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[This Document is the Property of His Britannic Majesty's GREoned)
CHINA RAILWAYS.
CONFIDEN ITAL.
RFG TO FEB 10
[January 27.]
SECTION 3.
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[3099]
No. 1.
India Office to Foreign Office.-(Received January 27.)
THE Under-Secretary of State for India presents his compliments to the Under- Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, and begs to enclose, for the information of Sir E. Grey, a copy of a letter from the Chief Secretary to the Government of Burmalı to the Foreign Secretary to the Government of India, dated the 4th December last, relative to railway matters in Yünnan.
India Office, January 26, 1910.
Dear Mr. Butler,
Enclosure 1 in No. 1.
Government of Burmah to Government of India.
Chief Secretary's Office, December 4, 1909. I AM desired to refer to the correspondence ending with this Government's letter dated the 11th November, 1909, relating to the proposed construction of a railway from Bhamo to Tengyueh. I am to forward, for the information of the Government of India, a copy of a demi-official letter, dated the 2nd December, 1909, from Mr. Rose on the subject. It contains some interesting information, illustrating the importance of improving coramunication between Western Yunnan and Burmah, if the trade is not to be entirely diverted by the French railway, The Government of India are aware that Sir Herbert White is in full concurrence with the views expressed by Mr. Rose as to the extreme urgency of the case and the importance of arriving at a speedy settlement of the negotiations with the Chinese Government on the subject of the proposed railway from Bhamo.
Enclosure 2 in No. 1.
Yours, &c.
W. F. RICE.
(Semi-official.)
Consul Rose to Government of India,
Tengyuch, December 2, 1909. I RETURN with many thanks the Yunnan Railway papers, several of which are new to me and are most interesting. I cannot help feeling that this is the one really important question before us, and that, once settled, it would prove easy to deal with the other matters now outstanding--the undelimited frontier and any treaty revision suggested by our economic needs (I refer especially to opium, salt, and grain). There is little new to add to the information now before you. As a sign of the times you may be interested to hear that the Japanese Foreign Office has just sent a man to Yünnan, and he will travel through the province chiefly with a view to introducing their cotton yarn. I hear also in this connection that the Japanese consul-general in Canton has been instructed to proceed to Tonkin to try and arrange rates and terms with the French railway authorities for transport to Yunnan-fu. A Japanese is being sent also from Yunnan-fu to Talifu to work up their trade there and to start a leather factory, under the patronage of the Provincial Government, if he thinks it will pay better there than at the provincial capital. These moves cut directly at our export of Burmab cotton and Indian yarn and our import of hides into Burmah.
The Japanese have evidently realised that, with the completion of the French railway-now a matter of a few months only-Talifu will be within twelve days of the railhead, whereas there are twenty mule stages to Bhamo, and the western route will no longer pay. Talifu is the collecting and distributing centre on which the
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