtained a report from Messrs. Alex. Ross & Co. (through Mr. A. S. D. Cousland). The view therein expressed that the chief factor against the use of English cars in the East generally is the question of price is endorsed by Members of the Committee of this Chamber who have knowledge of the subject:\n\nI beg to enclose for your information three copies of Mr. Cousland's report together with three copies of the enclosure mentioned therein, which letter offers criticisms of British cars from a motor engineer's point of view. It is hoped that these may be of value if conveyed, through the medium of the Colonial and Home Governments, to British motor car manufacturers.\n\nWith regard to paragraph 3 of your letter, as to British heavy lorries and motor cycles successfully competing with American products, the Chamber desires to submit the following observations;\n\nHEAVY MOTOR VEHICLES: These have been in use in the United Kingdom for many years now, on motor bus services and for road haulage, and the best type of vehicle has been gradually evolved.", "txt_file_path": "txt/2diw2n4r2/CO129-475 - Governor Sir Stubbs & Acting Governor Claud Severn - 1922 [5-7].txt", "external_url": "", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 520432, "series_id": 27, "series_slug": "histsyn-co129-engine", "series_title": "CO129 Colonial Office Hong Kong Records 理藩院香港檔案", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "CO129-519-1 Estimates for 1930 5-9-1929 - 14-11-1929", "page_number": 276, "title": "CO129-519-1 Estimates for 1930 5-9-1929 - 14-11-1929", "content_text": "## 325\n\n30 \n\nby £30 annually to £880 per annum; and for the Traffic Assistant £480 to £700 by 5 annual increments of £20, 2 of £40 and 2 of £20. For the Traffic Inspectors we recommend £300, rising to £430 by 8 annual increments of £15 and 1 of £10; and for the Sub-Inspector $1,350 to $1,800 by $75 annually.\n\nWe consider the pay of the Head Watchman to be adequate, namely $300 to $372 by $12 annually; for Watchmen we recommend $192, rising to $240 by $12 after 3, 6, 9, and 12 years. For Office Attendants we recommend one post on $252 to $300 and the remainder on $192 to $240, by $12 after 3, 6, 9, and 12 years. Messengers, Store Coolies, and Sanitary Coolies should receive the usual scale of $156 to $204 by $12 after 3, 6, 9, and 12 years.\n\n31 \n\nFor Watchmen at the Central Mechanical Works we recommend $192 to $240 by $12 after 3, 6, 9, and 12 years, and for Artizans the following scales:\n\n| Position | Salary Scale |\n| --- | --- |\n| 1st Class Foreman | $1,000 to $1,700 by $100 annually |\n| Building Foreman | $600 to $950 by $50 |\n| 1st Class Fitters | $1,000 to $1,300 by $75 |\n| 2nd Class Fitters | $600 to $950 by $50 |\n| 1st Class Carpenter | $1,000 to $1,300 by $75 |\n| 2nd Class Carpenter | $600 to $950 by $50 |\n| 3rd Class Carpenter | $360 to $570 by $30 |\n| 1st Class Electrician | $600 to $950 by $50 |\n| 2nd Class Electrician | $360 to $570 by $30 |\n| Electric Welder | $600 to $950 by $50 |\n| 1st Class Painter | $600 to $950 by $50 |\n\n## 156. \nFor the Station Masters and Clerks we recommend scales as follows:\n\n| Position | Salary Scale |\n| --- | --- |\n| Telephone Operators | $480 to $1,000 by annual increments, 1 of $60, 1 of $110, 3 of $50, and 2 of $100 |\n| Station Masters (5) | $1,500 to $1,800 by $100 annually |\n| Station Masters (4) | $1,100 to $1,400 by $100 |\n| Booking Clerks | $600 to $1,000 by $50 |\n| Senior Goods Clerk | $1,500 to $1,800 by $100 |\n| Relief Goods Clerk | $600 to $1,000 by $50 |\n| Signalmen | $480 to $600 by $30 |\n| Block Operators | $300... |\n| Probationers | $300... |\n\nThe Shunters should receive $360 rising to $600 by $30 annually, the Ticket Printer $840 to $1,080 by $60 annually, and Assistant Ticket Printer $360 to $780 by $30 annually.\n\nFor Pointsmen and Watchmen we suggest the scale $192 to $240, and for Porters, Gatemen, Latrine Coolies, and Female Latrine Attendant the scale $156 to $204 by $12 in each case after 3, 6, 9, and 12 years.\n\n## 157. \nFor Drivers 1st Class we recommend a scale of $700, rising to $1,000 by $50 annually, for 2nd Class $540 to $660 by $30 annually, and for Firemen $330 to $480 by $30 annually.\n\nThe Yard Pointsmen and Locomotive Cleaners on monthly pay should receive $192 to $240 by $12 after 3, 6, 9, and 12 years. For the No. 1 Carriage Cleaner we suggest a scale of $372 rising to $480 by $12 annually and for the No. 2 Carriage Cleaners $300 to $360 by $12 annually. The Wagon Cleaners should be on the scale $156 to $204 by $12 after 3, 6, 9, and 12 years.\n\nFor Guards we suggest the scale of $600, rising to $1,000 by $50 annually, for Ballast Guard $600 to $720 by $30 annually, and for Ticket Collectors $420 to $600 by $30 annually. The Brakesmen should receive $360, rising to $600 by $30 annually, and the Saloon Car Attendant $192 rising to $240 by $12 after 3, 6, 9, and 12 years.\n\n## 158. \nFor the Chief Mechanical Engineer we consider the scale of pay should be £730, rising to £880 by £30 annually, and for the Assistant Mechanical Engineer, £470 rising to £530 by £20 annually. The Engine Examiner should receive $2,200 per annum, rising by $200 annually to $2,800, and the Clerk $550 to $700 by $25 annually.\n\nFor the Office Attendant and Assistant Telephone Clerk we suggest $252 rising to $300; and for the Storemen $192 to $240 by $12 in each case after 3, 6, 9, and 12 years' service.\n\n## 159. \nFor the Assistant Engineer on Maintenance of Way and Structures we recommend a scale of $4,000, rising to $6,000 by $200 annually, for the Inspector of Permanent Way £370, rising to £430 by £15 annually, and for the Sub-Inspector $600, rising to $1,000 by $50 annually. The 3rd Class Draughtsman should receive the same scale as suggested for such employees in the Public Works Department, namely $1,100, rising to $1,800 by $100 annually. For the Tracer we suggest a scale of $300, rising to $450 by $50 annually. The Office Attendant should receive $192, rising to $240 by $12 after 3, 6, 9, and 12 years.