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[This Document is the Property of His Britannic Majesty's Government.]
AFFAIRS OF CHINA.
CONFIDENTIAL,
233
[June 3.]
SECTION 3.
[17896]
(No. 175.) Sir,
No. 1.
Sir J. Jordan to Sir Edward Grey.-(Received June 3.)
Peking, April 10, 1907. A QUESTION has again arisen with regard to the admission of French steamers to the frontage of the British Concession at Kiukiang, the nature of which is fully explained in the despatch from His Majesty's Consul at that port, copy of which I bave the honour to transmit to you herewith.
At the annual meeting of land-renters of the British Concession at Kiukiang, which took place on the 30th January, a portion of the Bund frontage hitherto used by the Yang-tsze Shipping Company was leased to the Nippon Yusen Kaisha, into which the former Company had recently been absorbed. Messrs. Jardine, Matheson, and Co. and Butterfield and Swire, who hold between them the remainder of the Bund frontage, had originally made an application for the lease of this portion also, but withdrew it shortly before the meeting on the ground that the steamers they were building for the local trade were not yet completed.
As explained by Mr. Werner, an understanding was arrived at between himself and the Council that the lease, which reproduced clause 2 of the Hankow Licence, should be interpreted as admitting to the use of the frontage only steamers under the management of the Nippon Yusen Kaisha.
A few days later, however, the local agent of the Nippon Yusen Kaisha received a telegram from his principals in Shanghae notifying him that the French steamers of the "Compagnie Asiatique de Navigation were going, as before, to moor alongside the hulk, and this eventually took place under the circumstances detailed by Mr. Werner.
Mr. Fraser, His Majesty's Consul-General at Hankow, who was consulted as to the interpretation placed on the licence at that port, did not concur in Mr. Werner's views, and gave it as his opinion that the licence admitted any number of outside steamers, provided they couformed to the conditions which it prescribed.
The Kiukiang Council then proposed to adopt another wording of clause 2 of the licence which would have practically debarred the lessees from admitting any but British steamers.
The French Minister had, in the meantime, approached me on the subject, and furnished me with a correspondence which had passed between the " Compagnie Asiatique de Navigation and the French Consul-General at Shanghae, copies of
which I have the honour to inclose.
M. Bapst specially drew my attention to the paragraph in Mr. Werner's letter to the French Company of the 1st March which explicitly stated that the decision of the Municipal Council to allow only vessels under the management of the Nippon Yusen Kaisha the benefit of the Japanese licence had been taken solely because it was considered that British interests suffered through the competition of foreign steam-ship lines subsidized by their Governments. He also deprecated the action which the Municipal Council contemplated for absolutely excluding the French steamers.
I pointed out to my French colleague that the French Company had acted in a very arbitrary manner in continuing to make use of the hulk under the altered circumstances, and this be fully admitted, adding that he was prepared to call upon them to conform to any procedure that we prescribed.
After careful consideration of the circumstances, I came to the conclusion that the
position taken up by the Council at Kiukiang was untenable. I therefore telegraphed to Mr Werner that the proposed new form of licence was, in my opinion, inadmissible and that he could not, without making an invidious discrimination, forbid the Nippou Yusen Kaisha from granting facilities to the French Company under proper conditions, to be approved by the Municipal Council. I suggested that he should adopt clause 2 of the licence as originally worded and apply to the French steamers a scale of fees similar to that in force at Hankow, holding the lessers responsible for the payment.
[2524 c--3]
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