CO882-6 — Page 544

། ༄། །

PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE

Reference :-

CO. 882

6

PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON

ALLY WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE BE REPRODUCED PHOTOGRAPHIC-

COPYRIGHT PHOTOGRAPH-NOT TO

58

resigned themselves to a policy of temporary inaction, waiting with what patience they might for some settlement of certain questions unknown. Five months have, however, slipped by and no sign has been given, nor word spoken, on the subject, either by the Corporation or by the Government, and the time seems to have arrived when it would not be unreasonable to ask the cause of the apparent new delay.

I cannot doubt that this delay must be as unsatisfactory to His Excellency as it is to the Association, and I do not think he will consider the Committee unduly importunate in begging for some assurance that this vital question has not again been temporarily shelved on the representations of the concessionaires.

It cannot well be pleaded that the negotiations in connection with the Shanghai- Nanking Railway block the way, for the final agreement with the Chinese Govern- ment was signed in July last, and the loan for the prosecution of that enterprise has since been floated. On the other hand, events having a somewhat sinister bearing on the interests of Great Britain in Central and South China have transpired in the interval, strongly accentuating the need for prompt action. The American interest in the Hankow-Canton Railway--never very large has been purchased, and the entire line is now nominally under Belgian control. Were it really under Belgian control it would perhaps not matter so much; but occasion has been taken, there is good reason to believe, by other Powers, more influential and less friendly to Great Britain, to secure practical control of a trunk railway through the British sphere of influence in China, by which they hope to effectively neutralise that influence. If that line be made by Franco-Russian agents, working through Belgian nominees, we may be very certain that the clause in Article III. of the Agreement with the American Syndicate giving them "the right of an extension to the sea," if thought advisable, will be availed of, to the injury of Hong Kong. Unless, therefore, the British Government insist, as I respectfully submit they have a right to insist, upon the cancellation of the concession originally made to an American Syndicate, but which is now a thinly-disguised Franco-Russian enterprise, it is of the last import- ance that the Kowloon-Canton Railway should be built before the Hankow-Canton line is made.

Now that there is every reason to believe that the international competition for the construction of the trunk railways of China has expanded from a commercial into a political struggle for supremacy in that Empire, the Committee venture to hope that the British Government will exhaust every effort to defeat the intrigues of our rivals, and secure to Hong Kong and to British trade the position they at present enjoy of commercial supremacy in South China. absolutely necessary that no time should be lost, and I respectfully beg that His To ensure this, it is Excellency the Governor will take the earliest opportunity to forward this expression of opinion to the Right Honourable the Secretary of State for the Colonies, and to urge, what is unquestionably the desire of the Colony, that this Government should be authorised to immediately commence the construction of the British section of the Kowloon-Canton Railway.

Honourable F. H. May, C.M.G., Colonial Secretary.

40766

No. 40.

I have, &c.,

R. CHATTERTON WILCOX,

Chairman.

GOVERNOR SIR M. NATHAN to MR. LYTTELTON.

(Received 3.43 p.m., December 1, 1904.) TELEGRAM.

[Answered by No. 53.]

I concur in proposal contained in last paragraph of printed paper* of railway in private lettert of Fiddes. Urge strongly that selection of Consulting Engineer should be made by Crown Agents and Corporation, and that they should take steps as described in fifteenth page of printed paper with least possible delay. Averse to other than 4 ft. 8 in. gauge.

40991

(Confidential.)

59

No. 41.

FOREIGN OFFICE to COLONIAL OFFICE.

(Received December 3, 1904.)

SIR,

WITH reference to your letter, 38877/1904, of the 16th ultimo,* I am directed

Foreign Office, December 2, 1904. by the Marquess of Lansdowne to state to you, for the information of the Secretary of State for the Colonies, that His Majesty's Minister at Peking reported, on the 23rd of February last, that his Portuguese colleague had informed him that the real reason for postponing the ratification of the Treaty concluded between Portugal and China on October 15th, 1902, was that it would have deprived him of a trump card in his negotiations for the projected railway from Macao to Canton. Copies of the despatch from Sir E. Satow, reporting the Portuguese Minister's statement, and of the despatch, forwarding the text of the Treaty referred to, are enclosed herewith, for convenience of reference.

Enquiry was made of Sir E. Satow by telegraph as to the truth of the report published in the "Times," that a contract had been signed for the construction of a railway from Macao to Sungshui by a Sino-Portuguese Syndicate, and I am to enclose a copy of the telegram which has been received in reply.

Mr. Secretary Lyttelton will observe that the Agreement has been signed, and that the capital has been subscribed by Chinese subjects and Macao Chinese. Purely Portuguese subjects are interested to the extent of fifty thousand dollars, but no other foreign capital has been invested.

(No. 306.)

Enclosure 1 in No. 41.

I am, &c.,

F. A. CAMPBELL.

Sir E. SATOW to the MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE.

(Received, Foreign Office, December 6.)

MY LORD,

I HAVE the honour to enclose copy of the Treaty signed by the Portuguese and

Peking, October 22, 1902. Chinese Plenipotentiaries on the 15th instant, with which my colleague, Senhor Azevedo da Castello Branco, has been so good as to furnish me. contain the Articles relating to the number of copies, the ratification and publication This copy does not which were appended to the original.

Article I. simply confirms the Treaty of 1887. By Article II., Portugal accepts the increase of the Import Tariff stipulated for by Article 6 of the Final Protocol of the 7th September, 1901, and annuls the Tariff Article of the Treaty of 1887.

Articles III. to VI. provide for the establishment at Macao of a branch of the Chinese Imperial Maritime Customs, which will treat vessels sailing from the Colony as if this branch was a Treaty port Custom-house, and for the establishment of appropriate Customs Regulations.

Senhor Azevedo was so obliging as to inform me that he had signed at the same time an exchange of notes by which China undertakes to accord to Portugal a Concession for a railway between Macao and Canton (Samshui), the details of which are to be settled hereafter, and names Sir Robert Hart as the Chinese Plenipotentiary › for drawing up the Agreement relative to the Customs Regulations of Macao, provided for in Article VI. of the Treaty.

My Portuguese colleague expects that after the ratification of this Treaty the Portuguese Government will appoint a Plenipotentiary, possibly himself, to nego- tiate a new Commercial Treaty with China, which, it is understood, the Chinese Government desire to negotiate on the lines of Sir James Mackay's Treaty.

• Eastern No. 91.

† See (2) in No. 43,

18885

• No. 38.

H1