"
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Chinese "Yünnan-Szechuan and Tengyueh Railways Company" themselves claim. That if we obtain the Concession "the Yunnanese can only await extinction," and that Yunnan will cease to belong to the Empire," is of course pure rodomontade. Yünnat would obviously be in a safer position politically if a British railway to her capital were competing against the French railway that will be running thither before three years are up; while the benefits to the Yunnanese at large would be inestimable, and the Yunnanese know it. The esoteric meaning of this hold on the profits" is the retention by a numerically minute clique of the power to squeeze.
Indeed, it is evident that the present telegram was largely concocted by the leaders of that clique at Yunnan-fu, the overbearing avaricious Treasurer, Lin Ch'unlin, and the youthful pedants on the teaching staff of the "University," his ready tools. Ting Chon-to, the Governor-General, is exceedingly timid and weak; moreover, he expects in a few months, or even wecks, to be relieved of his post here, and is therefore disinclined to take up a position that would expose him to attack from men who can get attention both at Peking and in the native press.
I had not long sent off my telegram to you summarizing the missive of the 25th October, when my writer brought me a copy of the later telegram (2nd November) of which 1 inclose translation. When, as I have explained in my last despatch, I arranged with the Governor-General's intermediaries to accept and acknowledge a note from his Excellency asking me to telegraph to the Government of India the statement that the Wai-ru Pu had been asked to consult with the British Minister, and that it was inexpedient that the engineers should cross the frontier, I made it clear that I would do nothing more than transmit this message. Accordingly I requested that if a further telegram was sent to the Wai-wu Pu, I might be permitted to see it. I cannot, of course, be sure that the telegram exhibited to me contains the whole of the consequent message from Yunnan to Peking, but I have little doubt that this is the case. As it was voluntarily shown to me by the Foreign Department, under instruc- tions from the Governor-General, it need not be regarded (as I would ask you to regard its predecessor of the 25th October) as secret. It contents are only the more remarkable; and its communication to me may be held, according to the point of view, to mark on the part of the Yunnan Government either extreme simplicity, deep astuteness, or great effrontery.
To begin with, the telegram is so worded as almost, if not altogether, to convey the impression that I had myself asked the Indian Government to consider the question at issue as finally disposed of in favour of the "Company to build themselves the Tengyueh line."
I have sent my writer to point out to the Foreign Department the fact that the telegram should, in fairness to the Wai-wu Pu if not to me, have stated that I have to await a reply from India. Meanwhile, it is to be expected that the Wai-wu Pu will confront Sir John Jordan with the assertion that his local representative (myself) has admitted the Chinese contention.
A more serious feature of the telegram is the advice given to the Wai-wu Pu to "politely but firmly refuse." I have instructed my writer to observe that these words must be taken to refer to, at any rate, the Tali reconnaissance, if not to the Tengyueh Railway. His Excellency, however, is perfectly well aware that he gave, six months ago, his consent to this reconnaissance; it is therefore hardly acting in good faith to now urge his Central Government to oppose it. I do not imagine that verbal remonstrances at second hand will have much effect; but whereas his Excellency bas admitted to my writer the fact that he consented last May to the reconnaissance, it is certain that he would under present circumstances feel constrained to deny to myself in person that bis promise had passed, especially if the Treasurer were present.
After all, the question of the reconnaissance is only a part of the main issue. If we insist on effect being given to the Agreement of March 1902, we can make surveys of all routes that lie anywhere between our frontier and Yünnau-fu. In telegraphing to you yesterday and to Sir John Jordan, I accordingly again ventured to suggest that we ought now to insist on a railway right through to Yunnan-fu, on terms precisely similar to those accorded (in 1903) to the French. We may eventually, if we see fit, consent to accept less; but we shall hardly succeed in getting anything at all if we begin by demanding less.
