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[This Document is the Property of His Britannic Majesty's Government.]
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AFFAIRS OF CHINA,
CONFIDENTIAL.
[2212]
No. 1.
[January 19.]
SECTION 1.
Sir J. Jordan to Sir Edward Grey.-(Received January 19.)
(No. 2. Confidential.) Sir,
Peking, January 2, 1911.
I HAVE the honour to acknowledge the receipt of your despatch No. 340 of the 27th September last, enclosing copies of correspondence between yourself and His Majesty's Ambassador at Washington in regard to the irritation felt in certain circles in America at the attitude adopted by His Majesty's Government towards American proposals for the construction of railways in Manchuria, and inviting me to offer suggestions as to what action could properly be taken to soothe in some degree this feeling of irritation.
The soreness which apparently exists at Washington on the subject of British policy in China dates from June 1909, when the Americans intervened in the Hukuang Railway question. Mr. Rockhill, the American Minister, who had no sympathy with the new departure in American policy in China, was transferred to St. Petersburgh, and the direction of the legation was placed in the hands of Mr. Fletcher, who warmly espoused the cause of the American financiers and greatly underestimated the difficulties which the enforcement of the new policy necessarily involved.
Mr. Straight, a comparatively young man, who had risen with unexampled rapidity from a subordinate position in the Chinese Customs service to the post of United States consul-general at Mukden, came here to represent the American group of financiers, and both he and Mr. Fletcher were impatient at the delay in the negotiations which prevented them from realising the extravagant expectations with which the scheme of industrial exploitation of China had been launched.
The correspondents of the "New York Herald" and of other American newspapers were not slow to attribute the failure of American plans to the attitude of the British group of financiers, and for a time the relations of the two groups were somewhat strained. All this has now passed away, and a feeling of mutual confidence has happily taken its place.
As regards the more immediate subject of American irritation-our attitude towards the Chinchow-Aigun Railway project-a reconciliation of views is, I fear, far more difficult. The project is essentially a political one rather than an economic one. It originated with Tong Shoa-yi, when Governor of Mukden, and was avowedly an attempt to enlist American and British support as a means of counteracting the growing influence of Japan in Manchuria. It aroused much enthusiasm amongst a considerable number of Chinese officials in Peking who had received their education in America, and great disappointment was felt that the British Government did not see its way to join the Americans in championing what were considered the rights of China. Our reluctance to do more than play the part of benevolent spectators was freely ascribed by American newspaper correspondents to our alliance with Japan, which obliged us to sacrifice our commercial interests to considerations of political friendship. Japan, it is generally considered, is following the procedure in Manchuria which led to the annexation of Corea, and it is thought strange that we should view with indifference the prospect of one of the richest regions in Asia being eventually closed against our trade by a highly protective tariff.
Assuming even that Japan is bent upon the absorption of Manchuria, I do not myself see that any measures which we or the United States are likely to take will seriously affect the result. The future of Manchuria will probably depend more upon China herself, and the ability of her people to meet Japanese economie competition than upon any outside support which even the United States will feel justified in offering.
So far, therefore, as Manchuria is concerned, I am afraid we cannot do much, having regard to
our obligations to Japan, to soothe American susceptibilities. If the Americans would accept any of the various compromises that have at different
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