[This Document is the Property of His Britannic Majesty's Government).
CHINA RAILWAYS.
CONFIDENTIAL.
[449]
No. 1.
146
3844
[January
REGE 30 JAN 07
SECTION 1.
Consul-General Wilkinson to Sir Edward Grey.Received January 5, 1907.)
(No. 30.) Sir,
Yunnan-fu, November 13, 1906, IN continuation of my despatch No. 29 of the 7th instant, I have the honour to inclose copy of a further communication which I have addressed to the Government of Burmah on the opposition of the Yunnan Government to the proposals for an Anglo- Chinese railway to Tengyueh and a reconnaissance to Tali,
I have, &c.
(Signed) W. H. WILKINSON.
Inclosure 1 in No. 1.
Consul-General Wilkinson to Government of Burmah.
(Confidential.) Sir,
Yunnan-fu, November 11, 1906. IN continuation of my despatch of the 5th instant, I have the honour to inclose translation of a secret telegram sent by the Governor-General here to the Wai-wu Pu on the 25th ultimo. I have already telegraphed to you the more important of its contents: that when his Excellency wrote to me to say that the Wai-wu Pu had been asked to consult with the British Minister, he did so only to put a stop to my importunity-in short, to gain time; that half Yunnan is already under French influence, aud if the Tengyueh Railway is conceded to Great Britain all Yunnan will be lost; and that he had begged the Prince and Ministers to endeavour to put off Sir John Jordan with fair words, on no account allowing to leak out the fact that he had sent them the present telegram.
The full text of that telegram calls for little comment. The first two paragraphs summarize with fair accuracy the correspondence of 1904-1905, and the circumstances of the ensuing surveys.
As regards the third paragraph, I cannot yet learn what authority there is for saying that "assent has been given to the Memorial that Yünnan shall build the Tengyueh Railway." As far as I am aware, it is only to the Yünnan- Szechuan scheme that Imperial assent was given. The question is of little real conse- quence to us, since international engagements cannot be overruled by domestic legislation. If the assent, however, is a fact, it will undoubtedly be brought forward as an argument at Peking.
The sentences that begiu with "unexpectedly" are obviously designed to suggest that it was only "within the last month or so that I approached the Governor-General on the subject of the proposed Tengyueh-Tali reconnaissance. This, as I need not repeat, his Excellency knows to be false. The difficulty of answering our inevitable retort, "You admit that you allowed surveys in 1904-1905; why, then, refuse a similar survey in 1906?" is met by the suggestion that his Excellency now becomes for the first time aware that we are gradually extending our reconnaissances into the interior of the province; but no explanation is afforded of the breach of international good manners involved in memorializing for an exclusive Chinese construction of the Tengyuch Railway, after formal notice had been accepted without demur of our purpose to "hold further negotiations with the Yunnan Government for the final arrangements."
Neither is any reference made to the Agreement of March 1902, although I had officially, in writing, drawn attention to it; or, again, is it stated that the offer of the Government of India was for co-operation with the Chinese, officials and merchants alike, both in the raising of capital and in the management of the line. On the other hand, it is insinuated that we are contemplating a mainmise on that half of Yunnan wherein the French have not yet secured the "li-ch'uan," or "bold on the profits"-in other words, that we are seeking just such an exclusive monopoly as the so-called
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