This Document is the Property of His Britannic Majesty's Government.]
C
35
[Β]
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CHINA RAILWAYS,
CONFIDENTIAL.
[14208]
No. 1.
14294
[April 25.1
HC12 MA 10
SECTION 1.
Mr. C. S. Addis to Foreign Office.--(Received April 25.)
31, Lombard Street, London, April 23, 1910. Dear Mr. Alston,
WHAT is styled the Anglo-German Agreement of 1898 is, I believe, a figment of the imagination. The only foundation for the myth would appear to be the minutes of a meeting between the representatives of the Anglo-German groups in London on the 1st September, 1898, and reproduced in Blue Book No. 1 of 1899. when the following resolution was passed:
held
"It is desirable for the British and German Governments to agree about the spheres of interests of their countries regarding the railway concessions in China, and to mutually support the interests of either country."
The Resolution was communicated to both Governments and approved by them, but that was all. The minutes themselves do not appear to have been confirmed or ratified either by the Governments or by their groups. The Resolution therefore never emerged from the academic stage. No doubt an agreement was originally contemplated, and in 1903 an attempt was made by the British group to induce the Germans to confirm the validity of the minutes or Protocol, as it had then come to be described. This the Germans categorically declined to do (vide Van Hansemann's letter of the 19th February, 1903), on the ground that, moved by the fear that the northern traffic might be diverted to Kiouchau if the northern or German section of the Tien-tsin-Pukow line were completed before the British or southern section. Great Britain had not only not supported the interests of Germany within their sphere, but had deliberately broken the compact by placing obstacles in the way of the German negotiations with the Chinese Government.
A second unsuccessful attempt to induce the Government to confirm the validity of the minutes or Protocol was made in 1909, in order to prevent German competition for the Ilankow-Canton Railway. By this time the minutes, or Protocol of 1898 had dwindled in German lips to an "understanding," which they, denounced on the ground that it had been rendered invalid by Van Hansemann's letter of the 19th February, 1903, or alternatively, if valid, it was irrelevant, since it applied only to railway concessions to foreigners, and not to cases where the Chinese kept the construction in their own hands.
It only remains to add that whatever may be thought of the German contention, the policy of spheres of interests was definitely abandoned by the British group in the formal agreement signe by them with the Germans and the French on the 6th July, 1909.
Yours truly,
C. S. ADDIS.
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