This Document is the Property of His Britannic Majesty's Government
AFFAIRS OF CHINA.
CONFIDENTIAL.
314
22910
[Jus
FREE 28 JUN 04,
SECTION 5.
No. 1.
Sir E. Satow to the Marquess of Lansdowne.-(Received June 6.)
(No. 132. Very Confidential.) My Lord,
Peking, April 11, 1904. IN continuation of my immediately preceding despatch, I beg to report that I pointed out to Mr. Stewart that the question of opening Waichow was linked together with that of the Kowloon-Canton Railway in the letter of the 12th December last from the Hong Kong branch of the China Association to the parent body in London. I observed that the question of the immediate construction of the railway took up three-quarters of that letter, and it was described as a larger and more important question than that of the opening of Waichow. I added that I entirely agreed with the observations of the Committee on this matter and with the remarks made by Sir Henry Blake in his farewell speech of the 20th November last.
Your Lordship will notice that the Hong Kong Committee propose a route for the Kowloon-Canton Railway, which would cross the East River at Sheklung, whence it would be easy to run a branch up to Waichow, and, in the opinion of Mr. Stewart, this would be of equal utility, as far as trade is concerned, with the opening of that place as a Treaty port.
In connection with this subject he gave me an extract from the Minutes of a meeting of the General Committee of the China Association held in London on the 22nd January with Mr. Keswick, M.P., in the chair, of which a copy is inclosed. To some of the statements contained in this document I have the honour to direct your Lordship's attention.
At the meeting in question the letter of the Hong Kong branch, previously referred to, was read, requesting the Committee to urge upon your Lordship's Office the desirability of the immediate opening of Waichow, and complaining of the delay in the construction of the Kowloon-Canton Railway.
The Chairman stated that “(1) it had been necessary to wait until the Shanghae-Nanking Railway Agreement had been signed before taking steps to formulate the final contract for the Kowloon-Canton line, and it should be borne in mind that (2) delay was also in great measure due to the state of affairs in China consequent upon the Boxer troubles; and (3) that negotiations were suspended at the request of the Chinese authorities."
As to (1), it may be observed that as the final Agreement for the Canton-Kowloon Railway was to be subject to the provisions of the final Agreement for the Shanghae-Nanking Railway, and as the latter was signed on the 9th July, 1903, the negotiations for its conclusion might, as far as this provision is concerned, have been proceeded with last summer. But there is no reason to suppose that any steps have as yet been taken to that end.
2. As regards the delay having been in great measure due to the state of affairs in China consequent upon the Boxer trouble, the fact is that the state of the country became normal when the Protocol of the 7th September, 1901, was signed, and that the British and Chinese Corporation took no measures, except of the perfunctory character commented on in my despatch No. 79 of the 26th March, 1902, for negotiating the Shanghae-Nanking Railway Agreement until they dispatched Mr. Brenan to China in the autumn of 1902.
3. I am ignorant of the facts upon which the statement is founded that the negotiations were suspended at the request of the Chinese authorities. It would be interesting to know what Chinese authorities are meant, the date of their request, and the name of the person to whom it was addressed.
Mr. Keswick went on to state that "the terms and conditions of the preliminary Concessions were all subject to revision and final settlement when complete surveys were made and proper estimates formed. Such a survey was made after the preliminary Concession was signed."
It would be useful if Mr. Keswick would communicate to the Foreign Office a copy of the Report of the engineer or engineers who made a "complete survey" for the Canton-Kowloon Railway. According to the information that has reached me, the only sort of survey made was a hasty inspection by a civil engineer, accompanied...
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