\n\nThe No. 1 Headman of the Labour Gangs on maintenance of the Track should receive $600, rising to $950 by $50 annually, and the other Headmen $480, rising to $540 by $20 annually. For Keymen we suggest a scale of $180 to $276 by $12 annually and for Platelayers 12 senior posts on $180 to $276 and the remainder on $168 to $252 by $12 annually in all cases. The No. 1 Trolleyman should receive $192 to $240, the other Trolleymen and the Gatemen $156 to $204 by $12 in all cases after 3, 6, 9, and 12 years. Watchmen should be on the same scale, $192 rising to $240 by $12 after 3, 6, 9, and 12 years.\n\n## 33.-VOLUNTEER DEFENCE CORPS\n\n## 160. \nThe Allowance at present paid to the Commandant is purely nominal and it is therefore impossible for us to comment on its adequacy or otherwise. The pay of the Adjutant is fixed in dollars and is the result of an arrangement made by the Colonial Government with the War Office for the seconding of a Military Officer for duty with the Corps. We imagine that this will be done each time a vacancy occurs and there is therefore no object in our making any recommendation.\n\nFor the Sergeant Major we recommend a scale of £370, rising to £470 by £20 annually. We consider the pay of the Armourer Attendant to be adequate but suggest that he should be granted the usual rent allowance. The Motor Driver should receive the scale suggested throughout this Report for men of his grade, namely $550, rising to $650 by $50 annually.\n\nThe Storeman, we understand, is a British Soldier who receives an allowance of $1 a day for his services; we do not suggest any alteration. The scale of the Range Warden we consider adequate in every way; the Messengers, Coolies, and Watchman should receive $156 rising to $204 by $12 after 3, 6, 9, and 12 years' service.\n\n## II. Currency Basis\n\n## 161. \nWe have already partially dealt with this Head of Enquiry in paragraph 12 of this Report.\n\nWe consider that the salaries of officers, ordinarily recruited in England, should continue to be quoted in Sterling, and paid in Sterling while an officer is on leave in England or other country having a gold standard. It seems to us that this is essential, not only with a view to attracting recruits for the various branches of the Service, but also for the purpose of computing pensions, especially in cases where an officer has served in other Colonies before transfer to Hong Kong. By our suggestion that Sterling Salaries\n\n## 326", "txt_file_path": "txt/2diw2n4r2/CO129-519-1 Estimates for 1930 5-9-1929 - 14-11-1929.txt", "external_url": "", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 521516, "series_id": 27, "series_slug": "histsyn-co129-engine", "series_title": "CO129 Colonial Office Hong Kong Records 理藩院香港檔案", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "CO129-521-1 Triangulation of Hong Kong report and progress 13-1-1930 - 6-11-1930", "page_number": 22, "title": "CO129-521-1 Triangulation of Hong Kong report and progress 13-1-1930 - 6-11-1930", "content_text": "24\n\n6\n\nprocedure and argument are outside the possible scope of this report. I recommend that a member of the staff with mathematical knowledge be sent to Ceylon for three weeks to study the procedure of their excellent new levelling. If this investigation could be combined with the duty of representing Hong Kong at the 1931 Surveyors Meeting it would be advantageous, for at that meeting we shall visit the Liverpool Tidal Institute, and shall discuss other aspects of levelling.\n\n9. Minor Methods of Surveying.—It is of small consequence to provide a reliable framework if the detail surveyor introduces plottable errors in his final offsets. My impression is that the minor surveyors are practical and reliable men, but their methods and their field books show that same untidiness which is elsewhere so apparent in this Department. As before, this fact is due to the lack of clear and practical departmental regulation. For example, each traverse tape is standardized at a particular tension and temperature. I saw a traverse, in the surveying, in which no spring balance was being used. Two values for the same length so measured differed apparently by only one part in thirty thousand, but there is no guarantee that both were not equally affected by systematic errors of the order of one in a thousand. The particular instance was one of no great importance, except in so far as it shows up the lack of clearly laid down routine. In actual offsetting I was told by one surveyor that offsets might be judged at right angles up to 30 feet and up to 15 feet by another, i.e., the length measured but the angle judged. Both are far too long for work at 1/600, but it is not so much the actual field work as the lack of common rule which I desire to emphasize. Field books are incomprehensible to the visitor. It is a matter of practice here that each Surveyor plots from his own measurement. This is dictated by expediency and lack of staff, and is not sound, but it explains the field books. The regulations of the future should lay down the type to be followed, and it should be such as to make plotting by an independent man an easy matter. Regulations should also include instructions for check lines and for inspection of the completed map (with graphic checks) by the European Surveyor-in-Charge.\n\nAs regards area computations, the present practice of mathematical calculation is sound for all Crown leases in urban districts. In the agricultural areas either the planimeter or the computing scale could be used. In either case, however, a final check should be made against the known areas of the full number of squares (of the grid) in which the cadastral plan lies. There is no other check upon paper distortion.