CO129-361 - Public Offices - 1909 — Page 321

(Translation) Sir,

10

Inclosure 4 in No. 1.

Wai-wu Pu to Sir J. Jordan.

Peking, March 28, 1909. WE have carefully perused your Excellency's Memorandum and Mr. W. L. Mackenzie King's letter regarding the proposals of the Canadian Government for restricting the immigration of Chinese labour into the Dominion, and note their desire to arrange with the Chinese Government for limiting the number of Chinese Jabourers entering Canada each year, and for rendering it obligatory even on Chinese of a higher class to hold passports.

We have the honour to observe, in reply, that the number of Chinese subjects who have entered Canada in recent years amounts to some thirty odd thousand. We understand the desire of the Canadian Government to be that China should herself limit the number of labourers by a system of passports, and that Canada would under those circumstances be willing to remove the present onerous capitation tax.

White, fully appreciating the friendly spirit manifested by these proposals, we have to bear in mind that this question affects the livelihood of Chinese subjects, and that its importance to us is therefore considerable. It is consequently impossible to come to a definite decision at short notice as to how the matter should be treated, and as we are now appointing a Consul-General for the Dominion the best plan will, perhaps, be that he should go into the matter fully, and discuss it direct with the Canadian Government whenever an opportunity presents itself.

Mr. Mackenzie King's present visit to Peking cannot, we presume, be indefinitely prolonged, and we would suggest that he should return to Canada, and bring forward to the Chinese Consul-General any matter which he may have for discussion. The Consul-General will refer to this Board for instructions, and in view of the increasing cordiality in the good relations between China and Great Britain, and the considera- tion which the Canadian Government desires to show to Chinese subjects, we feel sure that it should be possible to accord to them most favourable treatment, and we profoundly hope that the capitation tax, and all other cruel and vexatious Ordinances, may be completely removed, as a token of benevolence to these immigrants and as a mauifestation of justice.

We have the honour to request your Excellency to ask Mr. Mackenzie King to report to his Government in the above sense.

We avail, &c.

Dear Mr. Liang,

Prince Ch'ing and Ministers of the Wai-wu Pu.

Inclosure 5 in No. 1.

Mr. Mackenzie King to Liang Tun-yen.

Peking, March 30, 1909. SIR JOHN JORDAN has shown me the despatch from the Wai-wu Pu in reference to the immigration matters we have been discussing together. I note that the Chinese Government desires to carefully consider the whole question before coming to a final decision, and I am therefore arranging, in accordance with its suggestion, to return to Canada, where, as the communication suggests, the matter may be taken up later on with the Chinese Consul-General at Ottawa.

I should not like to leave Peking without expressing my appreciation of the cordial in which you have received me as a Representative of the Government of

way Canada, and acknowledging with thanks, on behalf of the Government, the frank and thorough manner in which you have discussed the subject in its many bearings. I am fully sensible of what this has meant amid your many and onerous duties.

I shall call at the Wai-wu Pn this afternoon at 3 o'clock, at which time I hope I may have opportunity of thanking you in person.

Believe me, &c.

(Signed)

W. L. MACKENZIE KING.

[This Document is the Property of His Britannic Majesty's Government.

C. O.

16123 [April 22.]

AFFAIRS OF CHINA-

CONFIDENTIAL.

[15130]

Sir,

SECTION 1,

LP 12 MAY

No. 1.

Peking Syndicate to Foreign Office.-(Received April 22.)

110, Cannon Street, London, April 21, 1909. I AM instructed by my Directors to inclose, for the information of Secretary Sir Edward Grey, copy of a telegram received yesterday from Mr. Brazier, the Syndicate's Agent-General at Tien-tsin, from which it appears that the Chinese authorities are disputing the right of the Syndicate to dispose of coal, the produce of its mines, in any part of the interior of China, and apparently have forbidden native merchants to buy coal from the Syndicate at the pit's mouth.

As leading up to this I am to explain that some five months ago the Syndicate's mines in Honan for the first time began to yield a considerable output of coal, which was finding a ready market partly by distribution through our agents to towns as far north as Peking, and at intermediate places along the Peking-Hankow Railway, and largely also by native merchants coming and obtaining their supplies direct from the mines. Everything promised that at last the Syndicate was about to reap the reward of many years of perseverance. In December of last year the Governor of Honan sent three deputies, being members of what is termed the Honan Bureau of Foreign Affairs, to discuss and settle with Mr. Brazier various minor points arising out of the original Agreement of 1898. These points were practically all satisfactorily disposed of and an Agreement in ten clauses was drawn up and signed. By clause 3 of this Agreement the Syndicate undertook not to open depôts for the sale of coal in the interior in its own name nor in the name of its European sale agents. Mr. Brazier signed this, subject to the approval of the Board, and on assurance that no obstruc- tion or impediment would be put in the way of native merchants buying direct from the mines. This assurance, verbal at first, has since been confirmed in writing by the signature of an additional clause to the Agreement in the following

terms:-

319

"If native merchants wish to come to the mines to purchase coal they are in no way to be interfered with; and, should such occur, local officials are to investi- gate and punish, and that the Governor is to be asked to order the local officials to issue notices to this effect."

What has happened since to cause the Governor to go back on the Agreement signed by his own deputies my Directors can only surmise, but the probability is that it is the result of local agitation fomented by officials and others interested in native mines. Reports of local opposition have recently reached my Directors from time to time, but as the Syndicate's officials have hitherto been on most cordial terms with all the local officials, and as we employ a large amount of native labour, we did not doubt but that the opposition would soon die out. But whatever the cause may be, the attitude now taken up by the Governor, and supported it would appear by the Wai-wu Pu, is contrary to the whole spirit of the Agreement, and would be absolutely fatal to the success of the Syndicate. The right to work coal necessarily implies the right to sell it, and the grant would be meaningless without such right. If the Chinese Government had intended to limit the Syndicate to such coal as we might export by sea or even sell at the Treaty ports, especially having regard to the fact that the mines arc situated some 500 miles inland, they should have said so at the time, and it is submitted that it is too late now to raise the objection. Moreover, it is evident that this is a mere afterthought, because only so late as three weeks ago the Governor's own deputies signed the Agreement above mentioned, undertaking that all native merchants should be free to buy direct from the mines. My Directors respectfully submit that he must be held to this as final and conclusive.

It is unnecessary to labour the argument farther, but my Directors would remark that in the case of three other foreign Companies working coal in China no restriction is put on the free sale of their produce to native dealers. One is the Chinese Engineering and Mining Company, which my Directors are informed disposes of more than half its output to native buyers; another is a mine on the

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