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was received by the full directorate, who told him that the Governor-General's seal bad not hitherto been affixed to passports, but the seal of their Department; that in this case it appeared that Lei A-pai was Lilley, and that if Lilley came to Tengyueh as a veritable traveller, Kuan Tantai would no doubt telegraph for instructions.
In the meantime a message had twice come from the Department, in the middle of the night, asking me to return the Governor-General's note for some alteration. Of this I was not informed until the morning, when I sent my writer to ask the Superintendent, Ch'en Niehtai, why his Department had asked for the return of the note professedly written by the Governor-General. I took the opportunity to state that I am empowered to deal with all matters affecting British interests anywhere within the two Provinces of Yunnan and Kneichow, and could therefore properly issue this passport; and that the practice at Canton was for passports, particularly passports for foreign officials, to be stamped with the Governor-General's seal. The practice at Yunnan-fu, of applying to the Department for Foreign Affairs for the counter-sealing, had its origin in the circumstance that the first Consular officer here, Mr. Litton, was not the substantive Consul-General.
As a matter of fact, my request for the Governor-General's seal was to secure from that timid, not to say slippery, personage some evidence of his acquiescence in my friendly subterfuge. Since he showed that he is indisposed, or afraid, to adopt a course which, according to my writer (see my despatch No. 47 of the 22nd November) he had himself suggested, I concluded that there was nothing for it but to let the intimation which His Majesty's Secretary of State had, through you, instructed me to make take the shape of a formal communication. I accordingly addressed to his Excellency the despatch copy and Chinese version of which I inclose.
It was, however, perfectly certain that the reply would be on the lines of the earlier notes to which I had taken objection, unless his Excellency received meanwhile instructions from his Central Government that England is to be accorded in Yünnan equally favourable treatment with France. The officials here have all along declared that Prince Ch'ing's despatch of the 16th March, 1902, has never been communicated to the Yunnan Government. I accordingly telegraphed to you, requesting a reference to my earlier telegram No. 23 of the 31st October, and asking whether the Wai-wu Pu had telegraphed to the Governor-General that effect must be given to the Agreement of 1902. This, I added, is absolutely necessary if he is not to continue to oppose even the reconnaissance.
I had the honour to receive yesterday morning your reply, saying that you had merely warned the Wai-wu Pu of the existence of the correspondence of 1902, in order to prevent the issue of the Decree to which I had referred in my telegram of the 7th instant. You instructed me to act on your telegram of the 9th, that is, to convey the intimation of His Majesty's Government that the present reconnaissance is regarded as an integral part of last year's survey.
This, as you will see, I had already done. I have not yet received a formal answer from the Governor-General, but his Excellency sent to me yesterday the new Assistant Superintendent of the Department for Foreign Affairs, Tsou Chih-ch'ing, and the Home Magistrate, Yen Tuan-jung, to discuss the matter. (Yen Ta-lao-yeli was Magistrate of Ch'en-hsiung in 1899, when Captains Pottinger and Hunter made their surveys from Szechuan to Weining.) The Delegates told me that my despatch had been communicated to the Railway Directors, who had telegraphed to their colleague Ting Taotai (Ting Yen) at Yungch'ang; it might therefore be some days before a reply could be sent to me. Could not, however, the matter be amicably settled?
