CO129-330 - Public Offices - 1905 — Page 320

SOUTH-WEST CHINA.

CONFIDENTIAL.

C. U.

3162

R

January 9.

313

SECTION 2.

No. 1.

India Office to Foreign Office.-(Received January 9.)

WITH the compliments of the Under-Secretary of State for India. India Office, January 7, 1905.

Inclosure in No. 1,

My Lord,

Mr. Brodrick to Government of India.

India Office, January 6, 1905. I HAVE received and considered the letter from your Excellency's Government of the 27th October, 1901, on the subject of schemes for the construction of railways across the Burmese frontier into China, and in connection therewith I forward, for your information, a copy of the marginally noted correspondence,* from which it will be seen that I have come to the decision that it is advisable that the route between Bhamo and Momein should be surveyed by a competent railway engineer, with a view to ascertaining whether a railway could be constructed at a reasonable cost, and that I have asked the Foreign Office, should Lord Lansdowne see no objection, to obtain the consent of the Chinese Government for the purpose.

2. With reference to the fifth and sixth paragraphs of the letter from the Foreign Office of the 22nd November, 1904, and to the reply from this Office of the 5th January, 1905, I request that you will inform me whether you consider the construc- tion by the French of any particular line of railway in Western Yunnan to be strategically dangerous to India, and, if so, whether you would desire that the Chinese Government should be warned that His Majesty's Government cannot permit the line to be built.

I have, &c.

(Signed) ST. JOHN BRODRICK.

* To Foreign Office, July 27; Liverpool Chamber of Commerce, May 28: to Liverpool Chamber of Commerce, September 2; Liverpool Chamber of Commerce, October 28; to Liverpool Chamber of Commerce, December 30, 1904; to Foreign Office, January 4, 1905; Foreign Office, November 22, 1904; to Foreign Office, January 5, 1905.

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