The substance of Sir Robert's proposal is contained in the following outline which he gave yesterday to a representative of the '"North-China Daily News':
Much has been published of late about the desire of the British Government to undertake something, in connexion with remittance of the Boxer Indemnity, which shall mutually—be-refit China and Great Britain. I am of the opinion there is nothing which would more certainly and practically achieve this aim than use of the fund in completing the unfinished portion of the Hankow-Canton railway, and_ linking up the terminals of this line and_the Canton-Kowloon railway at Canton. It is well known, of course, that the section of the survey from Shiukwan on the borders of Kuangtung Province to the Hunan border presents very great engineering difficulties, and if this work is left to Chinese enterprise, then I am afraid it must be a very, very long time before we see its completion. This long delay appears even more certain when one remembers that the shares of that small portion of the line built by private enterprise, Originally $5 shares, are now quoted in the market at 50 cents Canton currency.
"If this indemnity is applied to complete the line, I would suggest that out of the annual prohts an amount of, say, 23 to 5 per cent. of the capital outlay be set apart to form a sinking fund, so that in the course of 20 or 40 years, according to the amount set aside, the capital will be entirely refunded, And while we are laying aside this sinking fund, the surplus could still be utilized for education and charity as recommended by various bodies, including the British Chanfber of Commerce. By this means, these good works will not be neglected and China will have had this line built for her practically free of cost. Then, again, there is also this consideration: after the line has been redeemed in this way, and handed over to China upon conditions similar to those agreed on in the case of the Peking-Mukden line, I suggest, it could be arranged to devote half the annual profits towards the construction of other railways, or perhaps motor roads which would then be required to complete the service, while the other half would be applied to the educa tional programme which will have been inaugurated.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.