[This Document is the Property of His Britannic Majesty's Government.]
10
The man really needed is Tuckey, who has now 1,2001. a-year, and charge of the inside wall division of this railway. He will require at least 1,6001. a-year and a three years' engagement, with a proper title and powers.
80.
In my opinion it is wiser to let the Chinese stew a bit in their own mess, as sooner or later they must secure both foreign engineers and money. Kwang at the southern end is asking me for engineers to serve under him, but I know of none who care to do This shows that the tide is turning, and that the supply of so-called Chinese engineers has run out, as is only natural. I have pointed out to the Viceroy Yuan the absurdity of being so greedy over the first 10,000 miles of line, as at least ten times that amount can be later built by Chinese themselves, who can be far better trained in their own country than in foreign colleges.
You must remember that Nathan gets at least 4,5001. a-year, and Micklem over half this amount, so it is not at all wonderful that a man like Tuckey, with more than both the above together should require to be well paid.
T. J. Bourne, brother of the Judge, is also an excellent man, now in London with Pearson and Co., it may be worth while to ask him if he cares to come out. He built the railway for the Peking Syndicate, and was originally with me for several years. He speaks Chinese also, which is some advantage.
I am really sorry I cannot do more for you, as I fully recognize the importance of getting Britishers to work wherever possible.
Trusting you are quite well, yours, &c.
CHINA RAILWAYS.
CONFIDENTIAL.
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8373
[February 9.]
RECP
SECTION 3.
REGE 6 MAR 07)
No. 1.
Consul-General Wilkinson to Sir Edward Grey.--(Received February 9, 1907.)
(No. 35.) Sir,
Yunnan-fu, December 22, 1906. IN continuation of my immediately preceding despatch, I have the honour to inclose copy of a further report to His Majesty's Minister at Peking on the negotiations for a railway reconnaissance to Tali.
I have, &c.
(Signed)
W. H. WILKINSON.
Inclosure 1 in No. 1.
0
(Signed)
C. W. KINDER.
(No. 51.) Sir,
Consul-General Wilkinson to Sir J. Jordan.
Yunnan-fu, December 19, 1906. I HAD the honour to receive on the 10th instant your telegram No. 20 telling me that the whole railway question is still under the consideration of His Majesty's Government, but that in the meantime you had been desired by the Secretary of State to instruct me that I should, unless there is serious opposition, treat the Tali recon- naissance as an integral part of the survey conducted last season and intimate that protection is expected similar to that accorded last year.
The latest communication that I had received from the Yunnan Government on the subject of the reconnaissance was the note copy and translation of which I inclosed inclosed in my despatch No. 12 of the 7th November. That note was, as I have reported to you, an amendment of the far more uncompromising document that I had to refuse to accept. It amounted, nevertheless, to a protest against the reconnaissance being made unless and until an agreement had been come to between yourself and the Wai-wu Pu, whom the writer (the Governor-General) had secretly instigated to oppose permission.
Meanwhile I had received from Mr. Ottewill a copy of his despatch to you No. 51 of the 22nd ultimo, reporting that he had arranged with Kuan Taotai that Mr. Lilley and his assistants should take out ordinary passports as "travellers," whereupon protection should be afforded to them. This arrangement, I may here repeat, I had from the first advocated (see my despatch of the 5th November to the Government of Burmalı).
If, then, I wrote, however informally, to the Governor-General in the sense of your telegram under acknowledgment, it was to be feared that the opposition of the pestilent Directors would again be aroused and the modus arranged at Tengyueh be seriously endangered. Accordingly I again endeavoured to come to a friendly understanding with the Governor-General. I sent my writer to see his Excellency privately, taking with him a passport made out not for Lei. Li (Lilley), but for Lei A-pai (Abraham Lilley), and giving the point of departure not as Bhamo but as Burmah. The bearer, moreover, was described as a British official and not as an engineer. The passport was the usual printed form, reciting Article IX of the Treaty of Tien-tsin; it said, there- fore, nothing about a reconnaissance. I directed my writer to explain to the Governor- General that in affixing his seal to this passport his Excellency would be acting in strict accordance with Treaty, and that no one, the Directors, or his successor- delegate, or the Central Government, could possibly object.
I had hoped that the peace-loving timid Governor-General would accept this solution of the difficulty; but to my surprise I received back, that same evening, the passport, unsealed, with a note from his Excellency saying that as the bearer was coming from Burmah his passport should be dealt with by Kuan Taotai. The next morning my writer reported that the Governor-General had accepted the passport, aud had then excused himself on the ground of having to receive visitors, and that not long afterwards he, the writer, was sent for to the Department of Foreign Affairs. He
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