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[This Document is the Property of His Britannic Majesty's Government.]
105
AFFAIRS OF CHINA.
CONFIDENTIAL.
[35113]
No. 1.
[October 18.]
SECTION 2
C O
Colonial Office to Foreign Office.-(Received October 18.)
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47844
12 NOV 05.
(Confidential.)
THE Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies presents his compliments to the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, and is directed by the Secretary of State to transmit, for the information of Sir E. Grey, with reference to the letter from the Colonial Department of the 4th ultimo, a copy of a despatch from the Governor of Hong Kong (and inclosures) on the subject of negotiations for the completion of a Loan Agreement and of a Joint Working Agreement in connection with the proposed Canton- Kowloon Railway.
Downing Street, October 17, 1906.
(Secret.) My Lord,
Inclosure 1 in No. 1.
Governor Sir M. Nathan to the Eurl of Elgin.
Government House, Hong Kong, September 6, 1908. IN continuation of my Secret despatch of the 24th August on the subject of negotiations for the completion of a Loan Agreement and of a Joint Working Agreement in connection with the proposed Canton-Kowloon Railway, I have the honour to inclose, for information and record, a paraphrase of further telegraphic correspondence in the matter.
2. From the first three of these telegrams (XLVII to XLIX) your Lordship will see that the attempt, reported in my last despatch, to open up negotiations with the Viceroy for the conclusion of the Joint Working Agreement failed. I subsequently learned that just before or about the time that this attempt was being made (probably on the 23rd August) Kung Taotai telegraphed from Peking to the Viceroy at Canton that the Loan Agreement was being discussed on the lines of the Shan Hai Kwan Agreement, and I think it probable that the Viceroy, having, as he thought, got matters going on in his own way with regard to the Loan Agreement, thought it unnecessary to be conciliatory to me in the matter of the Working Agreement. This is, as your Lord- ship is aware, what I feared would be the case when I telegraphed to His Britannic Majesty's Chargé d'Affaires on the 1st and 3rd August (XLI and XLIII) that I considered that the Wai-wu Pu should be informed that any departure in the Canton- Kowloon Loan Agreement from the terms of that for the Shanghae-Nanking line would only be accepted if a satisfactory Working Agreement were first concluded with the Government of Hong Kong.
3. This position not having been taken up, for the reasons given in Mr. Carnegie's letter of the 4th August, of which an extract formed Inclosure I to my last despatch, I considered it advisable to send to Peking the telegram of the 28th August (L), which I repeated to your Lordship on the same date (LI), to insure the inclusion in the Loan Agreement of provisions without which I am satisfied that the subsequent conclusion of a satisfactory Working Agreement will not be possible, I have received no reply to this telegram. To my subsequent one of the 3rd instant (LII), inquiring what progress had been made in the negotiations, His Britannic Majesty's Chargé d'Affaires has replied (LIII) that three meetings had been held, of which the first two were fruitless and the result of the third unknown.
4. I inclose a copy of the Minutes of the first of these meetings which I received yesterday from the Chief Manager of Messrs. Jardine, Matheson, and Co. here. The conditions referred to in the Minutes as having been proposed by the Viceroy are those of which a copy formed a sub-inclosure to Inclosure 2 of my Secret despatch of the 20th April, 1906.
I have, &c. (Signed)
M. NATHAN,
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