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actually within the area selected by the Syndicate when they applied for the mining permit in 1905.
The inap which I have the honour to inclose marks this area by a white line, and As regards shows the newly opened Chinese mines by means of red and white dots. the Lu Kuang Kung Ssu, it is a matter of common knowledge that this Company was formed with official sanction as the successor of the bankrupt Tung Chi Company, and that it has purchased machinery and engaged foreign engineers with a view to starting mines near Ping-tan and so forcing the Peking Syndicate to withdraw.
While the Lu Kuang Kung Ssu is thus trying to force the Peking Syndicate out of Pingtingchou, its parent Company, the Pao Chin Mining Company is actively From the extract from pursuing the same policy in Yu Hsien, Lu An, and Tsê Chou.
the "Shansi Gazette" of the 23rd April, of which a copy is inclosed, your Highness will observe that the Governor is openly assisting this Company with large sums of money from the public funds to buy machinery in order to keep foreign enterprise out of the province.
I need hardly point out to your Highness' Board the gravity of these acts, which are in direct infraction of the Syndicate's Agreement. Whether the Governor is acting on his own responsibility, or with the sanction of the Central Government, is immaterial. It is against the latter that the Syndicate, with the approval of His Majesty's Govern- ment, has preferred its claim for compensation, and I have now the honour to remind your Highness once more that each day's delay in issuing the permit to mine at Pingtingchon increases this charge.
I avail, &c. (Signed)
Inclosure 2 in No. 1.
J. N. JORDAN.
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Inclosure 3 in No. 1.
Sir J. Jordan to Mr. G. Brown,
Sir,
Peking, May 30, 1907. I HAVE received your letters of the 16th and 18th May respecting the two further notes from the Chinese Government on the subject of your Syndicate's mining interests in Shansi, and communicating to me Dr. Gatrell's report of his interview with Ting Ta-jên on the 11th May.
I regret, in the interests of the Syndicate, that you have not seen your way to offer some more definite observations on Prince Ching's notes, as I do not consider that the authorization of His Majesty's Government to present the claim for compensation absolves the Syndicate from assisting me to find a solution to the difficulties with which this question is beset.
As I informed you by telegraph on the 16th May, the Ministers of the Wai-wn Pu consider that your best course would be to proceed to Taiyuan-fu and enter into direct relations with the Provincial Bureau of Trade.
From the language of Ting Ta-jên in his interview with Dr. Gatrell it is clear that the inspiration of this view came from the Provincial Judge, who taxed the the Syndicate with having ignored the Bureau of Trade, and recommended that you should place yourself in communication with Mr. Liu of that Bureau.
I am inclined to think that the solution of your difficulties would be better served by active and direct personal negotiations on your part than by the trans- mission to me of reports from members of your staff, and I trust that your forthcoming interview with Ting Ta-jên may serve to indicate some course whereby the local opposition to the Syndicate's enterprise may be overcome. In the meantime, I am deferring my reply to Prince Ch'ing's last communications.
I am, &c.
(Signed)
J. N. JORDAN.
(Translation.) Sir,
Prince Ching to Sir J. Jordan.
Kuung Hsü, 33rd year, 4th moon, 9th day (May 20, 1907).
I HAVE the honour to acknowledge the receipt of your Excellency's note of the 9th instant, in which you state that the La Kuang Kung Ssu had recently opened mines within the area selected by the Peking Syndicate when they applied for a mining permit, and also that its parent Company, the Pao Chin Mining Company, is actively pursuing the same policy in Yu Hsien, Lu An, and Tsé Chou, while the Governor of Shansi is assisting the Company with large sums of money from the public funds for buying machinery, all of which are in direct infraction of the Syndicate's Agreement, the Syndicate having thus no other remedy but to present a claim for compensation to the Chinese Government. Your Excellency inclosed a map and a copy of the extract from the "Shansi Gazette."
The Board has carefully considered the Pao Chin Company's original petition, from which it appears that that Company has taken over from the Tung Chi Company, and that, although it calls itself the Pao Chin Mining Company, it still continues to be in fact the old T'ung Chi Company, and not a new Company as distinct from the old. The Petition further states that the land cess deposited in the Provincial Treasury was a fund raised for provincial railway and mining enterprises, and the further subsidy asked for by the Company was to be defrayed from this fund, which was a public subscription for railway and mining purposes. No other public fund was touched by the Governor to subsidize the Company,
I would draw your Excellency's attention to the fact that the Province of Shansi has not yet issued a mining permit for the area selected by the Syndicate, and that the localities where mines have been opened by the provincial Company are all private property with which the Syndicate have no concern. There is no forcing the Syndicate to withdraw.
As regards your Excellency's statement that the Syndicate's claim is increasing daily, the Board has already on numerous occasions distinctly declared their inability to recognize the justice of this claim, and it is therefore useless to reiterate it.
I avail, &c.
(Signed)
Prince CHING.
Inclosure 4 in No. 1.
Mr. G. Brown to Sir J. Jordan.
Peking Syndicate (Limited), Tien-tsin, Your Excellency,
May 25, 1907. IN reply to your Excellency's letter of the 20th instant, I have the honour to express my complete agreement with your Excellency's contention that it is the daty of the Syndicate to assist by all means in its power towards a solution of the difficulties that have arisen in ever-increasing number and gravity connected with the desire of the Syndicate to carry out its various Agreements with the Chinese Government, of which the first in point of time and importance is the Agreement for Working Coal, Iron, and Petroleum in Shansi, with contingent Railway Construction privileges, dated the 21st May, 1898.
These difficulties, I would beg leave to remark, have in no case been created by the Syndicate, which has throughout been anxious to observe to the full all the responsibilities that it has undertaken. Obstacles have, however, been constantly placed in the way by the Chinese authorities, who have shown no other disposition than to evade their obligations. Instances abound in the archives of IIis Britannic Majesty's Legation and of the Wai-wu Pu, and recapitulation is needless.
The 17th Article of the Shansi Agreement expressly debarred the Syndicate from constructing the railway, which alone would enable the Northern Shansi mines to be worked successfully. The Syndicate did not embarrass the Chinese Government by calling upon it to enforce the contract for the Chengting-Taiyuan line which had been intrusted to others. The Syndicate patiently waited. So soon as this railway began to approach the Pingtingehou Coalfield the Syndicate, in strict accordance with its Agreement, applied to the Governor for a permit. This has never been granted. His Excellency Tong Shao-yi, Vice-President of the Wai-wu Pu, specially charged with the settlement of this case, on the 9th August, 1906, at one of our many meetings in explicit terms promised that the permit should be issued at once. This promise was, I believe, repeated to your Excellency within a short period of time. That promise has not been
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