2
This Document is the Property of His Britannic Majesty's Government.]
claimed is now confined to a mere question of engineering rights, absolute equality as regards finance and material having already been conceded.
In these circumstances I earnestly trust that the United States Government will see their way to accepting the point of view of His Majesty's Government in the matter, and I have no reason to doubt that their acquiescence would greatly facilitate an agreement between the four groups, which, in view of recent events in the Yang-tsze Valley, is daily becoming more urgent.
[B]
CHINA RAILWAYS,
CONFIDENTIAL.
I have, &c.
E. GREY.
[12286]
No. 1.
Mr. Bryce to Sir Edward Grey.-(Received April 11.)
(No. 72. Confidential.) Sir,
C. O.
112) 50
[April 11
SECTION 2.
TREST
(REG. 28 Ark 10
Washington, March 31, 1910. I HAVE the honour to inform you that I had this morning an interview with the President of the United States, in the course of which the subject of the Manchurian railways was mentioned, and I took the opportunity of speaking to him in the sense of your telegram of the 26th instant. Though he said that the Secretary of State had kept him au courant of the negotiations that have been going on his knowledge did not seem to be complete, for he was under the impression that His Majesty's Govern- ment had in the first instance encouraged British financiers to take up the projected Chinchow-Aigun line, and had thereafter drawn back and refused their support. I told him that this was not the case, His Majesty's Government having never committed itself to any financiers regarding that line, and I explained to him that Messrs. Pauling had all through acted entirely on their own responsibility, His Majesty's Government neither supporting them nor interfering to hold them back. He said his wish was to see Manchuria become a sort of buffer country between Japan and Russia, its railways being internationalised, i.e., managed and policed in the general interest without preferential advantages to any Power in particular. Stating that while in principle His Majesty's Government saw much to recommend that view, they were at the same time obliged to have regard to the practical difficulties which arose from the positions and claims of Japan and Russia respectively. I described the general situation and the attitude Great Britain felt herself bound to assume in terms similar to those which you had used in your conversations with Mr. Whitelaw Reid, adverting to the reasons which made it necessary at present to take due note of the susceptibilities of Russia, and conveying to him that we had no selfish interest whatever in the matter, nor any wish except to prevent friction. So far as His Majesty's Government could co-operate with the United States without departing from their engagements they would gladly do so, and it was my hope that he would at any time, when any question might arise regarding the relations of our policy to that administration, frankly express lis views to me in order that I might convey them to you. I need hardly observe that not only is it quite usual and regular here for the President to take up questions of foreign policy himself, but that he is by nature so much more frank and expansive than his Secretary of State, from whom it is difficult to extract anything whatever, that an exchange of views with him is far more likely to attain substantial results. It was his direct interposition that averted the tariff war between Canada and the United States which the tactlessness of the State Department had nearly brought about.
The President did not appear to me to have taken umbrage at the action of His Majesty's Government, though he may not have quite understood all the reasons for it, and in what little he said to me there was nothing of the querulousness which has, I find, been attributed to Mr. Knox, though, as the latter has never spoken to me at all on the subject of Manchuria, I do not know what his personal attitude may be.
I have, &c.
JAMES BRYCE.
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