\n\n10. Instruments. The Department is moderately well equipped. The bands graduated for final measurement (100 feet to attach to 300 feet 1/16-inch bands) should be smaller in section.\n\nOne good Theodolite (I recommend the new 3¼-inch Cooke Troughton and Simm's Tavistock) should be procured for additions to the control. Wooden legs (and not collapsible) should be specified.\n\nTwo Brunsviga (novo) calculating machines and the appropriate tables of natural trigonometrical functions have already been mentioned, and certain stores for drawing and printing are enumerated in succeeding paragraphs.\n\n11. Drawing The Surveyors draw and letter well, and are superior in standard to the minor draughtsmen employed in the Crown Lands Department. When a printing department has been begun particular care in securing firm, dense, black line will be necessary. I think too much lettering is being done, however. It is the normal practice to stamp names on cadastral maps and tracings, and boys can be employed for the purpose. Three palettes and a small supply of type should be got (through the Geographical Section, General Staff). The choice of type should be discussed with the home authorities. The style adopted for the 25-inch and 6-inch plans of the Ordnance Survey will be satisfactory.\n\nAt the present time much delay and waste of money occurs in the large amount of reducing (and occasional enlarging) by pantograph. Machinery is expensive at the moment, but soon saves itself in labour, and in all well-organized Survey Departments reduction is done by the camera. This point is of particular importance in compiling the 200 feet to the inch (1/2,400) plans from the 50 feet (1/600). An enlarging and reducing camera is, however, of less importance than the printing equipment recommended in the next paragraph, and might wait over for better financial times. Of equal importance is a press in which plans can be hung. Tropical conditions are against storage in drawers. Hung plans keep well, do not crease and break, and escape the cockroach.\n\nGood tracing paper should be used in preference to tracing cloth.\n\n12. Printing. Lithographic map printing is altogether distinct from letterpress printing, and is everywhere carried out by Survey Departments. There are few colonies now in which it has not started, and those (generally speaking) are able to rely upon the help of close neighbours. At the present moment there is no facility for printing official maps or plans in the whole of the Far East. That point should be borne in mind, because it might become important on political or defence grounds. (There is a very small machine, demi-size, in the Observatory, with no means other than litho tracing of getting the work on to stone or zinc). Sun-printing can be regarded as satisfactory or economical only for some half-dozen copies. The cadastral sheets (1/600, 1/2,000, &c.), should all be printed in small editions (say, 30 copies). The value of these expensive surveys is doubled by free circulation among technical departments, and the original, once recorded on zinc, keeps its shape, whereas paper records do not.\n\nThe policy should aim at the printing of maps and plans which affect the Colony. It is not a sound measure to order large stocks of maps to be printed in England. Maps and plans are soon out of date and editions should be just large enough to deal with current needs. The initial expense need not be large, and native staff can be trained to all the proper processes providing one good technical European printer be employed.\n\nI recommend beginning with —\n\n1 power proving press (double demy or larger).\n\n1 Vandyke outfit.\n\nNotes:-\n\n(a) Both might be got in consultation with the War Office and both might be second-hand;\n\n(b) The existing arc lighting system can be used;\n\n(c) Electric drive should be employed;\n\n(d) A whirler is hardly necessary (at first);\n\n(e) Printing frames and all accessories included in the Vandyke outfit.\n\nstaff, one youngish all-round printer should be engaged (at the £400 starting rate), given 6 months' apprenticeship at the War Office or Ordnance Survey, and one month in Ceylon in which to study the effect of a hot and damp climate on the chemistry of zinc printing and vandyking. This European could then start with three native printing apprentices and two native litho, drawing apprentices to build up his department. In a year's time he should be ready to install one litho. flat-bed machine (second-hand electrically driven and the same size as the proving press).\n\n13. Regulations. Preceding paragraphs have emphasized the vital importance of clearing and crystallizing methods and processes, and describing them in printed regulations.\n\nThe departmental regulations of the Federated Malay States and Gold Coast surveys should be used as models. Writing these regulations in the light of local organization and survey characteristic will take time and thought. It may not be necessary to follow every process to its ultimate detail in the general regulations so long as minor separate printed instructions cover the whole ground.\n\n14. Indexing and Filing Air Photographs. There exist already a number of air-photographs covering the area of Hong Kong and the New Territories. In the future any more will be taken. Unless proper indexes and storage boxes are made, it will be difficult to deal with them. Boxes should be made about 2 ft. by 10 in. by 8 in., in which sliding shelves, arranged as for a card index, carry the photographs. Each photograph should be indexed by the co-ordinate of its centre point, and each box should represent an area (say, the area of one of the 1/20,000 sheets).