[This Document is the Property of His Britannic Majesty's Government.
CHINA RAILWAYS.
CONFIDENTIAL.
282
со
1537+
[April 3.]
SECTION 1.
Rest | MAY 11
No. 1.
[12146]
(No. 118.) Sir,
Sir J. Jordan to Sir Edward Grey.-(Received April 3.)
Peking, March 14, 1911. ON the 27th February last I received a telegram from His Majesty's consul- general at Shanghai, reporting that the Kiangsu and Chekiang railway boards had given the engineer-in-chief, Mr. Foord, three months' notice of dismissal, and this information was confirmed by a telegram which reached the agent of the British and Chinese Corporation at the same time.
I saw the Wai-wu Pu a day or two later, and told them that this was the final stage of this long-drawn-out controversy, and that I was determined, so far as lay in my power, to bring the question to an issue. Three years ago almost to a day the board had entered into an agreement with us for the construction of this railway, and less than a fortnight later had signed an arrangement with the two railway companies, which cancelled the agreement with us and constituted as deliberate a breach of faith as it was possible to imagine.
Amongst the Ministers present who received this statement was his Excellency Hu Wei-te, who signed the second agreement, but neither he nor any of his colleagues attempted to make any serious defence.
On the 3rd March I addressed a note, of which a copy is enclosed, to the Wai-wa Pu. After reciting the past history of the transaction and the deliberate disregard which the Wai-wu Pu had shown of its solemn engagements, I requested Prince Ch'ing to memorialise the Throne without delay, and ask for the issue of a special decree which would restore the control of the railway to the Chinese Government and ensure the full and strict enforcement of the loan agreement of the 6th March, 1908.
sense.
Lord Li paid me a visit next morning, and said that the Wai-wu Pu were greatly perturbed by my representations, and had told the Board of Communications that something must be done to extricate them from the unpleasant position in which they were placed. Sheng-kung-pao also sent for Mr. Mayers, and spoke to him in the same A letter from the Board of Communications to Mr. Mayers (copy enclosed) followed a few days later. This stated that the board wished to construct a line from Kai-feng-fu to Hsüchow-fu, and made a formal offer to transfer the funds of the Shanghai-Ningpo Railway to the use of the former line. In the event of the offer being accepted, the British and Chinese Corporation would, it was added, be requested to engage an engineer to survey a harbour for the terminus of the line on the sca-coast. Mr. Mayers duly placed the proposal before his board of directors, and received authority to entertain it subject to certain conditions, which are fully stated in the enclosed reply, which he addressed to the president and vice-presidents of the Board of Communications.
The Wai-wu Pu, having staved off their difficulties for the moment, have sent me a merely formal acknowledgment of my note, copy of which is enclosed, but they doubtless realise that the failure of the negotiations between Mr. Mayers and the Board of Communications will entail a resumption of the correspondence and a renewal of our previous demands.
Enclosure 1 in No. 1.
Sir J. Jordan to Prince Ch'ing.
I have, &c.
J. N. JORDAN.
Your Highness,
Peking, March 3, 1911. IN a note of the 14th June of last year, Mr. Max Müller drew attention to the fact that representations, both written and verbal, on the subject of the Shanghai--
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