[This Document is the Property of His Britannic Majesty's Government.
CHINA RAILWAYS.
CONFIDENTIAL.
[18356]
No. 1.
419
C.O.
ment 7899
RECR
Arc 27 MAY OG
[April 30.]-
SECTION 1.
Mr. Addis to Foreign Office. (Received April 30.)
Dear Sir Francis,
31, Lombard Street, London, April 30, 1909. I HAD a talk last night with Mr. Kato, the Japanese Ambassador, in the course of which the Hankow-Canton negotiations were referred to. I pointed out to him that the Japanese were as vitally interested as we were in the protest addressed to the Chinese Government, because if the Germans were allowed to secure the loan it would involve, equally with our own, the forfeiture of Japanese rights under the Convention of 1905 to supply half the engineers on the line. Mr. Kato concurred in this view, but doubted if this prospective loss would justify a Japanese protest now. I agreed as to that, but pointed out to Mr. Kato that, to judge from the present state of the negotiations, in a few days his protest might be too late. I suggested that, in any case, a question might be made as effective as a protest, and that no exception could be taken to the Japanese Minister informing the Wai-wu Pu that he was advised that the Germans were negotiating a loan for the Hankow-Canton Railway, and that he desired to know if, in the event of their being successful, the Japanese could count upon the preference secured to them by the Convention of 1905 being made effective.
Mr. Kato appeared to think well of the suggestion, and undertook to telegraph on the subject to the Japanese Minister at Peking this morning.
Yours truly, (Signed)
C. S. ADDIS.
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