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I inclose a sheet of tracing paper on which I have marked lines (a) and (b), together with all names to which reference is made in Shih Taotai's Memorandum. I have added little else, lest the trees should obscure the wood; though I have taken the opportunity to identify and insert nearly all the localities mentioned in my despatches Nos. 11 and 37 of 1905. By superimposing the tracing paper on Shih Taotai's map, the remarks which I would now venture to submit will, I trust, gain in clearness.
If our motto is to be stet pro ratione voluntas, there can be no doubt that we could force Yunnan to acquiesce. She has few, if any, troops worth the name, and her treasury is empty. Should we proceed to administer up to "Scott's Line" she could offer no overt resistance.
As regards the blank in both our maps, the ground styled by Governor-General Ting "Manbai Magna," and by Shih Taotai "Territory of the Wild K'a," I do not think that the Yunnan Government would be inclined to raise difficulty. The only objection they might bring forward would be that this region lies well to the east of the boundary line drawn by Liu and Ch'en-tajen in 1900. But although Shih Taotai continues to identify Loi-mu Hill with the "very lofty mountain range called Kong-ming-Shan" of the Treaties, still I think that he would hardly have handed me, with the Governor-General's assent, his present map unless his Government are prepared to yield the ground between the Liu-Chen line and Shih's "watersheds of the Namma River," or at the least to erect it into a sort of buffer State. (In his Memorandum he does, it is true, propose that it be divided.) They might possibly give up those parts of the Upper Hulu and of Mengtum that lie south and west of "Scott's Line"; what they will certainly strive to retain is the "territory subject to the Hsi-ming Sawbwa," that is, Mong-hka and Mong-hsaw (coloured pink in Shih's map).
If we force them, without further explanation or negotiations, to surrender this district, we can hardly fail to embitter relations between Burmah and Yunnan, if not between Great Britain and China. We could not well occupy and administer it without at the same time either subduing the Wild Wa or—what would be scarcely less trouble—some and expensive becoming responsible for their recurring raids on undoubted Chinese territory.
If, on the other hand, there is still room for amicable discussion, I would venture to suggest that the following arguments might be brought to the knowledge of Governor-General Ting:
1. The Agreement signed on the 4th February, 1897, by Sir Claude MacDonald and the late Grand Secretary Li Hung-chang, modifying the Burmah-China Frontier and Trade Convention of the 1st March, 1894, must be accepted as binding on the Governments of Burmah and of Yunnan. For purposes of the present controversy it is sufficient to apply this axiom to paragraphs 3 and 4 of Article 3 of that Agreement, which read as follows:—
"The frontier shall then follow the course of the river forming the boundary between Somu, which belongs to Great Britain, and Meng Ting, which belongs to China. It shall still continue to follow the frontier between those two districts, which is locally well known, to where it leaves the aforesaid river and ascends the hills, and shall then follow the line of water-parting between the tributaries of the Salween and the Meikong Rivers, from about longitude 99° east of Greenwich (17° 30′ west of Peking) and latitude 23° 20′ to a point about longitude 99° 40′ east of Greenwich (16° 50′ west of Peking) and latitude 23°, leaving to China the Tsawbwaships of Keng Ma, Mengtung, and Mengko.
"At the last-named point of latitude and longitude the line strikes a very lofty mountain range called Kong-Ming-Shan, which it shall follow in a southerly direction to about 99° 30′ east of Greenwich (17° west of Peking) and latitude 22° 30′, leaving to China the district of Chenpien Ting. Then, descending the western slope of the hills to the Namka River, it will follow the course of that river for about 10 minutes of latitude, leaving Munglem to China and Manglün to Great Britain. The frontier shall then follow the boundary between Munglem and Kiang Tung."
2. The above two paragraphs were transferred, without substantial alteration, from the Convention of 1894 to the Agreement of 1897.
3. The Convention of 1894 was drafted in English in London, where it was translated into Chinese and signed in both languages by Lord Rosebery and Hsieh Fu-ch'eng, the then Chinese Envoy to Great Britain.