\n\n15. Organization. At the present time the Survey Department is a part of the Public Works Department a body whose duties in Hong Kong are important and wide reaching. The present Director of Public Works has done much for survey, and has been able, to some extent, to give the survey branch its own staff and quarters. Survey is not, however, native to the engineering profession except in so far as every engineer is trained in surveying for his own ends. These ends do not, as a rule, include precise triangulation, traversing or levelling, and never include the revenue, topographical, cartographical and printing aspects of a survey office. I have now inspected 13 Colonial surveys. In one or two a start was made under Public Works; in no case of these thirteen does that still apply.\n\nNo doubt the public purse is the guiding factor, and the survey branch is probably not the only one included solely for the purpose of preventing clerical growth and perhaps checking the natural impulse to develop where development must needs wait upon revenue. I am unable to see at present in what way overhead charges are saved as regards survey. If the staff is to be regarded as interchangeable then efficiency\n\n25", "txt_file_path": "txt/2diw2n4r2/CO129-521-1 Triangulation of Hong Kong report and progress 13-1-1930 - 6-11-1930.txt", "external_url": "", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 524390, "series_id": 27, "series_slug": "histsyn-co129-engine", "series_title": "CO129 Colonial Office Hong Kong Records 理藩院香港檔案", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "CO129-524-1 Reports of Salaries Commission 31-12-1929 - 27-10-1930", "page_number": 164, "title": "CO129-524-1 Reports of Salaries Commission 31-12-1929 - 27-10-1930", "content_text": "173\n\n30\n\nby £30 annually to £880 per annum; and for the Traffic Assistant £180 to £700 by 5 annual increments of £20, 2 of £10 and 2 of £20. For the Traffic Inspectors we recommend £300, rising to £430 by 8 annual increments of £15 and 1 of £10 and for the Sub-Inspector $1,350 to $1,800 by $75 annually.\n\nWe consider the pay of the Head Watchman to be adequate, namely $300 to $372 by $12 annually; for Watchmen we recommend $192, rising to $210 by $12 after 3, 6, 9 and 12 years. For Office Attendants we recommend one post on $252 to $300 and the remainder on $192 to $240, by $12 after 3, 6, 9 and 12 years. Messengers, Store Coolies and Sanitary Coolies should receive the usual scale of $156 to $204 by $12 after 3, 6, 9 and 12 years.\n\n31\n\nFor Watchmen at the Central Mechanical Works we recommend $192 to $240 by $12 after 3, 6, 9 and 12 years, and for Artizans the following scales :--\n\n1st Class Foreman\n\nBuilding Foreman\n\n1st Class Fitters\n\n2nd Class Fitters\n\n1st Class Carpenter\n\n2nd Class Carpenter\n\n3rd Class Carpenter\n\n1st Class Electrician\n\n \n $1,000 to $1,700 by $100 annually;\n \n \n $600 to $950 by $50\n $1,000 to $1,300 by $75\n $600 to $950 by $50\n \n \n $1,000 to $1,300 by $75\n $600 to $950 by $50\n $360 to $570 by $30\n $950 by $50\n \n \n 2nd Class Electrician\n $600 to $950 by $50\n \n \n Electric Welder\n $360 to $570 by $30\n \n \n 1st Class Painter\n $600 to $950 by $50\n \n\n23\n\n156. For the Station Masters and Clerks we recommend scales as follows:-\n\n \n Telephone Operators\n $480 to $1,000 by annual increments, 1 of $60, 1 of $110, 3 of $50, and 2 of $100.\n \n \n Station Masters (5)\n $1,500 to $1,800 by $100 annually.\n \n \n Station Masters (4)\n $1,100 to $1,400 by $100\n \n \n Booking Clerks\n $600 to $1,000 by $50\n \n \n Senior Goods Clerk\n $1,500 to $1,800 by $100\n \n \n Relief Goods Clerk\n $600 to $1,000 by $50\n \n \n Signalmen\n $480 to $600 by $30\n \n \n Block Operators\n $300\n \n \n Probationers\n $300\n \n\n12\n\nThe Shunters should receive $360 rising to $600 by $30 annually, the Ticket Printer $840 to $1,080 by $60 annually, and Assistant Ticket Printer $360 to $780 by $30 annually.\n\nFor Pointsmen and Watchmen we suggest the scale $192 to $240, and for Porters, Gatemen, Latrine Coolies and Female Latrine Attendant the scale $156 to $204 by $12 in each case after 3, 6, 9 and 12 years.\n\n157. For Drivers 1st Class we recommend a scale of $700, rising to $1,000 by $50 annually, for 2nd Class $540 to $660 by $30 annually, and for Firemen $330 to $480 by $30 annually.\n\nThe Yard Pointsmen and Locomotive Cleaners on monthly pay should receive $192 to $240 by $12 after 3, 6, 9 and 12 years. For the No. 1 Carriage Cleaner we suggest a scale of $372 rising to $480 by $12 annually and for the No. 2 Carriage Cleaners $300 to $360 by $12 annually. The Wagon Cleaners should be on the scale $156 to $204 by $12 after 3, 6, 9 and 12 years.\n\nFor Guards we suggest the scale of $600, rising to $1,000 by $50 annually, for Ballast Guard $600 to $720 by $30 annually, and for Ticket Collectors $420 to $600 by $30 annually. The Brakesmen should receive $360, rising to $600 by $30 annually, and the Saloon Car Attendant $192 rising to $240 by $12 after 3, 6, 9 and 12 years.\n\n158. For the Chief Mechanical Engineer we consider the scale of pay should be £730, rising to £880 by £30 annually, and for the Assistant Mechanical Engineer, £470 rising to £530 by £20 annually. The Engine Examiner should receive $2,200 per annum, rising by $200 annually to $2,800, and the Clerk $550 to $700 by $25 annually.\n\nFor the Office Attendant and Assistant Telephone Clerk we suggest $252 rising to $300 and for the Storemen $192 to $240 by $12 in each case after 3, 6, 9 and 12 years service.