CO129-330 - Public Offices - 1905 — Page 307

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མ པ ག

21 Jan, 1905.

[This Document is the Property of His Britannic Majesty's Government.]

C. O.

300

AFFAIRS OF CHINA.

CONFIDENTIAL.

No. 1.

2232

[January 4.1 REC

SECTION 1.

TREG 23 JAN 05)

Sir M. Gosselin to the Marquess of Lansdowne.-(Received January 4, 1905.)

(No. 119 A.) My Lord,

Lisbon, December 27, 1904.

IN the General China Print, Section No. 1, of the 2nd instant, a copy of which I received by the last Royal Mail, I noticed a letter from the Foreign Office to the Colonial Office of the same date, in which it is stated that Sir Ernest Satow has been asked by telegraph to report as to the truth of the "Times" statement, that a contract has been signed for the construction of a railway from Macao to Sungshui by a Sino-Portuguese Syndicate.

I am not aware what answer was returned by Sir Ernest, as the telegram sections are not forwarded to this Legation; but, according to a paragraph published some days ago in the "Jornal das Colonias," Senhor Azevedo Castello Branco, the Portu- guese Minister in China, signed last month at Shanghae a new Treaty to replace the unratified Treaty of 1902, which, except as to the special relations of Macao with the Province of Kwantung, is said to follow the general lines of the Commercial Treaties with the United Kingdom, the United States, and Japan.

With regard to Macao, Portugal concedes to China certain "facilities" for suppressing the contraband trade in opium, and in return is accorded trading rights on the West River.

The newspaper does not specify in what these opium trade facilities consist: the opposition in the Cortes to the 1902 Treaty was principally directed against Article III, which provided for the establishment of a delegation of the Chinese Imperial Customs to control the opium trade, which the Opposition chose to denounce as a derogation to Portuguese sovereignty.

The rice trade, on which the Macao population depends for its existence, is treated in an Appendix.

With regard to the railway negotiations, the "Jornal das Colonias" states:- "A contract has also been signed for building a railway uniting Macao to Sungshui, by a Luso-Chinese Syndicate, an undertaking which will be of considerable importance in the future to the trade of Southern China. A clause in the Treaty, referring to the protection of Chinese receipts, has been conditionally drafted in terms similar to the li-kin Article of the British Treaty."

I took an opportunity of asking Senhor Villaça yesterday how this matter stands. His Excellency said that before the fall of the late Regenerador Cabinet, Senhor Wenceslau de Lima had authorized the Portuguese Minister in China to sign the Treaty; the text had been received at the Ministry for Foreign Affairs during his absence abroad, and he had not yet had time to study the question: he would send for the dossier at once, and speak to me further at our next meeting.

The present Government were, he added, in a somewhat difficult position with regard to the Treaty-they were unwilling to repudiate the instructions sent to Shanghae by the late Government; on the other hand, his party had severely criticized the 1902 Treaty in the Cortes and in the press, and it would be a little difficult for them to sanction in 1905 an instrument which they had criticized in 1903.

I gather from this remark that the new Treaty does not differ materially, except

as regards the Railway Concession, from the Treaty of 1902.

I have, &c.

(Signed) MARTIN GOSSELIN.

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[2335 d-1]