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Your Excellency,
Inclosure in No. 1.
Mr. G. Brown to Sir J. Jordan.
Tien-tsin, September 24, 1906.
I HAVE the honour to acknowledge the receipt of and to thank your Excellency for the telegram of the 21st instant, which reached me through His Majesty's Consulate-General, and was worded as follows:----
"I shall take the first opportunity to press for issue of Shansi permit. I quite recognize that you have waited long enough, but as the Foreign Office will not be in possession of full information until first week of October, I should prefer, if my representations are ineffectual, to wait at least till then before proposing further action."
I am communicating this telegram to the Board of the Peking Syndicate in London, in order that all the information in their possession may be placed at the service of the Foreign Office, and I am appealing for the strongest possible support.
It is gratifying to learn that your Excellency is entirely satisfied with the patience and forbearance hitherto displayed by the Syndicate in these protracted negotiations.
The history of the case, from the first application for the permit and the visit of my predecessor, Mr. George Jamieson, to the then Governor of Shansi at Tai Yuan Fu in November of last year, when the Syndicate's sole right was challenged, up to the present date, has in its course from time to time been duly reported to His Majesty's Legation. I will only recapitulate a few of the later salient items.
In February of this year, at the instance of Sir Ernest Satow, I personally took up the discussion of the Syndicate's rights at a meeting with the Wai-wu Pu and some Shansi gentry, when his Excellency Tong Shoa-yi, who had been specially charged, I understood, with the conduct of this matter, played the leading part.
I also interviewed at considerable length his Excellency En Shou, the new Shansi Governor, previous to his departure from Peking for his post in March last, the visit being arranged by His Majesty's Legation, and facilitated by his Excellency Tong Shou-yi.
Led to believe that these two Chinese officials were acting in good faith and really endeavouring to arrive at a satisfactory settlement, for the attainment of which they required a reasonable allowance of time, I laid before them full details of our claim, but in no way unduly pressed them.
During the long period that subsequently elapsed, I was unable, in response to frequent inquiries, to obtain any information or assurance as to the probable result, beyond obscure hints of a favourable issue. I was constantly met with evasive answers and excuses.
A written application of the 14th July to his Excellency Tong Shoa-yi, as Vice-President of the Wai-wu Pu, remained unanswered.
At last, after various promises to give me a meeting on this subject had not been fulfilled, I managed to obtain an interview at the Wai-wu Pu on the 27th July with their Excellencies Tong Shoa-yi and Chu Pao-fay, his Excellency Lien Fang being present part of the time. On the 31st July attended again.
What took place on these two occasions was recorded in my letter to His Majesty's Chargé d'Affaires of the 2nd August, and, although it amounted to discussion and little more, yet the general tone of the Chinese officials was such as to incline me to credit them at least with good intentions.
On the 9th August we met again at the Wai-wu Pu by appointment, Mr. Reid, the Syndicate's Engineer-in-Chief, being with me to furnish expert information and maps.
As a result, the promise was made by their Excellencies, and confirmed more than once before we parted, that instructions would at once be sent to the Governor of Shansi to draft the permit, which, with any attendant conditions, was to be communicated to me immediately on receipt, and I was to be at liberty to accept or reject it according to whether it proved satisfactory or the reverse.
On the following day, his Excellency Chu Pao Fay sent me a note asking post-haste for two prints of the permit map, which were at once provided.
Delighted with this exhibition of energy, I saw a mirage vision of my task completed.
In a letter to his Excellency Tong Shoa-yi, as Vice-President of the Wai-wu Pu, dated the 20th August, forwarding another copy of the permit map, I, in order to give no room for misunderstanding, mentioned what had occurred at the meeting of the 9th, and pointedly referred to the promise made to me. No answer was returned.
On the 7th instant, his Excellency T'ong verbally informed me that a communication from the Shansi Governor had not been sent on to me, because it was unsatisfactory, but had been returned to Tai Yuan Fu for amendment, and he promised to let me know at once of the receipt of any further communication, whether satisfactory or not.
On the 17th instant, he said that nothing further had yet come.
In these circumstances, tired out with lingering negotiations, weary of waiting for the fulfilment of promises that seem to be forgotten as soon as made, I may perhaps be excused if I incline to accept the conclusion thus gradually forced upon me that this very important matter is being trifled with, that I am being stayed with vain hopes, that there is no intention on the part of the Chinese Government to fulfil its obligations, even when bearing the impress of the Imperial seal, and that this deliberate violation of a solemn agreement is regarded in these days as the common prerogative of the Wai-wu Pu.
The instructions of my Board of Directors, who are responsible to a large and influential body of shareholders induced to invest their money on the strength of China's written word, are that, failing to obtain the recognition by the Chinese Government of the Syndicate's sole right to mine coal in Ping Ting Chou, which is one of the five districts of Shansi specified by the compact of 1898, with the consequent issue of a permit when applied for, I am to present to the Wai-wu Pu a claim for £2000 a day as compensation for the breach of faith and the resultant losses.
In deference to your Excellency's wishes, and with great confidence in your Excellency's power to so influence the trend of events as to make this proceeding unnecessary, I postpone for the moment taking this final step.
I have, &c.
(Signed) GEORGE BROWN, Agent-General of the Peking Syndicate (Limited).