[This Document is the Property of His Britannic Majesty's Governmen
CHINA RAILWAYS,
CONFIDENTIAL.
[46758]
No. 1.
92
2765
Rece
RegP28 JAN 10
[December 28.J
SECTION 3.
Sir J. Jordan to Sir Edward Grey.-(Received December 28.)
(No. 4 5.) Sir,
Peking, December 7, 1909. SINCE my despatch No. 398 of the 30th October last was written, I have kept the question of the Shanghae-Ningpo Railway steadily before the attention of the Wai-wu Pu, and to-day I had an interview with the President and Vice-President of the Board of Communications on the subject. The latter official, it may be mentioned, is Wang Ta-hsieh, the late Chinese Minister in London, who took a very creditable part in the loan negotiations of this railway, and incurred for his loyalty to us the resentment of his fellow-provincials in Chêkiang to such an extent that he found it convenient to absent himself from China for a time and return to England on a mission of investigation.
Both the President and the Vice-President assured me that they hoped shortly to be in a position to give effect to the promise that the provisions of the loan agreement would be enforced. Tang Shou-ch'ien, the president of the Chêkiang Railway Bureau, had, they admitted, been the main cause of the difficulties that had arisen. He had been appointed to a high office in Yünnan, and had now been transferred to the post of Literary Chancellor in Kiangsi. Tang's stay in Peking had given them many opportunities of talking over the matter with him here, and he now fully realised that the local attitude was no longer tenable. Even were he now to return to Chôkiang, he would go back with new ideas and a new policy.
I expressed grave doubts as to T'aug's conversion being proof against the influence of his former associates, and strongly deprecated the idea of his resuming any connection with the railway.
While welcoming the assurances which their Excellencies were good enough to give me, I said that I could not forget that so long ago as last July Prince Ch'ing had himself held out similar hopes which were still unfulfilled. In these circumstances, I asked that their statements should be embodied in a communication to the Wai-wu Pu, the purport of which could be furnished to me by that board, and this they agreed to do.
They mentioned the proper expenditure of the loan funds and the control of the construction work by the chief engineer as the main points requiring attention. On my adding the issue of tenders for material, they said I might rest assured that there would be no repetition of the disagreeable incidents which had occurred in that connection.
I have, &c.
J. N. JORDAN,
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