CO129-352 - Public Offices - 1908 — Page 434

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the Eastern Extension Company (under an arrangement which should not be made public) in providing the British share of the new cable between Japan and Hong Kong. A reply has been given to the effect that no objection is seen to such an arrangement, but that it is possible that His Majesty's Government may wish to reserve the right of purchasing the British share of the cable at any time on payment of its value as plant, subject to a suitable allowance for depreciation.

The Great Northern Company also ask that some guarantee should be given of the transmission via Northern of a fair share of the unordered traffic to and from Japan. À reply has been given to the effect that such an arrangement is already in force in the case of unordered traffic to Japan from the United Kingdom, and that no objection is seen to a similar arrangement in the case of traffic in the reverse direction. This point is one which His Majesty's Government would desire to leave to the Companies and the Japanese Government.

I am to add that, in view of the reduction of tariff which is proposed in the case of telegraphic communication with Japan and China, His Majesty's Government think it reasonable that a corresponding progressive reduction should be made in the rates for telegraphic communication with the Straits Settlements; and I am to inquire whether the Eastern and Eastern Extension Companies are prepared to make such a reduction.

I am, &c.

Sir,

Inclosure 9 in No. 1.

Post Office to Mr. F. Nielsen.

[Unsigned.]

J

1908.

General Post Office, August WITH reference to previous discussions at the Lisbon Conference on the subject of telegraphic communication with Japan and China, I am directed by the Postmaster- General to inclose, for the confidential information of the Great Northern Telegraph Company, a copy of a communication in which the Japanese Delegates to the Con- ference have been informed that His Majesty's Government have no objection to the proposed "Heads of Agreement between Japan and the Administrations interested in the Telegraphic Traffic in the North Pacific," except that they think that a definite date of termination should be inserted, and that the proposed new direct cable between Hong Kong and Japan should be laid independently of an increase of traffic, and in any case not later than 1912.

The Postmaster-General understands that the Great Northern Company desire that they should be allowed to participate with the Eastern Extension Company (under an arrangement which should not be made public) in providing the British share of the new cable between Japan and Hong Kong. No objection is seen to such an arrange- ment, but it is possible that His Majesty's Government may wish to reserve the right of purchasing the British share of the cable at any time on payment of its value as plant, subject to a suitable allowance for depreciation.

It is understood that the Great Northern Company also desire that some guarantee should be given of the transmission via Northern of a fair share of the unordered traffic to and from Japan. Such an arrangement is already in force in the case of unordered traffic to Japan from the United Kingdom, and no objection is seen to a similar arrangement in the case of traffic in the reverse direction. This point, however, is one which His Majesty's Government would desire to leave to the Companies and the Japanese Government,

0

I am, &c.

{Unsigned.]

[B]

This Document is the Property of His Britannic Majesty's Gov3.2.3.

AFFAIRS OF CHINA.

CONFIDENTIAL.

[27708]

No. 1.

431

4 SEP 08.

[August 10.]

SECTION 4,

Sir J. Jordan to Sir Edward Grey.-(Received August 10.)

(No. 284.) Sir,

Peking, June 24, 1908. IN my telegram No. 120 of the 9th instant I had the honour to report an unfortunate occurrence on the Franco-Chinese frontier, in which a French lieutenant and six soldiers had been shot by Chinese troops who were, so far as could be gathered from the accounts received here, supposed to be pursuing insurgents flying for refuge across the border.

The French Minister, from whom I received the first intelligence of the incident, complained of the indifference shown by the Chinese Government, who had not even tendered an expression of their regret, and had merely ordered an investigation by the Taotai of Mengtzu.

In the course of an interview which I had at the Wai-wu Pu on the 16th instant, one of the Ministers, introducing the subject of his own motion, said there was a mystery connected with it which the Chinese Government found it difficult at such a distance to unravel. They could not for a moment believe that Chinese regular troops had deliberately fired upon French soldiers, and they thought it more likely that the act had been committed by insurgents who had got possession of Chinese military uniforms. However that might be, one of the French demands appeared to them to have assumed a peculiar form, and they failed to realize what connection there was between a railway extension from T'ai Yuan Fu to Hsi An Fu, in the extreme north of the Empire, and a regrettable incident on the southern frontier, over 1,000 miles away. They were willing to make suitable reparation, but not to concede demands of this kind.

As their language clearly implied that they regarded the French claim as a reversion to the policy which preceded, and in some degree caused, the Boxer outbreak of 1900, I felt it to be my duty to communicate its substance to you by telegraph, and to express the opinion that it could not fail seriously to prejudice the prospects of the Anglo-French combination formed to promote and undertake railway projects in China.

Your reply of the 18th instant authorized me to let my French colleague know unofficially that the proposal would militate against the success of the Anglo-French scheme for a railway from Hankow to Szechuan, and, as M. Bapst happened to call at the moment, I lost no time in carrying out your instructions.

I told him frankly that I had learnt with considerable concern the nature of the demand which had been made by the French Government. We had entered into a partnership for railway exploitation in China on an industrial basis, and any action of one of the partners was sure to affect the common interests. When the Chinese had objected to French participation, as in the case of the Canton-Hankow line, we had always met the objection by laying stress upon the purely commercial character of the undertaking, but this would be no longer possible now that France had reverted to the policy of approaching railway questions from the point of view which obtained some ten years ago.

Indications which had reached me from Chinese sources left no doubt that this was the impression the demand had made in Chinese official circles.

M. Bapst explained that the request for the extension of the Chêng-t'ai-Tai Yuan Fu railway to Hsi An Fu had been made some six months ago, and that its renewal now was not meant to be regarded altogether as in the nature of reparation for the recent outrage. It was rather a Concession which China was invited to make by way of redressing the debit balance which stood against her in the account of frontier relations. While France had done her utmost to restraiu revolutionary activities in Tonquin, even going so far as to keep some hundreds of revolutionists in prison, China had maintained in office in Yunnan mandarins imbued with anti-French feeling, and had in every way proved a most disagreeable neighbour. She had now an opportunity of making amends for all this by granting a favour to France.

[1905 k-4]