[This Document is the Property of His Britannic Majesty's Government.]
C 0.
97
12734
CHINA RAILWAYS.
[March 22.]
CONFIDENTIAL.
Page14 APR OC
SECTION 1.
[10913]
No. 1.
(No. 94.) Sir,
Sir J. Jordan to Sir Edward Grey.-(Received March 22.)
Peking, March 1, 1909. I HAVE the honour to report briefly on an episode which has occurred in connection with the Canton-Hankow Railway negotiations.
Mr. Odagiri, the Japanese representative of the Yokohama Specie Bank, to whom his Excellency Chang Chih-tung is under special obligation for a loan of 2,000,000 yen which he contracted before leaving Wuchang, arrived here a few days after the negotiations commenced and has remained ever since in close communication with the Grand Secretary. Lord ffrench and Mr. Bland have both represented to me at various times that Mr. Odagiri was exercising an unfavourable influence upon their negotiations, but I was reluctant to interfere in the matter until I found that the Japanese intervention was really of a serious nature.
Your telegram No. 29 pointed to this contingency having occurred, and, acting upon your authorization to endeavour to get the Japanese opposition to Messrs. Pauling and Co. withdrawn, I saw Mr. Ijuin, my Japanese colleague, on the 16th instant and put before him fully the reasons which, as stated in the inclosed letter from Mr. Bland, justified the belief that Mr. Odagiri was acting in a manner prejudicial to our interests.
Mr. Ijuin absolutely repudiated the charge made against Mr. Odagiri, who, he explained, was here on other business and would have taken no special interest in the Canton-Hankow negotiations had it not been for certain overtures for construction contracts which Lord ffrench had made to him. These had been telegraphed a few days previously by Mr. Ijuin to the Japanese Government and by Mr. Odagiri to his principals in Japan. In view, however, of what I had said, Mr. Ijuin gave me a formal and positive assurance that Mr. Odagiri would abstain from all further intervention, and this assurance was conveyed to Lord ffrench and Mr. Blaud. was also embodied in a note which the latter addressed to Mr. Odagiri, and of which a copy is inclosed.
It
I was somewhat surprised therefore to receive, three days later, a letter (copy inclosed) from Lord ffrench in which he informed me that he had been authorized by Messrs. Pauling and Co. to discuss with Mr. Odagiri an arrangement by which the Japanese were to participate in the profits of any construction contracts which Messrs. Pauling and Co. might obtain in China. Lord ffrench inquired whether there was any objection on the part of the British Government to such a scheme.
In my reply, copy of which is likewise inclosed, I informed Lord ffrench that I could not, consistently with my former action, support his proposal and that I must continue to deprecate any overtures for Japanese participation in railway undertakings.
I have, &c. (Signed) J. N. JORDAN.
Inclosure 1 in No. 1.
Dear Sir John,
Mr. Bland to Sir J. Jordan,
Peking, February 16, 1909. REFERRING to what you said yesterday evening in regard to Japanese intervention in the Yueh-Han negotiations, the following facts afford, I think, a chain of evidence sufficiently circumstantial to justify the opinion that the British advantage intended to be conferred by the Hong Kong Government's loan to his Excellency Chang is being neutralized by Japanese influences :----
1. When the loan was made the influence of the Japanese was sufficient to induce his Excellency Chang to place on record his obligations to them in his despatch to Mr. Fraser of September 1905.
[2193 y-1)
B