[This Document is the Property of His Britannic Majesty's Government.]
CHINA RAILWAYS.
CONFIDENTIAL.
[765]
No. 1.
[January 8.]
SECTION 2.
Sir J. Jordan to Sir Edward Grey (Received January 8.)
(No. 8.) (Telegraphic.) P.
Peking, January 8, 1908, SOOCHOW-NINGPO Railway. Please see my telegram No. 1 of the 2nd instant. Yuan-Shih-Kai expressed to me at interview yesterday his regret that he could give no assurance about the Soochow-Ningpo Agreement. He added that if it were signed at the present moment an outbreak in the province might result, and that the Chinese Government could not accept responsibility for such an outbreak.
He said that the great difficulty was still the Decree of 1905, and he put forward suggestions for a solution of this difficulty which involved practically cancellation of the contract.
I think that in these circumstances we should sign the Tien-tsin-Yang-tsze Agreement, and trust that eventual solution of the other may be obtained by patient insistence.
[790]
No. 2.
Sir J. Jordan to Sir Edward Grey.-(Received January 8.)
(No. 9.) (Telegraphic.) P.
Peking, January 8, 1908. NORTHERN Railways extension. Please see your telegram No. 4 of the 7th instant.
An engagement as described was, I understand, recorded in the Minutes exchanged by Plenipotentiaries after the Conference of December 1905. Chinese do not, I believe, deny it, but question whether its application can be extended to the country west of the Liao River.
Article III of the Loan Agreement of 1898 contemplated extension of Northern Railway, and it is urged that there will be nothing prejudicial to the South Manchurian Railway, which is thirty miles away, with river intervening, in the proposed line which will tap a new country.
My despatch No. 576 of the 10th December deals with the question from this point of view.
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