4. The only truly scientific method of indicating locality on the earth's surface is that of latitude and longitude. With this method China has been acquainted at any rate since the Jesuit Survey in the K'ang-hsi reign more than two centuries ago. The Chinese maps bound in with the native Gazetteer of Yunnan ("Yunnan Tungchih") employ this system. The references, therefore, to latitudes and longitudes in the Agreement cannot be ignored by the Yunnan Government, as they were, in effect, ignored by Liu and Ch'en, the Boundary Commissioners of 1900; these references are of the first importance.
On the contrary,
6. The references to latitude and longitude in the clause now under examination are four, namely:
(a.) Longitude 99° east of Greenwich (17° 30′ west of Peking), and latitude 23°20'.
(b.) Longitude 99° 40′ east of Greenwich (16° 50' west of Peking), and latitude 23°.
(c.) Longitude 99° 30′ east of Greenwich (17° west of Peking), and latitude 22° 30'.
(d.) A point on the Namkha River situated 10 minutes of latitude from where the boundary between Menglem and Kiang Tung diverges from that river.
The first step to be taken is to mark the above four points on the map of the survey of India—a map the correctness of which is admitted by the Yunnan Government, as regards its physical features and lines of latitude and longitude, since they have adopted it as the basis of their own chart.
(The four points are marked in red on the tracing paper.)
6. When the above points are marked it will be found that they fall very nearly on the crests of certain mountain ranges admitted by Shih Taotai to be watersheds. The word "about" in the Treaty allows for the small difference found, but it would certainly not admit of the very great difference—40 minutes of longitude—required if the Liu-Ch'en line is to be taken to represent that of the Convention.
7. Between points (a) and (b) the boundary, according to the Convention, is to "follow the line of water-parting between the tributaries of the Salween and the Meikong Rivers." The water-parting is marked on Shih's map, and coincides with that portion of "Scott's Line."
**
(This is not altogether the case between 99° 30′ and 99° 44', where "Scott's Line" is drawn across the supposititious head-waters of the Nam-hoit, Shih's Nan-wa. Mr. (now Sir George) Scott himself described it as "to some extent conjectural.” Our main contention, however, is not affected—that we follow the watershed.)
8. At point (b) the Convention boundary "strikes a very lofty mountain range called Kong-Ming-Shan, which it follows in a southerly direction to point (c). Now, Shih's map admits that between (b) and (c) runs, in a markedly southern direction, the "main watershed between the Mekong and the Salween," which watershed is merged at about longitude 99° 45′ and latitude 22° 40′ in a range which he calls K'ung-ming Shan. His Memorandum describes this K'ung-ming Shan as falling within the jurisdictions of four Sawbwaships—Hsi-ming, Mu-nai, Menglem, and Mengpin. If the term is to be confined to the range as marked on his map, then Mu-nai and Hsi-ming can have nothing to do with it; but if it includes the whole "main watershed above, then the description in his Memorandum tallies with the wording of the Convention.
9. For it must not be forgotten that, as stated above (section 3) the Convention was drafted in English. Now, no Englishman, unless trained in China, would distinguish between "kung" in the first tone and "kung ('hkung'), with an aspirate, in the third. Writing by ear he would set down both as "kong." No Chinese hieroglyph being supplied for this particular name, the translator in London naturally adopted one of those for "kung" (without the aspirate), and among the "kungs" that one which is in most common use and would harmonize sufficiently well with "ming" ("clear"), namely "kung" ("just").
(He took, I suspect, similar liberties with the hieroglyphs to be used for "Kunlong," two paragraphs higher up. I am inclined to think that the "kuu" is not "kung" ("work"), as he wrote it, but "kun" ("whirling water").)
The name Kong-Ming-Shan, therefore, of the English text must be taken to represent K'ung-ming Shan, and not, despite the Chinese text, a Kung-ming Shan, if such there be.
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[2147 an-1]