\n\n159. For the Assistant Engineer on Maintenance of Way and Structures we recommend a scale of $4,000, rising to $6,000 by $200 annually, for the Inspector of Permanent Way £370, rising to £480 by £15 annually and for the Sub-Inspector $600, rising to $1,000 by $50 annually. The 3rd Class Draughtsman should receive the same scale as suggested for such employees in the Public Works Department namely $1,100, rising to $1,800 by $100 annually. For the Tracer we suggest a scale of $300, rising to $450 by $50 annually. The Office Attendant should receive $192, rising to $240 by $12 after 3, 6, 9 and 12 years.\n\nThe No. 1 Headman of the Labour Gangs on maintenance of the Track should receive $600, rising to $950 by $50 annually, and the other Headmen $480, rising to $540 by $20 annually. For Keymen we suggest a scale of $180 to $276 by $12 annually and for Plate layers 12 senior posts on $180 to $276 and the remainder on $168 to $252 by $12 annually in all cases. The No. 1 Trolleyman should receive $192 to $240, the other Trolleymen and the Gatemen $156 to $204 by $12 in all cases after 3, 6, 9 and 12 years. Watchmen should be on the same scale, $192 rising to $240 by $12 after 3, 6, 9 and 12 years.\n\n33.-VOLUNTEER DEFENCE CORPS.\n\n160. The Allowance at present paid to the Commandant is purely nominal and it is therefore, impossible for us to comment on its adequacy or otherwise. The pay of the Adjutant is fixed in dollars and is the result of an arrangement made by the Colonial Government with the War Office for the seconding of a Military Officer for duty with the Corps. We imagine that this will be done each time a vacancy occurs and there is therefore no object in our making any recommendation.\n\nFor the Sergeant Major we recommend a scale of £370, rising to £470 by £20 annually. We consider the pay of the Armourer Attendant to be adequate but suggest that he should be granted the usual rent allowance. The Motor Driver should receive the scale suggested throughout this Report for men of his grade, namely $550, rising to $650 by $50 annually.\n\nThe Storeman, we understand, is a British Soldier who receives an allowance of $1 a day for his services; we do not suggest any alteration. The scale of the Range Warden we consider adequate in every way; the Messengers, Coolies and Watchman should receive $156 rising to $204 by $12 after 3, 6, 9 and 12 years service.\n\nII. Currency Basis.\n\n161. We have already partially dealt with this Head of Enquiry in paragraph 12 of this Report.\n\nWe consider that the salaries of officers, ordinarily recruited in England, should continue to be quoted in Sterling, and paid in Sterling while an officer is on leave in England or other country having a gold standard. It seems to us that this is essential, not only with a view to attracting recruits for the various branches of the Service, but also for the purpose of computing pensions, especially in cases where an officer has served in other Colonies before transfer to Hong Kong. By our suggestion that Sterling Salaries\n\n174", "txt_file_path": "txt/2diw2n4r2/CO129-524-1 Reports of Salaries Commission 31-12-1929 - 27-10-1930.txt", "external_url": "", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 528254, "series_id": 27, "series_slug": "histsyn-co129-engine", "series_title": "CO129 Colonial Office Hong Kong Records 理藩院香港檔案", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "CO129-531-10 Hong Kong University- encouragement of Chinese students to counteract American influence 30-5-1931 - 1-9-1931", "page_number": 211, "title": "CO129-531-10 Hong Kong University- encouragement of Chinese students to counteract American influence 30-5-1931 - 1-9-1931", "content_text": "# 280\n\n\n## 90\n\nattach the prestige of the British merchant to the sale of competing products and our sympathy for their difficulties is therefore much diluted. The troublous times in China have undoubtedly weakened the financial strength of our merchants and keen competition has reduced their ability to secure an adequate turnover. But it is not good to increase this turnover by taking on a litter of assorted agencies to which the available staff cannot do justice or to force prices down by cosmopolitan not to say unpatriotic commission hunting.\n\n### 183. \nThe chief need for improvement of our prospects lies in the provision of as many experts as possible not only to sell, but also to educate the buyers in the use of the plant. Experts are also needed to keep close touch with the buyers' engineers, for one ounce of personal touch is worth a ton of correspondence.\n\nOften agents' criticisms, advice or complaints are scantily regarded because they are looked on as inexpert. The presence of a trained engineer with the agent will lead to better understanding. The situation will be helped if some of the attached experts are trained Chinese students who will be able to secure close touch with their compatriots. The gradual introduction of Chinese into our selling organisations not only in this way but also as partners or through subsidiary contracting companies deserves close consideration.\n\n### 184. \nThe use of an agent house in China is the usual method of liaison between manufacturer and customer though large concerns or groups of manufacturers may see sufficient turnover to justify a China office of their own. With direct representation, of course, the conduct of affairs is simpler, but even in these cases there must be sympathetic and generous treatment from head offices and more constant touch should be kept with home developments than appears to be arranged at present. Visits of principals and of supplementary experts to branch offices will have a stimulating effect and similar stimulation is also necessary when agents are employed. Many of our firms would find that their agents were lazy and were sitting in their offices waiting for orders instead of going out after them. Closer touch would either shake the agents up or cause a change of representation. With agents there is great need for co-operation. Manufacturers must realise the highly competitive nature of the market. They must see to it that there is sufficient force of expert assistance and can assure this by bearing much of the expense of this force. When they are unable to see a turnover sufficient to justify the expense it will be necessary to consider grouping and co-operation from home. Manufacturers expect a reasonable amount of advertising by their agents; but when starting an intensive campaign should be prepared to assist in the expense.