This Document is the Property of His Britannic Majesty's Government.]
CHINA RAILWAYS.
CONFIDENTIAL.
[3059]
C.O. 12195
40
[January 23.]
RECR BraP APR O
SECTION 4.
No. 1.
Sir J. Jordan to Sir Edward Grey.~(Received January 23.)
(No. 33.) (Telegraphic.) P.
ČANTON-HANKOW Railway.
Peking, January 23, 1909.
With reference to your telegram of the 22nd instant, on the subject of German participation in the loan for the construction of the above-mentioned railway, I venture to suggest that no arrangement which affects the rights as regards engineers and material, granted to us by the Agreement of September 1905 in return for the redemption loan made by the Hong Kong Government, should be permitted by His Majesty's Government.
The British agents at Hankow and Peking have in the past vigorously and with success maintained these rights, and they have again and again been admitted by the Chinese Government. Should any further changes be introduced without the sanction of the latter, it is quite possible that the whole arrangement will fall through.
I am strongly of the opinion that no railway loan should be made to China purely as a financial transaction. The Chinese are continually attempting to assert the right to use, for any purposes they please, British funds which they have acquired under solemn Agreements for the sole purpose of constructing railways, and it is the daily task of His Majesty's Representative in Peking to combat these pretensions.
The difficulties experienced by us in the working of the Tien-tsin-Pukow and Shanghae-Ningpo Agreements, reported in my despatches Nos. 509 and 571, have convinced me that His Majesty's Government should carefully examine the guarantees for the proper expenditure of future railway loans.
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