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[This Document is the Property of His Britannic Majesty's Government 7198
RECO ReP14 AUG 09
CHINA RAILWAYS.
CONFIDENTIAL.
[27719]
No. 1.
[July 22.]
SECTION 1.
¦
Mr. Rumbold to Sir Edward Grey.--(Received July 22.)
(No. 183. Confidential.)
Sir,
Takið, June 30, 1909. SOMEWHAT sensational reports having appeared in the local press regarding the Antung-Mukden Railway question, I asked the Vice-Minister for Foreign Affairs yesterday how the matter stood.
Mr. Ishii replied that the newspaper accounts were much exaggerated. The line ought to have been rebuilt a year ago. Taking their stand on the treaty signed at The Chinese Peking on the 22nd December, 1905, clause 6 of which reads, Government agrees to the military railway, constructed between Antung-cheng and Mukden, being transformed into a line for the transmission of merchandise of all nationals and conducted by the Japanese Government," that Government had pressed on the Viceroy of Manchuria the necessity for converting this line into one of a standard gauge The present line from Antung to Mukden had been constructed in a hurry at the time of the war. All tunnelling had been avoided, and the line was quite unsuited for commercial requirements. If the line was to be converted into a standard-gauge railway able to meet all requirements, Japanese engineers had decided that it must follow a slightly different alignment from that followed by the existing line. The Viceroy, Sih Liang, had contested both these demands. He maintained that the word "transformation in the treaty of the 22nd December, 1905, did not give Japan the right to convert the present narrow-gauge railway from Antung to Mukden » was meant into a broad-gange. His contention was that by "transforming the line "improving" it, and said that, even admitting the right of the Japanese Government to "improve" or reconstruct the line, it would have to be reconstructed on the present alignment.
With regard to the question of the policing of the line, Mr. Ishii said that his Government claimed that it was on all fours with that of the South Manchurian Railway, and that they had the right to protect the Antung-Mukden line with their own police.
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Meanwhile the Viceroy had gone on tour in the province, a proceeding which, in the circumstances, Mr. Ishii considered an outrage.' The Viceroy had, it is true, left behind an official with full powers to continue the negotiations with the Japanese authorities, but the Japanese Government knew perfectly well that he must refer to the Viceroy for instructions, and that the latter must, in the last resort, take his orders from Peking. The Japanese Government had accordingly now instructed their Minister at Peking to urge on the Chinese Government the necessity for speedily settling this
matter.
I asked Mr. Ishii how he accounted for the seemingly obstructive attitude of the Chinese authorities on this question. He said he was at a loss to explain it. It was certain that when the Antung-Mukden line had been converted into a standard-gauge railway all the passenger traffic from the Far East to Europe would go viâ Antung, He could only suppose that the Chinese Government were thinking of the date on which they would be entitled by treaty to purchase the Antung-Mukden Railway, i.e., fifteen years after its transformation. They would get the present line considerably cheaper than the proposed standard-gauge railway.
This question is discussed with considerable acrimony by the Japanese press, which makes severe strictures on the unreliability of Chinese diplomacy and its powers of obstruction.
I have forwarded a copy of this despatch to His Majesty's Minister at Peking.
I have, &c.
HORACE RUMBOLD.
[2336 y—1]