The Deputy says there are two or three extra articles of the Agreement which are secret, and that the removal is fixed for 1910, or the completion of the Hankow-Canton Railway Company, he does not seem certain which,
(This Document is the Property of His Britannic Majesty's Goverment I
AFFAIRS OF CHINA.
CONFIDENTIAL.
35776 [August 26.]
TRETE skorion 70CT 07
I have, &c.
(Signed)
E. H. FRASER.
[28450]
Inclosure 2 in No. 1.
No. 1.
Agreement for the Perpetual Lease of a Piece of Land to Extend the Japanese Concession at Hankow, dated February 9, 1907. (Translation.)
WHEREAS both the Contracting Parties have come to an Agreement, the several' Articles thereof are hereto appended :-
Article 1. It is agreed that the Japanese Concession Extension shall extend north- wards from the boundary of the original Concession for 150 chang (1,500 Chinese feet), and that its east and west limits shall be in line with those of the original Concession.
Art. 2. The Hsieh Ch'ang Syndicate's match factory, a Chinese commercial undertaking, within the aforesaid Japanese Concession Extension, may function as usual, nor need it be forced to remove. On its part the Syndicate shall be bound by the Japanese Concession Regulations in the same manner as, and pay dues on the same footing as, Japanese merchants without differentiation, and the Japanese Government will extend to the Hsieh Ch'ang,Syndicate the same measure of care and protection as it affords to Japanese merchants. Any future action of the Japanese Government in regard to the said match factory will at all times be governed by the general rule of placing it on the same footing with the Standard Oil Company's works now in the Concession. But this undertaking arises from a desire to protect Chinese commercial interests. There- fore, should at any future time the Hsieh Chang match factory, overtly or covertly, pass out of Chinese hands, it shall be out of the power of the Chinese officials to take any interest whatever in its protection.
Art. 3. In regard to this Agreement, the Hukuang Viceroy will order the Customs Taotai, in concert with the Japanese Consul, to depute officials to survey the Concession area and erect boundary posts.
The remaining Articles of this Agreement shall be the same as those of the original Concession Agreement,
Two each, Japanese and Chinese fair copies of this Agreement, shall be prepared and signed by both the Contracting Parties, and so soon as the high authorities of both countries shall have signified their approval thereof, they will be sealed and placed on record.
Dated the 27th day of the 12th moon of the 32nd year of the reign Kwang Hsü, being the 9th day of the 2nd month of the 40th year of Meiji (9th February, 1907).
Done at Hankow,
(Signed)
SANG, Customs Taotai, &c. MIDZUMO, Japanese Consul, &c.
Sir J. Jordan to Sir Edward Grey.--(Received August 26.)
(No. 334.) Sir,
Peking, July 7, 1907. AS reported in my telegram No. 131, I thought it advisable to sec Prince Ching before replying to the question contained in the last paragraph of your telegram No. 76 as to the possibility of bringing pressure to bear upon China to secure the fulfilment of her obligations to us. The Prince, who is living at the Summer Palace, received me at the Wai-wu Pu yesterday morning.
I expressed my regret at bringing his Highness into town for the visit, but explained the grave reasons which had obliged me to take the step. The conduct of relations with the Wai-wu Pu had been exceedingly difficult for some time past, and the situation had become so intolerable as to engage the serious attention of His Majesty's Government, who had come to the conclusion that the Imperial Government was deliberately trifling with its engagements. I had been here for some ten months, and although I had seen the Wai-wu Pa at least once a-week during that time, scarcely any perceptible progress had been made towards the solution of the numerous outstanding questions which had been handed over to me by my predecessor. A mere enumeration of these questions and a brief survey of the state in which they stood at present would perhaps best explain the reasons for the dissatisfaction felt by His Majesty's Government.
The Peking Syndicate's Shansi claim, the Tien-tsin-Yang-tsze Railway Concession, and the Soochow-Ningpo Railway extension formed the three main grounds of grievance, although there were many minor questions whose settlement had been vexatiously postponed.
The Peking Syndicate held two identical Agreements relating to two neigh- bouring Provinces--Honan and Shansi. The one for Honan had been in force for some three years, and no difficulty had been experienced in its working. A spurious agitation against the Syndicate, engineered largely by returned students from Japan, had been allowed to go on unchecked in Shansi until the authorities, rather than accept the responsibility of controlling their own people, preferred to break faith with the foreigner. The Imperial Government, in its turn, followed the lead of the province, and made no serious effort to execute an Agreement which it had attested with its seal as an evidence of good faith. The permit which had been promised nearly a year ago was still unissued, and the claim for compensation, daily increasing in amount, would soon attain proportions which would render its settlement a matter of urgency,
The
Turning to railways, I said the delay had been equally long and unnecessary. preliminary Agreement for the Tien-tsin-Yang-tsze line had been signed in 1899, and some four years had been wasted in negotiating the final contract. It was within my knowledge that the foreign negotiators had made great concessions and had gone to the limit of their powers in endeavouring to meet the Chinese on every point, but the only result was that, instead of their overtures being received in the spirit in which they were offered, an Imperial Decree was suddenly issued, practically undoing all their work.
As regards the Soochow-Ningpo extension, the case was still worse. There the Imperial Government had actively associated itself with the provinces in discarding the obligations it had contracted with us, and had gone the length of communicating to my predecessor a Decree practically cancelling the preliminary Agreement. His Majesty's Government had exercised great forbearance by allowing the question to remain in abeyance until the Cauton-Kowloon negotiations were completed, but advantage had been taken of that forbearance to encourage the construction of the line by a native Company. We had now, in my opinion, arrived at the parting of the ways in this question, when the Chinese Government must be called upon either to fulfil its engagement or to render account for its failure to do so to His Majesty's Government.
The Prince, who frequently interrupted me by some expression of dissent, began his reply by a formal assurance that the Chinese Government fully recognized all the undertakings I had enumerated as Imperial obligations, which they were determined to enforce so far as lay in their power. He regretted the delay which had taken place, and could realize the displeasure which it had caused to His Majesty's Government, but the
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