388
This Document is the Property of His Britannic Majesty's Government.]
On the 9th instant I had the honour to receive from His Majesty's Minister at Peking a telegram telling me that he had been asked by the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs to instruct me that the present reconnaissance is an integral part of last year's survey, that protection is expected similar to that given last year, and that I should make intimation accordingly.
I have therefore the honour to request your Excellency to instruct Taotai at Tengyuch, when, at the date already fixed, engineers shall arrive, to order the local authorities to accord to them, as on the two previous occasions, efficient protection.
Requesting the favour of an acknowledgment, I have, &c.,
(Signed) W. H. WILKINSON.
CHINA RAILWAYS.
CONFIDENTIAL.
[4384]
(No. 530.) Sir,
CO
[February 9.]
8373
SECTION 4.
No.
Px 6 MAR 07,
Sir J. Jordan to Sir Edward Grey.-(Received February 9, 1907.)
Peking, December 16, 1906.
I HAVE the honor to forward to you herewith copy of a despatch which I have received from His Majesty's Consul-General at Yunnan-fu, reporting on the progress of the French railway from the Tongking frontier to the city of Yunnan-fu.
I have, &c. (Signed)
J. N. JORDAN.
(No. 41) Sir,
Inclosure 1 in No. J.
Consul-General Wilkinson to Sir J. Jordan.
Yunnan-fu, November 2, 1906.
have addressed to the I HAVE the honour to inclose copy of a despatch which Government of Burmah on the progress of the French railway from the Tongking frontier to this city.
I have, &c.
(Signed) W. H. WILKINSON.
0
(No. 43.) Sir,
Inclosure 2 in No. 1.
Consul-General Wilkinson to the Government of Burmah.
Yunnan-fu, November 1, 1906. AN employé of the Contractor for the 20th to the 24th lots of the French Yünnan Railway called on me to-day, and gave me his impressions of the progress made. In the course of his duty he passes frequently along the line from Siao Ho-k'on (south of Hsi-erh, or Schioul-see my Report of June 1904) up to Yunnan-fu, and has thus had excellent opportunities of arriving at a conclusion. The portion of the line in this, the northern (or second) division, that is most in arrears is that comprised in the contract of M. Pelli, namely, lots 20-23, 23 bis, and 24, from Siao Ho-k'ou to the southern entrance on the Iliang Plain. For lots 23, by Su-kia-tu, my informant estimated that two more years' work will be needed; the remaining lots of the entreprise Pelli will be ready to receive their rails in a year's time or so. Lot 25, skirting the Iliang Plain, will be finished in five or six months. Lot 20, the defile through which the waters of the beautiful Little Lake of Yangtsung find their way down to the Iliang Plain, will require some fourteen months more labour, though the whole of its sixteen tunnels have been pierced. Lots 27 and 28 will be ready in six months; lot 29, including the Yünuan-fu terminus, in three.
South of Siao Ho-k'ou he cannot speak by personal experience, but he hears that the four lots of the entreprise Parboni, lots 16–19, from La-li-hei to Siao Ho-k'ou will be completed within half a-year.
Trains are running through from Laokai, on the frontier, to kilometre 33 in the Namti Valley, and it is confidently expected that the line will be open, even to the public, as far as Mengtzu by the 1st January, 1908. Even allowing for delay in the Pelli contract (and strenuous efforts are now being made to overtake this), the whole line, from Laokai right through to Yunnan-fu, should, he considered, be in working order by January 1909.
It is said that the All this fairly agrees with what I learn from other sources. Chief of the first division, whose head-quarters are at Mengtzu, and who has the super- intendence of the southern half of the line, expects to get a locomotive through to
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