གང
[This Document is the Property of His Britannic Majesty's Covernment]
AFFAIRS OF CHINA.
CONFIDENTIAL
[44583]
[December 9.]
621
SECTION 5.
Rece
No. 1.
Rag 7 JAN ||
Sir,
India Office to Foreign Office.-(Received December 9.)
India Office, December 8, 1910. WITH reference to your letters dated the 10th November and 5th December, 1910, forwarding copy of a telegram and despatch from His Majesty's chargé d'affaires at Peking in regard to certain boundary cairns on the Burmah-China frontier, I am directed to enclose copy of telegraphic correspondence with the Viceroy on the subject.
Lord Crewe adheres to the view expressed in the third paragraph of my letter dated the 8th July, 1910, that there can be no question of allowing the accuracy of these cairns, which has been unchallenged for ten years, to be disputed. But he agrees with the Government of India that there would be no objection, if the point is pressed by the Chinese Government, to the deputation of an officer to accompany a Chinese official along the frontier for the purpose of adding Chinese translations of the English inscriptions on the existing cairns.
The Government of India have been requested to repeat their telegram of the 26th November, 1910, to Peking.
Enclosure in No. 1.
I
am, &c.
R. RITCHIE,
Government of India to the Earl of Crewe.
(Telegraphic.)
November 26, 1910. PLEASE refer to your telegram dated the 16th instant regarding Burmah- China frontier.
Following telegram received from Burmah Government, whom we have con-
sulted:
"Cairns on Burmah-China frontier. Please refer to your telegram dated the 11th instant.
"Middle (?) section of frontier which Scott and General Liu demarcated in 1898-9 is marked by cairn No. 97. According to report by Scott, he and General Liu agreed to the erection of permanent cairns in the place of the temporary pillars which the Boundary Commission set up. It was agreed further that cairns should be erected by us in the presence of local authorities on both sides, and that half the cost should be borne by China. They agreed further that, to avoid floods, the nearest available high ground, and not the site of temporary cairns, should in many cases be selected as site for permanent cairns; and that inscription indicating distance of cairns from actual frontier should be made in English and Chinese on the cairns. Full effect was not given to this agreement. Permanent cairns were erected in 1900-1 by Sergeant Mackenzic of the Public Works Department, but Chinese were not invited to be present, and it is believed that none attended. Inscriptions in English were placed on the cairns by Sergeant Mackenzie. Statement of Wai-wu Pu is therefore accurate in regard to inscriptions and original proposals, but proposal that a joint commission should now be appointed to add inscription in Chinese would be resisted by the lieutenant-governor. Operation of Sergeant Mackenzie was not objected to by Chinese. Joint commission would probably cause trouble, and the lieutenant-governor would not now accept it, seeing that Chinese, who might have accompanied Mackenzie and made inscriptions in Chinese, abstained from doing so.
"As regards cairns' position, there is no reason to doubt their accuracy as erected and inscribed by Mackenzie. Slight difference in position of some cairns from original situation may have been caused by subsequent repairs and recon- structions due to Shweli River changing its bed, but frontier is probably still
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