I
[This Document is the Property of His Britannic Majesty's Government.]
CHINA RAILWAYS.
CONFIDENTIAL.
89
[January 2.]
SECTION 1.
C.0.
0706
[43787]
No. 1.
Foreign Office to India Office.
(Confidential.) Sir,
Foreign Office, Junuary 2, 1907. WITH reference to the letter from this Department of the 6th ultimo, I am directed by Secretary Sir Edward Grey to transmit to you herewith, for the information of Mr. Secretary Morley, copies of two telegrams which have been received from His Majesty's Minister at Peking on the subject of the Bhamo Tengyueh Railway.*
In view of the fact that the matter is one of urgency, I am to request that Sir E. Grey may be favoured with Mr. Morley's views on Sir J. Jordan's telegram No. 224 of the 20th November last with as little delay as possible.
It will be seen that in Sir J. Jordan's opinion immediate representations should be made to the Chinese Government, both for the sake of this line and other British railway interests in China, and I am accordingly to inquire whether Mr. Morley would see any objection to immediate instructions being sent to Sir J. Jordan to claim the right to construct the Bhamo-Tengyueh Railway, on the strength of the Chinese assurance of March 1902, by which Great Britain was promised treatment equal to that given to France in the matter of railway construction in Yunnan. It might at the same time be made clear to the Chinese Government that His Majesty's Government do not consider the Bhamo-Tengyueh line fully equivalent to the concession granted to the French to construct a railway from Lackay, on the Tonquin frontier, to Yünnan-fu.
I am, &c.
(Signed) F. A. CAMPBELL.
* Sir J. Jordan, No. 253, Telegraphic; ditto, No. 254, Telegraphic, December 31, 1906, [2326 b-1]