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[This Document is the Property of His Britannic Majesty's Government.
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6818
AFFAIRS OF CHINA.
CONFIDENTIAL.
[27358]
No. 1.
zo9 10 AUG CO
[July 20.]
SECTION 1.
(No. 164. Sir,
Mr. Bryce to Sir Edward Grey.-(Received July 20.)
Confidential.}
North-East Harbour, July 10, 1909. BEING in the company of the President two days ago, I took the opportunity, in the course of a long private conversation, of referring to the subject of China and especially to the recent question regarding the railway loan. He seemed to know comparatively little about the correspondence and details of the matter, though be referred with disapprobation to some earlier doings of certain American financiers there, who had tried to hand over to the King of the Belgians a contract they had secured. But he expressed his desire to do all he could for American trade in China, dwelling upon the extreme exiguity of the mercantile marine of the United States and the need for trying to do whatever might be possible to increase it. Many changes, some of them serious, might, he thought, be expected in China, but he did not believe that she was now, or was likely for a long time to become, a danger to the civilised Powers. She had not yet, for one thing, any national feeling or capacity for vigorous national action. He much wished to see her resources developed for commercial purposes, but did not like the way in which the Germans and Japanese were striving to get for themselves all they could out of her.
I told him that His Majesty's Government desired to work in harmony with the United States and had welcomed their co-operation in endeavouring to secure the so-called " open door," referring in that connection to our concurrence in the attitude the United States Government had taken up at Kbarbin. I added that we wished
to remove the suspicions which the Chinese entertained, and for which the rapacity of some foreign adventurers had given ground; that British policy sought to secure fair treatment for China and stop the efforts at unscrupulous exploitation, which were sometimes made.
He expressed his concurrence, saying that the persons who had most favourably impressed him when he was in the Far East were the missionaries; and I gathered that, while be is earnest in his wish to obtain for the United States a good share of trade with China, he has no particular interest in these loans of which so much has been said, further or otherwise than as they may serve to stimulate American
commerce.
I have, &c.
JAMES BRYCE.
[2353 u-)
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