[This Document is the Property of His Britannic Majesty's Government.]
CHINA RAILWAYS.
C.O. 12195
49
[March 12.]
CONFIDENTIAL.
RECR REGP 9 APR OF
SECTION 1.
No. 1.
[9705]
(No. 44.)
Sir Edward Grey to Sir J. Jordan,
(Telegraphic.) P.
Foreign Office, March 12, 1909. WITH reference to your telegram No. 59 of the 12th instant in regard to the Hankow-Canton Railway, I have to inform you that the German representatives explained at a meeting which took place to-day that their agent had concluded the Preliminary Agreement under a misunderstanding, that they earnestly desired to rescind, if possible, the terms agreed to, and expressed the hope that the support of the British and French Ministers might be relied on to help them doing this. A draft Agreement was submitted by the British and Chinese Corporation, arranging that the three Syndicates should issue all railway loans on equal terms, and, with regard to the control of the funds, on conditions not inferior to those on which the loan for the Canton-Kowloon Railway was negotiated, the three groups in rotation to nominate the Chief Engineer. The British representatives claimed, however, that in the case of the Hankow-Canton and Pukow-Sibyang lines the engineer should be British, and that this last stipulation should not apply in regard to those lines.
and
With the exception of the following German reservations—
(1.) That the arrangement should apply to all financial as well as railway loaus;
(2.) That the exclusion of the Hankow-Canton and Pukow-Siuyang lines from the stipulation with reference to the Chief Engineer should be approved by their authorities in Berlin;
the Agreement was accepted in the form in which it was presented.
(2193
M -1]
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