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IAL OFFICE
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Gaberament House.
L November 19 ob
"Enatos we /
Zemuns LIS to 1XVI
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739719
My Lord
In continuation of my Secret Despatch of the 21 September 1906 on the subject of negotiations for the completion of a loan agreement and of a working agreement in connection with the proposed Canton Kowloon Railway, I have the honour to enclose for your information and consideration a precis of further correspondence with Your Lordship and Mr. Fraser at Peking on this matter.
2. I enclose a copy of Sir John Jordan's despatch of the 13 October, referred to in his and my telegrams of the 25th (LXII) & (LXIII). This dispatch was received on the 26th instant. Simultaneously, with Sir John Jordan's telegraphic summary (LXIV) of the extent to which the conditions on which I had laid stress in my telegrams of 18 August (L) & (LV) had been accepted. As telegraphed to Your Lordship on the 27th (LXV), I looked upon the Embodiment of Article 15 & 46 (in draft sense from Iching of August 17 as provided in Canton as important. My reason for this view is given in paragraph 3 of my despatch of the 25 September. Otherwise, I could not consider the terms of the loan draft divisible if affecting this Colony satisfactory and I feared that it would be difficult to obtain the elimination from Article 18 of the reference to "the agreements regarding the junction and working of interlocking railways in other countries", it seemed to me.
• Fleshing out 61 a vast number of such agreements differing in their provisions, the reference to them would give rise to difficulties and might endanger the settlement of the Canton Kowloon Railway working agreement. Sir John Jordan in reply on August 20 (LXIII) mentioned that my comments on the agreement as drafted, in the sense of his indent bargain by modification for which I had asked. I hesitate to do this course remaining a reply to my telegram to Your Lordship of the 27th (in the face of the instructions contained in the final paragraph of 19th Lytton's confidential despatch of the 17 February 1905) and is being complied again - for listeneklous.
On the 30th (XI), I having received the news by the mail of the 31st the date fixed for the final meeting at which the draft agreement was to be agreed, I decided to concur in the draft agreement (LXIII) while again expressing a hope that it might be found possible to modify Article 18 in the manner I had suggested. Your Lordship's telegram received on the 31st (XI) justified my having taken on myself to do this. To the telegram I sent yesterday (LXV) enquiring if the agreement has been signed, I have today heard (LXVI) that this had not yet been done but that the alteration of Article 18 has been accepted.
3. Your Lordship will doubtless have received from the Foreign Office a copy of Sir Jordan's despatch No. 590 of August 29, 1906, enclosing the minutes of the 4th meeting held at Peking on the subject of the loan agreement. The minutes of the 6th and final meeting are with this despatch.
4. I take this opportunity of acknowledging Your Lordship's Secret Despatch of the 25 September enclosing a copy of a telegram from Mr. Carnegie to Sir Edward Grey dated August 24 of that month with regard to the first three of these meetings.
I have the honour to be,
My Lord,
Your Lordship's most obedient
humble servant
The Right Honourable
The Earl of Elgin
K.G.
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