\n\n## 4\n\n## 91\n\n### 185. \nAnother point in which manufacturers could help, is to be more liberal with consignment stock. Standard lines might be held in China not only to meet deliveries in that country but also for giving quicker deliveries to other agencies in the Pacific area. British co-operative showrooms or sales fairs have been suggested as a good advertising proposition. An extension of this idea to a permanent trade fair established at a suitable place with attached warehouses for stock might be considered. If the contents of the fair were approved by Government commercial officers as well as by local expert committees, the goods so consigned might come under the aegis of the Export Credits scheme to at any rate 60 per cent. of their value. The fair would serve as both showroom and sales room and be replenished from its own warehouses, or from merchants' godowns. The agents are often called upon to act as consulting engineers, in their endeavour to secure business. Often their work of this kind may be wasted and the order go elsewhere, but it is worth trying and manufacturers must help by supplying full particulars in the early stages ungrudgingly. Manufacturers must realise the importance of making their catalogues not only instructive but educational. Special Chinese leaflets and pamphlets could be devised in collaboration with agents.\n\nAgents, if assisted by real experts, could also give advice on such a point as getting some of the heavier or simpler parts of machinery made locally. There are many native shops as well as important works like dockyards or arsenals which could turn out excellent work. The saving in freight might make all the difference in competition.\n\nFinally, the efforts of our Consular and Allied Services might be reinforced by attaching trained consulting engineers to assist in the co-ordination of British engineering interests at home and overseas.\n\nIf all who are interested in the restoration of British trade in China, both there and in Great Britain, will get together and work together in the common interest, the future will be full of hope and of achievement. Only lack of faith in one another can stand in the way.\n\n## THE WOOL TEXTILE INDUSTRY\n\n### 186. \nThis report is divided into two parts. The first part is concerned with the Chinese native industry, including the production and export of raw wool, the domestic industry, the making of Chinese carpets and the manufacture of knitted goods. The second part deals with China as a market for wool textiles (yarn and piece-goods), and Great Britain's position therein.\n\n## 28/", "txt_file_path": "txt/2diw2n4r2/CO129-531-10 Hong Kong University- encouragement of Chinese students to counteract American influence 30-5-1931 - 1-9-1931.txt", "external_url": "", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 573732, "series_id": 27, "series_slug": "histsyn-co129-engine", "series_title": "CO129 Colonial Office Hong Kong Records 理藩院香港檔案", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "CO129-589-11 Port of Hong Kong- Report on future control and development 18-7-1941 - 10-10-1944", "page_number": 70, "title": "CO129-589-11 Port of Hong Kong- Report on future control and development 18-7-1941 - 10-10-1944", "content_text": "## THE DOCK AND HARBOUR AUTHORITY\n### February, 1942\n#### Port of Hong Kong-continued\n\nSir David Owen's Report having been brought to the notice of Mr. John Duncan, M.Inst.C.E., formerly Port Engineer of Hong Kong, the following interesting communication has been received from that gentleman. It will be recalled that Mr. Duncan's recommendations for the future development of the Port were published in the issues of this Journal for April and May, 1926:- \n\n**To the Editor of The Dock and Harbour Authority**\n\nPort of Hong Kong\n\nIt is indeed the irony of fate that whereas in 1924, the peak year of the colony's prosperity, I had the honour of advising the Government of Hong Kong on the commercial development of that great port; now in 1942, when that beautiful Colony with its excellent natural harbour, second to none, including even that of Sydney, after heroic resistance, has fallen to the Japanese, I feel impelled by the report of the late Sir David Owen to make comment on the same subject.\n\n### Conditions in 1924 and 1941\n\nFor many years prior to 1924 commercial interests had been clamouring for developments to meet more adequately and efficiently the needs of the Colony's growing trade. The problem was a difficult and complex one, not only because of the many competing, and in some cases conflicting, interests of peoples of different nationalities, but one further complicated by political considerations, of which—whilst the Government may be fully acquainted—the man interested in his own commercial business may be quite unaware. The following remarks will serve to illustrate this point: \n\nI am fully acquainted with the fact that economic and political conditions in 1941 were vastly changed from those obtaining during a year or two prior to 1924, the peak year of the Colony's prosperity. Advisedly, I use the word \"prosperity\" for, coincident with a record return in 1924 of shipping and goods tonnage entering and leaving the Port, there was a tremendous boom in land values; and why? Because China, even at that late date, was still undergoing the