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complaining of agitation against the Peking Syndicate in Honan and Shansi, I have the honour to refer to the statement of the facts contained in my previous note. No obstruction whatever has been offered to the Syndicate's mining operations in Honan, nor has this only been the case since November 1905. The Chinese authorities in dealing with the Honan and Shansi Concessions have not placed them on a different footing, But in view of the fact that the Syndicate in its Shansi operations has sought to maintain an exclusive position, they have aroused popular discontent, and the Governor of Shansi is unable to issue to them the permit to mine.
The delay, therefore, is on the part of the Syndicate itself, and the Board can under no circumstances recognize their claim for compensation.
I avail, &c.
Your Excellency,
Inclosure 2 in No. 1.
Mr. G. Brown to Sir J. Jordun.
Tien-tsin, March 9, 1907. I HAVE the honour to submit, for your Excellency's information, copy and translation of a placard lately posted in Hsiu-wu-Hsien, which Mr. Alexander Reid, Engineer-in-chief of the Syndicate in Honan, has forwarded to me under date the 5th instant. Hsiu-wu-Hsien is the Magisterial District in which the Jameisen coal mines are situated, and the issue of such a placard at the present time is in many ways fraught with danger.
Mr. Reid has recently heard from an official source that a boycott of the Syndicate in Honan is being organized at Kaifeng Fu, but, though no secret was made of the matter, he has not yet obtained details sufficient for a formal report.
I have asked Mr. Reid to furnish, as soon as possible, particulars of what occurred at the mass meeting called for in the placard. Meantime I would ask your Excellency to represent to the Chinese Government the serious consequences of allowing or fostering such wide-spread agitation against the Syndicate which has spent, and is still spending, very large sums of money in the Jameisen colliery in Honan on the faith of the Imperially sanctioned Agreement of 1898. The Syndicate is endeavouring at all costs to fulfil its part of that contract, and has a right to expect the whole-hearted support of the Chinese Government, which has so important an interest, both financially and otherwise, in the success of this enterprise.
I have, &c. (Signed) GEORGE BROWN,
Inclosure 3 in No. 1.
Agent-General.
Translation of a Placard, posted at Hsiu-uu-Hsien and other places in Honan,
Calling a Mass Meeting at Hsiu-wu-Hsien on February 28, 1907.
A Special Announcement.
AT the present time there is a matter of importance to us of Hsiu-wu, which if we can manage well means life, but which means death if it cannot be arranged.
Do our City Fathers and brethren know what this matter is ? It is the matter of the mining interests. At Pai Tso the Britishers have opened coal mines. Those who know say that the foreigners are carrying off our profits from coal; those who do not know say "let us pay no attention to them." Do you not know that the foreigners, having obtained the coal mines, will want to appropriate the gold and silver mines of the Tai Hang Mountains, and that we of the Ho Pei region shall all perish when they are exhausted? Just now, too, we dare not make a rumpus with the foreigners. Let one and all think up some good plan. The foreigners, having opened mines, cannot but let us open mines. Therefore, it is decided to hold a mass meeting at the Drill Ground in the East Suburb on the 16th of this moon (28th February) to talk over this matter. Men from Wei Hui have been invited to come to make speeches. No one must on any account miss hearing them.
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A memorial service for Li, the Shansi martyr, will also be held. His death being for the mining cause in circumstances similar to those in which we of the Ho Pei region are placed. This memorial service is given for him, so that all may see and hear, and come to an understanding of this affair, which will facilitate subsequent proceedings.
Inclosure 4 in No. 1.
Sir J. Jordan to Prince Ch'ing.
Your Highness,
Peking, March 14, 1907. I AM informed by the Peking Syndicate that a placard was recently posted in Hsiu-wn-Hsien, the district city in the jurisdiction of which the Syndicate's coal mines are situated, and other places, calling a mass meeting to assemble on the 28th February to discuss the question of foreigners opening mines.
I have the honour to inclòse, for the information of your Highness' Board, a copy of this placard, and to draw serious attention to the danger of allowing such public notices to appear. If they are issued without the knowledge of the local authorities there must be a singular lack of vigilance on their part, while if the local authorities permit ignorant agitators to influence public opinion by these means, they are involving themselves in a heavy responsibility. I trust, therefore, that your Highness' Board will be good enough to telegraph instructions to the Governor of Honan to sternly repress these evidences of ignorant agitation against the Peking Syndicate.
I avail, &c. (Signed)
Inclosure 5 in No. 1.
Mr. G. Brown to Sir J. Jordan.
J. N. JORDAN.
Your Excellency,
Tien-tsin, March 19, 1907. I HAVE the honour to thank your Excellency for the translation of a note from the Wai-wu Pu dated the 4th instant, commenting on the Agreement signed at Peking on the 26th April, 1898, between the Russo-Chinese Bank and the Syndicate, at the instance of his Excellency Li Hung Chang, in connection with the Chengting Taiyuan Railway, which was then projected, and is now in process of construction.
His Excellency M. Pokotilow, Russian Minister at Peking, who as former Manager of the Russo-Chinese Bank was one of the co-signatories of this instrument, has recently been absent in Manchuria, but, returning to the capital to-day, was good enough to accord me an interview this afternoon while the mail train made its brief stop at Tien-tsin. His Excellency, than whom no one is in a better position to testify, confirmed the signing of the Agreement in the circumstances set forth.
There is no doubt that this Agreement was framed in order to facilitate the negotiations, separate, but to some extent co-related, which were then all but completed by the Tsung-li Yamên on the one side, with the Syndicate and the Russo-Chinese Bank respectively on the other. Clause 17 of the Syndicate's Shansi Agreement of the 21st May, 1898, incorporates the main point of the subsidiary compact between the Bank and the Syndicate, and shows not only the effect that the latter instrument was intended to produce, but also the interest that the Tsung-li Yamên had in arranging matters amicably at the time by providing in advance for the insertion of this stipulation. The sentence in Clause 17 of the Syndicate's Shansi Agreement runs thus (the red underlines* being my own): "With reference to the Chengting- Taiyuan Railway, for the construction of which the Bureau has borrowed capital from others, the Peking Syndicate, to avoid disputes, shall not construct any railway within 100 li on each side of it." This scarcely supports the Wai-wu Pu's contention that "the Agreement in respect of this" (the Peking Syndicate's Shansi) " Concession
was an entirely separate matter from the Agreement with the Russo-Chinese Bank respecting the Chengtai Railway, and the one did not affect the other." It Would in fact seem, moreover, to be direct evidence that "China's concurrence and its
* Printed in italics.
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