(This Document is the Property of His Britannic Majesty's Government.]
309
2
bridges, and rolling-stock, it is probable that the total cost of the line will not fall far short of 6,000,000%.
This is a great deal more than such a railway ought to have cost; indeed, it is an open secret that there has been not a little gaspillage, to use no stronger term, Some affirm that the French have been the less careful to keep down expenses, because they desired to put it beyond the power of China to repurchase the line, or, if, per impossibile, the latter did raise the money for repurchase, because they looked to China to pay the piper. Since the Peking Government would expect Yunnan to provide the greater part, if not the whole, of the purchase price; since France is not likely to ask less than 6,000,0001.; and since Yünnan, unaided, could hardly raise a tithe of that sum, it would seem as if the negotiations now said to be on foot between the Chinese Minister at Paris and the French Government are not to be taken very seriously.
To return to the Reports. You will notice how even so very unimportant a question as the transference of an iron bridge from one position to another has to be submitted to the Governor-General of Indo-China for sanction. You will observe, also, the distrust felt by the Construction Company of the action of the Chinese authorities; in particular, the conviction that nothing will be done to protect the line from theft, Attention, too, is drawn to the constant landslides from which the permanent way suffers during the rains, notably in the Namhti Valley.
These landslides have, indeed, so delayed progress that for the three weeks ended the 15th September last, no rails could be laid down. Railhead is at the present time (the 24th October) at about kilometre 64 above Laokai. By the 1st January next it is expected that the line will, nevertheless, be in full working order up to Lahati (kilometre 71), and will be to this extent handed over to the concessionary Company. It will, however, be noticed that a change is proposed in the site for this station (Report No. 42, section 5).
The rest of the Report needs little comment. Pi-che-tehai (Pi-sc Chai) is the point where the railway descends to the Mengtzu plain, and where the customs station for Mengtzu is to be situated (see my despatch No. 11 of the 9th June last). Tche- ts'ouan (Chih-ch'uang) is the station for Mi-la-ti (kilometre 156), a plateau, 5,578 feet abore sea-level, that has been suggested as a possible health resort for Tongking. Amitchéou (A-mi Chou), whose insanitary condition is deplored, is designed to be the first railway stage from Yunnan-fu-the stage where travellers by rail will have to spend the night. As regards the question of the reservation of a towing-path between the Yunnan-sen (Yunnan-fu) station and the river, I have not heard the result of M. Arnould's conference; but the land remains unoccupied. The river empties into the K'un-yang Lake (the largest of the Yunnan lakes), and if properly canalized could bring cargo-boats right up to the station-hence the importance to the Railway Company fo keeping its approaches open.
I bave, &c. (Signed)
W. H. WILKINSON.
CHINA RAILWAYS.
CONFIDENTIAL.
(40886]
(No. 514.) Sir,
No. 1.
920
[December 14.]
SECTION 59 JAN 08
Sir J. Jordan to Sir Edward Grey.-(Received December 14.)
Peking, October 30, 1907. THE accompanying letter from Mr. Bland, the agent of the British and Chinese Corporation, deals with a question which is in serious need of adjustment in view of the extension of railway construction in China. The report which Mr. Bland incloses. from the Traffic Manager of the Shanghae-Nanking Railway shows how that line is affected by the discrimination in favour of water-borne traffic in the matter of li-kin charges and similar difficulties are certain to occur wherever the two means of communication come into competition with each other. What is really wanted is a uniform tariff and system of collection adapted to the altered conditions consequent upon the development of railway construction, but the Board of Communications has, by the composition of its personnel, been singularly unfitted from the outset to deal with this and other pressing problems.
It will help
Mr. Pope's communication will at least serve one useful purpose.
us to furnish an answer to the continual complaints which the Chinese make about the Shanghae-Nanking Railway being an undertaking which can never hope to prove remunerative owing to the extravagant outlay in its construction. This is one of the arguments which they have repeatedly used against being obliged to embark in the Soochow-Ningpo extension.
The Shanghae-Nanking line will be the first railway in China, with the trifling exception of the Canton-Samshui line, to form a link of communication between Treaty ports, and some arrangement will have to be made for assimilating the duties charged upon goods carried by it to those levied under the Maritime Customs Tariff on steamer-borne produce.
Mr. Bland has submitted the whole question to the Board of Communications and asked for the appointment of a Director-General with whom the matter may be discussed and arranged, but as long as his Excellency Ch'ên-pi remains at the head of that Board there is little hope of a satisfactory solution.
I have, &c. (Signed)
My dear Sir John,
Inclosure 1 in No. 1.
Mr. Bland to Sir J. Jordan.
J. N. JORDAN.
Peking, October 24, 1907. HEREIN I send you the Shanghae-Nanking Railway Traffic Manager's Report. on the question of li-kin, wherein he describes a state of affairs that soriously prejudices the railway's chances of success, and which constitutes, as he points out, a breach of the Loan Agreement. The Chinese have frequently complained that the expenditure involved in the construction and equipment of this line as a first-class railway in accordance with the British standard prevents it from being a remunerative undertaking. There is some justification for this point of view (although in the Loan Agreement this system of construction was stipulated), and they have used their grievance in this matter as leverage to obtain the abolition of the Board of Commis- sioners and substitution therefor of a system of control similar to that which exists on the Northern Railways. The Corporation, recognizing that control by Board of Commissioners against the will of the Chinese could only prolong a state of friction prejudicial to the interests of the railway, has agreed, experimentally, to this change, provided that it involves no infringement of the rights of the bondholders, &c. But before it actually comes into effect, I think (and I hope you will concur) that the Chinese Government should give some satisfactory proof, by remedying these li-kin abuses, that their object in desiring the change is not simply to securo Chinese control of the line, but to improve its administration. So long as they permit the
[2768 o-5]
B