The Government of India has, I cannot doubt, solid reasons for hesitation. Until it becomes sufficiently certain that capitalists will come forward to take over such a Concession, the Indian Government may not wish to require it of the Chinese Govern- ment. While our right to equality in Yunnan with the French remains merely a doctrine, admitted by China as a doctrine only, and is not materialized into a definite demand for such or such a Concession, the Chinese Government cannot name a time
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limit within which it must be availed of under penalty of forfeiture; whereas it would not be unreasonable to call on us to give effect within a term of years to a particular Concession such as this railway to Yünnan-fu-so as not to block the way to others less dilatory.
While admitting the force of such arguments, I would submit that in the present temper of the Chinese Government (or perhaps I should say, while the Chinese Govern- ment is swayed by the party now in power) it will not be possible to obtain even the Concession of an Anglo-Chinese Joint-Stock Light Railway from the Kulikha to Tengyueh, without invoking the Agreement of 1902. But the Indian Government has instructed me (by the telegram sent through your Government on the 3rd October last) that nothing should imply that the Tengyueh Railway Concession would exhaust our right to equality with the French. Why should we not therefore in the first instance formulate that right as "the Concession of a railway from our frontier to Yunnan-fu on precisely similar terms to those accorded to the French in 1903"? The admission of this claim by Chira-and it is hard to see how she could refuse to admit itwould give us at once what we now desire, the Tengyuch Railway and the Tali reconnaissance. The Tali reconnaissance (followed, as I trust it would certainly be, by a reconnaissance from that city to Kunlong in the one direction and to Yunnan-fu in the other) would provide us at last with the means of deciding whether it is worth our while to carry into effect the Concession as a whole. If we decide that it is, we should have no difficulty in obtaining the necessary capital; if that it is not, we should only have expended the cost of the various reconnaissances.
Finally, if we do not now enforce our rights, we shall find them in the future increasingly difficult to maintain. The Chinese will hasten to create paper Chinese Railway Companies for every possible avenue of approach from the Burnab frontier towards Yunnan-fu; and although nothing further will be done beyond hampering native trade with " percentages for railway construction" that will merely fill the pockets of Treasurer Liu and his successors, yet will the Chinese Government point to our acquiescence in 1906 in the "Tengyuch Railway Company's" monopoly as a valid argument why our later remonstrances must be regarded as unreasonable. Meanwhile the less amenable French will have established and strengthened their commercial hold--- and political influence-over not Eastern Yunnan alone, but over all Yünnan as far west as Yungchang and as far north as the Szechuan border.
I have, &c.
(Confidential.) (Translation.) (Telegraphic.)
(Signed)
W. H. WILKINSON.
Inclosure 2 in No. 1.
Governor-General Ting Chen-to to the Wai-wu Pu.
October 25, 1906. LETTERS and despatches were received on various occasions from the British Consul-General in Yünnan stating that he was in receipt of telegrams from the Govern- ment of Burmah saying that it is proposed to build a light railway from the Kulikha through to Tengyuch for the convenience of traders and the conveyance of their goods, and that engineers would have to be sent to ascertain by survey whether the construction is possible, and to prepare plans for examination, when further negotiations would be held with the Yunnan Government for the final arrangements. It was asked that deputies should be sent to join in the survey and to afford protection.
The Governor-General gave orders at the time to the Intendant of Western Yünnan, who sent deputies on two occasions, the seasons of 1904 and 1905, to join in the survey and afford protection.
Assent, however, has now been given to a Memorial that Yünnan shall build the Yunnan-Szechuan and Tengyueh Railways, and in pursuance of the Regulations it has been memorialized to establish a Company for the raising by ourselves of funds and for the construction of the line, so as to preserve our hold on the profits. Unexpectedly within the last month or so a series of notes has been received from the British Consul- General stating that he was in receipt of telegrams from the Governments of Burmahı and India saying that Engineer Lilley, earlier sent by them, would, on the 1st January, that is, the 17th of the 11th moon of the Chinese calendar, leave Bhamo for the country between Tengyueh and Tali to make a reconnaissance of the routes, and asking that,
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