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PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE

Reference :-

C.O. 885

ALLY WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE BE REPRODUCED PHOTOGRAPHIC-

COPYRIGHT PHOTOGRAPH-NOT TO

15 PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON

No. 218.

(CENTRAL. SOUTH African RailWAYS.)

LAW OFFICERS to COLONIAL OFFICE.

[Netherlands Railway Company: Question respecting certain Shares which were held by French Citizens.]

SIR,

Royal Courts of Justice,

March 24, 1904. WE were honoured with your commands signified in Mr. H. Bertram Cox's letter of the 25th ultimo, stating that he was directed by you to transmit, for our consideration and report, a correspondence which had passed between the Foreign Office and the French Ambassador with reference to certain shares in the Nether- lands Railway Company which were held by French citizens, and to request us to advise what answer should, in our opinion, be returned to the note of M. Cambon of the 22nd of January last.

That the history of the proceedings of the Netherlands Railway Company during the Transvaal war were fully set out at pages 17 and 37 of the Report of the Transvaal Concessions Commission of the 19th of April, 1901,* and that Mr. Bertram Cox was to transmit to us a copy of that Report, together with volumest containing the evidence taken by the Commission and the documents put in during the proceedings.

That His Majesty's Government had declined, in any way, to recognise the Netherlands Railway Company, and that by Orders in Council, dated, respectively, the 15th of September, 1902, and the 10th of August, 1903, all the property of the Netherlands Railway Company in the Transvaal was vested in the Government of the Transvaal. That while declining to recognise the Company, His Majesty's Government had been prepared to offer terms to the debenture holders and share- holders of the Company, and that the terms offered to the former and the latter, respectively, would be found in a memorandum and in notices issued by the Crown Agents for the Colonies to the shareholders. That that memorandum was sent to the Foreign Office for their information and to enable them to answer a note, dated the 22nd of October, 1903, addressed by the French Ambassador to the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs. That a reply, dated the 13th of November, 1903, was accordingly returned to M. Cambon.

That Mr. Bertram Cox was to lay before us the replies received from the French Ambassador, dated, respectively, the 17th of November, 1903, and the 22nd of January, 1904, and that he was to call our particular attention to the arguments contained in Lord Lansdowne's letter of the 13th November and the French Ambas- sador's reply of the 22nd of January. That it would be observed that the French Ambassador's arguments were to the effect that, assuming that the Agents of the Netherlands Railway Company in South Africa had violated the rules of neutrality, it did not follow that their property, and still less the property of the Company, should be confiscated, and that in that connection he referred to the 46th Article of the Hague Convention, prohibiting the confiscation of private property. That pro- he further argued that the shareholders could have had no influence on the ceedings of their agents in South Africa, and laid stress on the peculiar position of a railway owned by a private Company in a country which was engaged in war, and on the fact that by Article 22 of the Deed of Concession the South African Republic had power to use the line in time of war without the power of the Com- pany to refuse. That it was further contended that His Majesty's Government- bccupied the position held by the Transvaal Government before the outbreak of war, and that the only proper course was to restore to the Netherlands Railway all its property, or to purchase the Concession under the powers reserved in Articles 17 and 18 of the original deed. That with regard to the shares, it was pointed out that the property in the shares passed by delivery and that it would be impossible, under the French law, to demand evidence of title from a seller.

That with reference to those arguments, you would observe that His Majesty's Government had always declined to recognise that, in annexing the Transvaal, His

25 WL 664

• [Cd, 623] June, 1901.

101 D&S

J 1779

† [Cd 621 and 625] June, 1961.