[This Document is the Property of His Britannic Majesty's Government]
171
C. O.
AFFAIRS OF CHINA.
CONFIDENTIAL.
[August 26.34181
SECTION
25 SEP 07
[28444]
(No. 328.) Sir,
No. 1.
Sir J. Jordan to Sir Edward Grey,~(Received August 26.)
Peking, July 8, 1907. ON the 20th June last Major Nathan came up from Tien-tsin to consult me with regard to a Concession alleged to have been granted to a Chinese Company within the limits of the property claimed by the Chinese Mining and Engineering Company (Limited), and which he regarded as an infringement of the rights of the latter.
As the case did not appear to be one in which a direct appeal to the Central Government was likely to facilitate matters, I telegraphed to His Majesty's Consul- General at Tien-tsin instructing him, after he had satisfied himself of the justice of the complaint, to approach the Viceroy on the subject, and endeavour to arrange an amicable adjustment of the difficulty,
Mr. Hopkins duly carried out these instructions, and reported the result in a despatch, copy of which I have the honour to transmit to you herewith.
The Viceroy, it will be observed, declined to recognize the existence of the British Company, and repudiated all knowledge of the deed of transfer on which their claim was based. Major Nathan returned to Peking on the 28th June, and placed me in possession of a fuller statement of the circumstances, copy of which I have the honour to inclose, together with a copy of the Memorial to the Viceroy and his Excellency's Rescript, which form the Charter of the Concession to which objection is taken. There is no doubt that some of the localities mentioned in the Memorial are the same as those covered by the deed of transfer. The British Company hold Chinese title-deeds, I understand, for only small portions of the Kaiping coal-field, but they claim under the first clause of the deed of transfer exclusive mining rights over the whole of it. While the Viceroy professed in his interview with Mr. Hopkins to disregard the transfer-deed entirely, the promoters of the new Company further seek to justify their position by claiming that they are not interfering with the rights enjoyed by the Chinese Company before the transfer took place.
As Major Natuan himself was of opinion that no useful action could at present be taken at the Wai-wu Pu, advised him to make a further attempt to adjust the question with the Viceroy, and promised to give him any assistance in my power in effecting an understanding.
On the 29th June I accordingly saw Liang Tun-yen, the Minister designate to the United States, who enjoys the Viceroy's confidence, and has taken a prominent part in previous negotiations with Major Nathan. I told him that the Viceroy's action was likely to create a very grave situation, and warned him that any overt attempt to deprive the British Company of rights which they had acquired under the transfer was certain to bring things to a crisis.
Liang replied that he could not imagine that the British Government would support the Company in its wrong-doing. The Viceroy's patience was exhausted. Both his Excellency and Chang Yen Mao bad done their utmost to arrive at an amicable settle- ment, but Major Nathan had invariably maintained an attitude of non-committal, and both he and his Company evidently trusted to prolonging the present situation indefinitely.
I informed Mr. Liang that Major Nathan's version of the negotiations differed diametrically from bis, to which he retorted that if I wished to get at the truth I should depute an official from the Legation to be present at the interviews and report what occurred. The pecuniary question had, he understood, been practically settled, but Major Nathan had done nothing towards giving effect either to the Memorandum or to the suggestions which Sir Ernest Satow had privately made for a settlement. The creation of a Board in China, the registration of the Company in the Board of Commerce at Peking, and a Chinese share in the management were incidentally mentioned by Mr. Liang as some of the conditions of an arrangement.
The following day Chang Yen Mao came to see me and went through the whole history of the question at great length. He hinted, somewhat obscurely, that the Viceroy was using the new Concession as a lever to force the Chinese Mining and
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