CO129-331 - Public Offices - 1905 — Page 423

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impossible to tell the Chinese anything at all. In the spring I laid a glass scheme before the officials in Nankin; they have now, I find, stolen all my thunder, incorporated all

my ideas, and obtained a permit from the throne giving them a monopoly for twenty years, and expressly excluding all foreigners from holding any share or in any way participating in the work. They are so grossly unfair that they wish only to get the information and then exploit it for their own use and shut out foreigners.

I own coal property in Kin Hsien and I want to work it; I have formed a small Company of 40,000 tacls to open the same. But it will be fatal to disclose anything in advance to the Chinese. By the new Treaty we have full rights to mine; now, what am I to do about it? I should be glad of an assurance in advance that in any and every case I shall be upheld and protected, and, lest I make any mistake, I am writing this letter to you privately to ask you if you will please indicate to me the modus operandi.

Yours, &c. (Signed)

EDWARD S. LITTLE.

Dear Mr. Ker,

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Inclosure 24 in No. 1.

Mr. E. S. Little to Consul Ker.

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Shanghae, December 12, 1904. I THANK you for kiud note of the 5th, which has come safely to hand. I also thank you for your assurance you will do all in your power to assist me. I may say, for your private information, I have induced some British capitalists to go into mining with me, and there are millions of pounds which I now have at command for mining in China if we can find the right places and there is reasonable security for the capital invested. am now engaged in looking for suitable places and have some likely ones in view. Surely the Treaty is of the most definite possible nature, and when the Chinese Government enters into solemn pledges that it will offer no impediment to foreign capital, &c.," it can only mean what it says, and we have every right in compelling them to keep to this engagement. Furthermore, the same clause gives foreigners exactly the same right to buy and hold land as the natives anywhere in the interior. On this I am acting.

I intend to see the Minister shortly and urge this point on his attention.

I shall be troubling you again in the near future, I expect.

Yours, &c.

(Signed) EDWARD S. LITTLE.

Dear Mr. Little,

Inclosure 28 in No. 1.

Consul Ker to Mr. E. S. Little.

Wuhu, December 5, 1904. I HAVE received your private letter of the 1st instant, asking me to indicate how you should proceed in order to open coal mines in property owned by you in the interior of this province.

The question of mining enterprises by foreigners in China was dealt with in a Circular from the Legation to the Consuls, dated the 19th July, 1899, which is published in China Blue Book No. 1 of 1900, p. 286. In this Circular, which was approved by the Foreign Office, it was pointed out that foreigners had still no Treaty rights to buy land. (other than for missionary purposes), or to work mines in the interior of China, but that the Regulations issued by the Mining Board served to show the conditions under which the Chinese Government was willing to allow foreign skill and capital to be employed in Chinese mining operations.

The Regulations had already been protested against by His Majesty's Minister; others were subsequently issued which were also unsatisfactory, and, as you are aware, the British and American Commercial Treaties of 1902 and 1903 stipulated that China should recast ber Mining Rules, so as to offer no impediment to the attraction of foreign capital, and that foreigners should be permitted to carry on mining operations in com- pliance with these Rules. The Rules as recast have not been officially communicated to the Consulates, very possibly because, as reported in the newspapers, they may not have been accepted by His Majesty's Minister as fulfilling the terms of the Treaty. But the Rules have been published, and, such as they are, I am afraid that, until they are altered, any foreigner wishing to negotiate for a Mining Concession will have to be guided by them, if he is to negotiate with any prospect of success. I can find nothing in the new Treaties which confers, as you seem to suggest, upon foreigners the right to open mines where they please, irrespective of the regulations and conditions which may be imposed by the Chinese Government.

Apart, however, from the question of Treaty rights, I fully recognize the desirability of encouraging British enterprise in assisting the development of the mining resources of this province, and I shall, of course, be glad to give you such general assistance and support as is in my power in any negotiations you may undertake for a Mining Concession.

With reference to the remarks in the beginning of your letter, I should like to point out that the Ede Concession has fallen through, not from want of support by the British authorities, but from the failure of the concessionnaire to carry out his part of the preliminary Agreement into which he entered.

I am, &c.

(Signed)

W. P. KER.

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