process of regeneration caused by the overthrow of the Manchu regime in 1911 and, in consequence, internecine strife was rampant throughout the whole country. Coincident with these unfortunate conditions, foreign political intrigue was active, particularly in South China—exploiting China in its unfortunate state, but really directed against British interests in the Far East. That was during the presidency of the late Dr. Sun Yat Sen—but I must not dilate further on this theme, otherwise the Censor will intervene. Enquirers may well say: What has all this to do with engineering matters? Much; for the result was a great increase in the Colony's population seeking safety and security, many of whom would elect to remain permanently. There was such a flow of money into the Colony that the banks almost refused to accept it and when they did so, they paid little or no interest for it placed on deposit account. The result was a boom in land values, which, together with the increased population, affected very much the question of reclamation work and the provision of all public services, including such work connected with harbour development as ferry piers. It, therefore, behoved anyone dealing with the subject under review to give much consideration to the possible effect of political influences which may affect the problem. Fortunately, as it happens, I did so in 1924, for, as events subsequently proved, political influences had repercussions of a very unfortunate character in regard to the trade of the Port. I can now admit publicly that in 1924 I had secret information from Chinese sources—which proved to be well founded—that a General Strike or boycott was planned for 1925, and, unfortunately for Hong Kong, it so happened. It was cunningly planned to take place just before Settlement Day in June of that year. Shipping was held up and commercial operations were not merely incommoded, but for some time practically suspended. Then the Colony received a setback, from which cause, followed by world-wide depression, the trade of the Colony has never recovered. In point of fact, it has gone from bad to worse. Hence the reason why in 1924—to quote Professor Middleton Smith, M.Sc., M.I.Mech.E. (Taikoo Professor of Engineering in the University of Hong Kong—now retired) who, in his article which appeared in the December, 1936 issue of **The Dock and Harbour Authority**, aptly and correctly interprets my advice—I advised the Government to \"hurry slowly\" with works recommended by me for the physical development of the harbour. Nevertheless, I have great hopes for the future prosperity of Hong Kong. Given permanent peace and more equitable conditions of life, the problem under review—expurgated of such unfortunate political influences and provided goodwill and mutual trust exist between all concerned—will then be resolved into the simple one of control, economics and, so far as engineers are probably more interested, Physical Development. I agree with Professor Middleton Smith that \"whatever the political future of Hong Kong may be, its geographical position and its wonderful harbour give it an almost unchallengeable future as the most important port in South China.\" Mr. Churchill in his address to both Houses of the Canadian Parliament on 30th December last, goes even farther when he describes it as \"the greatest port of shipping in the whole world.\" It must and will always remain, at least, one of the largest ports in the world. We do not know what conditions exist in Hong Kong to-day. Even if we did, it would not avail us one iota for, if the Japanese should adopt the scorched-earth policy before they are driven out of Hong Kong, the whole matter, as your editorial comment says, may well call for fresh consideration at the close of hostilities and so, at the present time \"the various proposals have little more than academic significance.\"\n\n### The Report of 1924\n\nI was unaware of the report presented by the late Sir David Owen last year. That report I have now read with much interest, but before proceeding to express my opinions on his recommendations for administrative control and physical development, I must make an assumption and acquaint your readers with my recommendations in 1924, so that fair comparison may be made. There can then be frank and open discussion on the subject.\n\nI cannot imagine for one moment that the Government would withhold from Sir David Owen any reports and recorded information in its possession, relevant to the subject on which his advice was sought, so I am going to assume that he received a copy of the report which I presented to the Government in 1924.\n\nOne naturally refrains from drawing attention to any eulogistic comment on, or criticism of one's own work, but, having regard to the fact that no reference whatsoever has been made to that report, which, if I may say so, was comprehensive, based on years of experience in Hong Kong, intensive study, and exhaustive research, I may perhaps be pardoned, if, under the circumstances, I first refer to one or two press comments on it.\n\nOn December 30th, 1924, editorial comment—all much on the same lines—was made in: **The China Mail**, Hong Kong; **The Hong Kong Daily Press**; and **The Hong Kong Telegraph**; and at later dates in other newspapers in the Far East and elsewhere. This is what **The China Mail** said:—\n\n\"Historic is the only term that can describe the report presented by the Colony's Port Engineer, Mr. John Duncan, M.Inst.C.E., on the commercial development of our harbour. For historic it is in many ways. The Colonial Secretary said yesterday that a more interesting and important document has seldom been laid before the Council. Sir Claude Severn could have gone further without overstating the case. He could safely have said that the report may prove the most important document in the Colony's history, for, upon the commercial development of the harbour, as everyone knows, depends the future prosperity of the whole Colony. Other harbour reports there have been in the past, but they have all been so much tinkering with the problem. Even the late Sir Maurice Fitzmaurice dealt with only one aspect of the matter—the providing of wharves to meet Kowloon's future needs as a railway terminus—which Mr. John Duncan's report, if it does not say so in as many words, shows to be the wrong angle from which to approach the problem, looking to the fact that the through railway from the North is not likely to be completed for many years and anyway the bulk of the colony's trade will always be waterborne.