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This Document is the Property of His Britannic Majesty's Gover4840
CHINA RAILWAYS.
CONFIDENTIAL.
[1696]
No. 1.
RESP
REW 18 THE 10
[February 2.]
SECTION 2.
Sir,
Sir Edward Grey to the United States Chargé d'Affaires.
Foreign Office, February 2, 1910. WITH reference to your letter to Sir Charles Hardinge of the 11th ultimo relative to the Hukuan Loan negotiations, I have the honour to inform you that I have now been informed by the French Embassy that the proposed division of the Szechuan Railway (Hankow-Ichang) into four equal parts among the four groups is not unacceptable to the French Government, provided that the principle of equality between the French and British groups be extended to the Hankow-Canton Railway by the appointment of a French sub-engineer, and that, in the event of China granting the concession for the extensiou beyond Ichang, the French group receive, as com- pensation for the section they are giving up to the American group, the fourth or most westerly section of the Hankow-Szechuan line, which was allotted to the British group by the agreement of the 14th May last, made at Berlin, and subsequently ratified in London.
I have informed the French Government, in reply, that, while noting with satisfaction their acceptance of the proposal in regard to the division of the Szechuan line, I see no reason for departing from the understanding arrived at last spring in regard to the two points above alluded to, since the inclusion of the American group involves equal sacrifices on the Szechuan line for all three groups, and cannot therefore be held to affect the distribution of engineering sections on either line in the manner suggested by the French Government. I added that, in the opinion of His Majesty's Government, the reopening of these questions was to be greatly depre- cated as tending to the conclusion that there was to be no finality in any of these negotiations.
I have, &c.
(2631 b-2)
E. GREY.