CO129-344 - Public Offices & Foreign Office - 1907 — Page 118

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MAY 4 1907 17 MAY 07

Enclosure 2 in Sir J. Jordan's despatch No. 129 of March 13, 1907

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SLATION.

POPRA 79.

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Telegram of T'ang, Vice-President of the Board of

Communications, to the Viceroy at ganton, replying to ori-

ticisms regarding the Canton-Kowloon Railway Agreement.

With reference to Your Excellency's telegram No. X

to the Fai -wu Pu which I saw yesterday, and to the many

telegrams which I have received from Kuangtung in criticism

of the Canton-Kowloon Railway Agreement, I beg to make the following observations.

In 1898, Sir C. MacDonald, then British Winister,

demanded of the Taungli Yamen five Chinese Railway Concession on behalf of British capitalists, and the Yamen, on giving it consent, directed Sheng Ta Ch'ên to negotiate with the

British concessionaires.

The negotiations for the Canton-Kowloon line resulted

in a preliminary Agreement in five Articles being signed between Sheng Ta Ch'ên and the British & Chinese Corporation:

in March of 1899. Article I stipulated for the construction

of a railway from Kuangchou fu (the city of Canton) to Kew-

loon, under terms similar to those adopted in the preliminary

Agreement already signed for the Shanghai-Nanking Railway.

By Article II it was agreed that the foregoing stipu-

lation as far as practicable should be subject to the con- ditions of the Shanghai-Nanking Railway Final Agreement, when signed, and under Article III both parties agreed to make

working arrangements in conjunction with the line from Canton

to Hankow, for mutual rates.