\"\n\nIn all fairness to the late Sir Maurice Fitzmaurice and his firm, then Messrs. Coode, Fitzmaurice, Wilson and Mitchell, Consulting Engineers to the Crown Agents for the Colonies, I would here interpolate that the matters on which his firm's advice was sought in 1920 were:—\n| Matter | Description |\n| --- | --- |\n| 1 | Improvements of the harbour generally. |\n| 2 | The provision of wharves and warehouses provided with railway communication. |\n| 3 | Improvement of the Mongkoktsui Harbour of Refuge. |\n| 4 | The question of dredging plant generally; the refitting of the dredger `St. Enoch` being considered in this connection. |\n| 5 | The best means of providing facilities opposite Statue Square for landing from, or embarking on launches and small craft generally. |\n\nThe consulting engineers adhered strictly to the terms of reference, which did not require them to deal with anything but engineering issues. In consequence, their report practically resolved itself into one dealing with the provision of wharfage, by the construction in the bight of Hung Hom Bay of a reclamation of 48 acres from which were to project in a southerly direction a series of six jetties.\n\nIn the April and May, 1926, issues of **The Dock and Harbour Authority** a succinct resume of my report was presented for the information of your readers and in your editorial of the latter issue you refer to it as:—\n\n\"...a very lengthy document embodying the result of a great deal of painstaking research and containing a considerable amount of valuable information on all phases of the problem...\"\n\nIt will perhaps be conceded that at least in some quarters, the information contained in that report was considered of some value. But, if Sir David Owen considered it of little or no value, I submit that he would have added more to the solution of the problem by adverse criticism, rather than by eschewing all reference to it. In point of fact, he almost denies its existence, for, does he not say in paragraph 68:—\n\n\"It may further be noted that there does not seem to have been much in the nature of planning for the future development of the Port...\"\n\nThat statement is quite incorrect, for, apart altogether from the plans prepared by my staff on my instructions, I might here ask: What about—\n| Plan | Description |\n| --- | --- |\n| 1 | The plans of Jetties and Reclamation at Hung Hom Bay and of extensions to Mongkoktsui Breakwater prepared by Messrs. Coode and Co. |\n| 2 | Plans of Wet Dock at Kowloon Point proposed by Captain W. Davidson, marine superintendent of the Canadian Pacific Railway Co. |\n| 3 | Plans for Wharfage and Reclamation at North Point recommended by the late Mr. T. L. Perkins, C.M.G., Director of Public Works. |\n| 4 | Plans of a Passenger Depôt at Victoria, proposed by Mr. Robert Sutherland, M.B.E., o/c Shipping Department of Messrs. Jardine, Matheson and Co.; and |\n| 5 | Plans for the Development of the Harbour Front in General, recommended by The Hong Kong Town Planning Committee. |\n\nI do, however, agree with Sir David Owen that there has been no officially adopted plan of development.\n\nI trust your readers will not interpret any criticism I have to make as being made in any captious or cavilling spirit, for such is far from my mind. I had a great interest in the development of the harbour of Hong Kong. If in any way I can assist towards the most satisfactory solution of the difficult problem under review, then I shall feel happy in having accomplished something. One regret we all have, is that Sir David Owen has passed away; and so we shall not have the benefit of such reply as he may have felt disposed to make on any of the conflicting opinions which, apparently, have been already expressed on his report.\n\nWhereas the Government's instructions to me in 1924 were limited:—\n\n\"to prepare and submit for the consideration of the Government a complete scheme for the Development of the Port.\"\n\nI note that the terms of reference given to Sir David Owen were extremely wide; even to the extent of taking into account political conditions at a time when the Colony was threatened with war.\n\nNevertheless, and fortunately as it happens, I considered it my bounden duty to take into consideration all influences: political, economic, or physical, which, in my opinion, had any bearing whatsoever on the question of the future control and development of the Port.\n\n### Proposed Port Administration\n\nFor the information of your readers I would now draw their attention to the \"Policy, Control, Management and Administration\" which I recommended should be adopted by the Government.\n\n\"...In my opinion, a properly-constituted Advisory Port Authority, Board, or Impartial Tribunal is the first need.\" (May I here draw attention to a printer's error in Professor Middleton Smith's article wherein he states that I was emphatic...)\n\nPage 70\nPage 71", "txt_file_path": "txt/2diw2n4r2/CO129-589-11 Port of Hong Kong- Report on future control and development 18-7-1941 - 10-10-1944.txt", "external_url": "", "rank": 0 } ]