This Document is the Property of His Britannic Majesty's Government
AFFAIRS OF CHINA.
CONFIDENTIAL.
[March 20.]
SECTION 1.
[10143]
(No. 81.) (Extract.)
No. 1.
Sir Edward Grey to Sir F. Lascelles.
Foreign Office, March 20, 1908.
COUNT METTERNICH took the occasion of being here to-day to say to me that a misunderstanding had arisen in the Far East.
The Russian Government had the right to control a certain amount of land on each side of that part of the Manchurian Railway which was in their hands. It had been reported that Germany was disputing this right. But, as a matter of fact, all that had happened was that one German trader had been subjected to severer treatment than was accorded to others in the territory adjoining the railway, and the German Minister at Peking had taken up his case on that ground.
I told Count Metternich that I had, of course, heard of what had taken place in Persia, but this was the first I had heard of any misunderstanding having arisen elsewhere. It sometimes happened in Eastern countries that the inhabitants did not give to the Representatives of one foreign nation accurate accounts of the action taken by the Representatives of another foreign nation.
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