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with his card.
He then saw Casenave who was and is laid up at
the Hotel with influenza and learned that the Vice-
roy had said he was too busy to receive Casenave
and had told him to communicate his proposals through
the Tao tai.
At my suggestion Bland telephoned to the Tao-
tai from the Hongkong and Shanghai Bank and arranged
to call.
This morning the Viceroy replied not to him but
to me giving the gist of his letters from and to
"
de la Batie.
Thereupon Bland again saw Casenave, with whom
he found the French Consul, and told him that there
as at my last interview.
I handed His Excellency my reply which he read
carefully but no mention was made of Casenave.
Chang
was careful to emphasize that he could answer only for
Hupel and that Hunan declined utterly to discuss the
loan question. The gentry there were, he reiterated,
pigheaded and barbarous and his only hope was that he
might get them to let Hupei build as far as Changsha
and possibly after a time to Kuangtung.
The old man looked ill and said he was suffering
from diarrhoea so we came away soon, Bland leaving his
pamphlet on China's proper railway policy and the Eng-
lish of the Kowloon Canton Agreement of which he has
had the Chinese translation published in the Hsin Wen
Pao at Shanghai,
had been a serious blunder and he must now set it
right, as the Viceroy asked for explanations.
assented and Bland drew up a plainspoken memorandum
which I embodied in a reply to the Viceroy.
They
At 12.30 Bland returned to say Viceroy would
receive him at 2.30 if would come too. So we went
and had a talk with Chang who held the same language
as
Yours sincerely,
(Signed)
E. H. Fraser.
1
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