2
Inclosure 2 in No. 1.
Consul-General Mansfield to Sir Jordan.
(No. 10.) Sir,
Canton, January 31, 1907. IN continuation of my despatch to you, No. 5 of the 15th instant, I have the honour to report that, having received from his Excellency the Officer Administering the Govern- ment in Hong Kong, copy of his despatch to you of the 22nd January, I lost no time in again placing myself in communication with Mr. Kwong,
I informed him in a private letter that Mr. Smyth had received a better appoint- ment from the Siamese Government, that he had been offered and refused a good post on the British section of the Canton-Kowloon line, and that it seemed to me matter for regret that the services of so able a man, requiring only a moderate salary, had been lost. I then went on to inquire as to the position of the Japanese Engineer, Mr. Yamamoto, and concluded by stating that, if the Directors would decide to engage a British Deputy Chief Engineer, the Hong Kong Government would be glad to assist them in selecting in England, or elsewhere, a competent candidate for a salary of 1,000 dollars a-month, with house allowance.
In his reply, Mr. Kwong admits the engagement on a two years' agreement of a Japanese Assistant Engineer in charge of a section who, he adds, is not considered to be
Chief Foreign Engineer."
a
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He goes on: "I do not think the Directors have any intention to engage a Deputy Chief Engineer,' although there might be District or Division Engineers. The salary of such men will not be 1,000 dollars a-month. The Company is communicating with English engineers with a view to their engagement. I may mention that the present railway is a commercial undertaking quite free from politics, and the engage- ment of all employees have to be made for the best interest of the Company."
upon
I took the opportunity at a recent interview with the Viceroy's Secretary to impress him that there was no justice in the argument that the Canton Railway Company, by reason of its being a commercial Company, was freed from the obligations incurred to the Hong Kong Government and His Majesty's Representatives previous to its constitution,
It appears to me that the present Company is a "commercial" one only in an esoteric sense.
I have, &c.
(No. 8.) Sir,
(Signed)
Inclosure 3 in No. 1.
R. W. MANSFIELD.
Sir J. Jordan to Consul-General Fraser.
Peking, February 20, 1907. WITH reference to Mr. Mansfield's despatches Nos, 5 and 10 of the 15th and 31st January, copies of which were sent to you direct, I beg to inclose copy of a communication from the Government of Hong Kong on the subject of the appointment of a Deputy Chief Engineer for the Yüeh-han Railway.
In October and November of last year you wrote and spoke to the Viceroy of Wuchang objecting to the appointment of any but a British Chief Engineer by the Canton Company. His Excellency then admitted the general fairness of our claim, but it seems necessary to repeat that we must look to him to secure the loyal fulfilment of the assurances of September 1905, in letter and spirit, by the Canton Company and the other provincial authorities and Corporations concerned in the construction of the Canton-Hankow Railway.
I shall be glad if you will take an early opportunity of pressing Mr. May's views on the Viceroy's attention.
I am, &c. (Signed) J. N. JORDAN,
Sir,
Inclosure 4 in No. 1.
Sir J. Jordan to Governor Sir M. Nathan.
Peking, February 20, 1907. WITH reference to Mr. May's despatch of the 22nd January respecting the appointment of a Deputy Chief Engineer for the Canton-Hankow Railway, I have the honour to inclose copy of a despatch on this subject which I am sending to-day to His Majesty's Consul-General at Hankow.
As the negotiator of the redemption loan, the Viceroy of Wuchang is responsible in the first instance to us for the due fulfilment of all its terms, and it seems to me desirable, while Chinese methods remain what they are, that we should endeavour as far as possible to bring this responsibility home to him directly.
I have, &c. (Signed)
matters.
Inclosure 5 in No. 1.
Consul-General Fraser to Sir J. Jordan.
J. N. JORDAN.
(No. 17.) Sir,
Hankow, Murch 5, 1907. ON receipt of your despatch No. 8 of the 20th February, I wrote to the Viceroy suggesting that he should receive me for the purpose of discussing the question of the obligation on the part of the Canton Railway Company to give the British preference in engaging a Deputy Chief Engineer for the Kuangtung section, and also some other His Excellency has not yet fixed a date to see me, but this morning his Secretary, Mr. Chan, brought me the inclosed note and took back my verbal reply, which was a repetition of my arguments communicated to him and to his Excellency last October and November.
Mr. Chan said his Excellency Chang could not compel the Canton Company to do as he thought right, and that the situation was complicated by the Company's disputes with its own members and the Canton Government. The Viceroy had telegraphed to it Of course, last November, and would now telegraph again to the new Viceroy Chou. had the line been constructed by the Government, his Excellency Chang would have insisted on half the engineering staff being British.
I expressed the confident hope that once his Excellency clearly explained to his Excellency Chou the situation and his own sense of indebtedness to us, the Company would not refuse to accept his ruling.
Further, I pomted out, that the Loan Agreement clearly set forth that the whole business of resuming the American Concession was left by the Throne to his Excellency, whose position with our Government had enabled him to win a great triumph. Kuang- tung, representing three-sevenths of the line, had directly profited to that amount and the Viceroy's power, set out in the Agreement, to bind the other Viceroy and Governors must extend to the Company to whom the Canton Viceroy had delegated the building of that section.
I showed Mr. Chan your despatch and its inclosure. He admitted that gratitude should be shown us, but seemed unable to see that the obligation bound “the Commercial Company" just as much as the provincial Governments. He suggested that direct application should be made to the Board or the Canton Company; but I impressed on him that to his Excellency Chang, as the person with whom and on account of whom the loan was negotiated, His Majesty's Government must lock for the due fulfilment of the implied undertaking to give our engineers preference along the whole line, and not only on Hupei's section of one-seventh, or even Hukuang's four- sevenths, of its length.
All this the Secretary promised to convey to the Viceroy.
Mr. Chan could not state the Viceroy's authority for the statement that Mr. Kinder was dead. He assured me that his Excellency was ready to make a three or more years' contract with a British engineer for both survey and construction purposes at a proper salary, and I agreed, on receipt of a definite intimation as to salary, duties, and term of
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