:
536
Copy.
(22451/09).
Paraphrase of Telegram from Foreign Office to Sir J.
Jordan, No. 109, dated June 14th, 1909.
Hankow-Szechuan Railway.
Please see my immediately preceding telegram.
On June 10th the United States Ambassador told
me that in the view of his Government it was not
within our power to fix the time when American rights
would lapse if they took no action.
I replied that we made no such claim; our people
had, however, given the Americans fair notice, and
did not think that they had any choice but to make the
agreement they had made.
The Ambassador, while admitting that it was un-
fortunate that the United States Government had let
pass our notice in silence, still held that the Ameri-
can rights had not lapsed. In the present unsatis-
factory state of affairs in China the United States
Government thought it extremely undesirable that the
Chinese