I answered that I had done my very best to settle it amicably, but that apparently his Excellency would not meet me. I was altogether at a loss to under- stand why a third reconnaissance by Mr. Lilley was opposed, while the previous two had met with no sort of objection. The Delegates said that on the present occasion Mr. Lilley proposed to survey country east of Tengyueh, whereas the previous Agreement was for a reconnaissance up to Tengyueh only. This last I could not altogether admit; and I repeated that the Governor-General had this spring, without any hesitation, agreed to its continuance towards Tali. What, I asked, was the cause of the change? was it the coming of a new Chihtai? Both of them nodded affirma- tion, and added that a Memorial had been sent in for the formation of a Chinese Company to construct the Tengyueh line-the old story. I replied that I could not recognize such a Company; ils establishment at this crisis was an affront to my Government. This they of course denied; but I pointed out that whereas in May last their Governor-General had agreed to discuss with me the coming proposals of the
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Indian Government for a Tengyueh Railway, in July his Excellency had written to me to announce the formation of this Company, before the proposals of the Government of India had been even considered by him. I had a right to resent this action, and if I had refrained from doing so, it was solely out of a personal regard for Ting Chihtai and a desire to conduct affairs in a friendly spirit. But I had, as they knew, objected at the time to the assumption by the Yunnan-Szechuan Railway Company of the additional style of "Tengyueh," and I must continue to object. If any amicable compromise is to be reached in the present matter, it must be on the basis of an understanding that Mr. Lilley is to come, and is to make a reconnaissance.
Opposition to such reconnaissance was absolutely baseless, in view of the written assurance 1 had given the Governor-General that the question of actual railway building would remain for future discussion. The making of a reconnaissance does not necessarily imply even a demand for construction, and I instanced the survey of Captains Hunter and Pottinger, where we had not by reason of that survey required the Concession of a railway from Yunnan-fu to the Yang-tsze. If we do eventually demand a Railway Concession from our frontier to Yünnan-fu, it will be because China has already made a similar Concession to France. Meanwhile, all that is proposed is the joint construction of a line from the Kulikha to Tengyuch, and a quite unobjectionable reconnaissance to Tali.
The Delegates said that no instructions had come to the Governor-General from Peking, and repeated the tale of opposition on the part of the gentry. They urged that the reconnaissance should at any rate be put off.
As regards the gentry, I have explained in earlier despatches and telegrams that the phrase in this context covers only a handful of young literati, and that the whole of the trading classes would welcome our construction of the railway. It is increasingly clear that both these particular literati (professors at the University) and the Yunnan-fu officials are taking up the line they now adopt, largely in order to curry favour with the incoming Governor-General, Ts'en Ch'un Hsuan, who so long opposed our Kowloon-Canton Railway. In March last, Ting Chihtai rebuked the students in Japan who had protested against the construction by Europeans of a light railway from Kulikha to Tengyueh (see my despatch No. 11 of the 16th March); in May he had, however much he may now seek to deny it, agreed without any hesitation to the extension of the survey up to Tali. A few months later, news arrives that Ts'en Ch'un Hsuan is to come here; and immediately the attitude of Ting Chen-to and his calourage changes. Ts'en Ch'un Hsuan has the reputation of being not only opinionated but, like his father of evil memory, ruthless; and if he continues to hold the views he held at Canton, he will certainly oppose any railway proposals of ours. He is expected here about May next, but I observe by a Reuter's telegram in the last Haiphong paper that he is said to have received orders to leave Shanghae for Yünnan at once. Meanwhile, the one thought of Ting Chen-to is put off doing anything that might lead to his denunciation by the redoubtable Ts'en.
I have, &c. (Signed)
Inclosure 2 in No. 1.
W. H. WILKINSON.
Consul-General Wilkinson to the Governor-General of Yunnan-fu.
Sir,
Yunnan-fu, December 15, 1906. ON the 16th October last, I had the honour to receive your Excellency's note in reply to mine asking that protection might be, as on previous occasions, accorded to the British engineers who were about to make a reconnaissance in the country between Tengyueh and Tali. Your Excellency replied that a Memorial had been submitted for the establishment of a Chinese Company to undertake the construction of this railway, and that conditions had changed since the earlier survey, You asked that I should telegraph to the Government of India to say that the Government of Yunnan had 'telegraphed to the Wai-wu Pu to consult with Ilis Majesty's Minister, and that it would not be expedient that the Indian Government should direct the surveyors to cross the frontier and make a reconnaissance of the routes; and you asked me to acknowledge your note.
I transmitted by telegraph to the Indian Government your Excellency's views as above, and I sent you an acknowledgment on the 1st ultimo, undertaking to write again when I should be in receipt of a reply.