CO129-362 - Public Offices - 1909 — Page 452

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

CHINA RAILWAYS.

CONFIDENTIAL,

NEGE 22 SEP 09

[August 26.]

SECTION 2.

[32198]

No. 1.

Mr. Rumbold to Sir Edward Grey.—(Received August 26.)

Confidential.)

(No. 232. Sir,

Tokyo, August 5, 1909. IN continuation of my despatch No. 229 of the 3rd instant, I have the honour to forward to you herewith copy of a memorandum which was confidentially communi- cated by the Vice-Minister for Foreign Affairs to the embassy to-day, setting forth the attitude of the Japanese Government on the Antung-Mukden Railway question, and explaining the reasons for which that Government have now decided to proceed with the reconstruction of the above-mentioned line without waiting for the co-operation of the Chinese authorities.

In communicating the memorandum, Mr. Ishii said that the patience of the Japanese Government was exhausted by the procrastination and obstruction of the Chinese Government, and that Japan would now act in this matter in accordance with her treaty rights. The Japanese Government could no longer afford to delay work in view of the short time remaining before winter set in. The reconstruction of the line would take two years, and Mr. Ishii stated that the concession ran only for thirteen years longer. The South Manchurian Railway had, therefore, been informed that they could begin the work of reconstruction at once, and Mr. Ishii added that "they would probably start to-morrow.”

The Japanese Ambassador in London has received instructions to inform you of the action which his Government are taking in this question, and he will no doubt make a communication on the subject. The annexed memorandum is the wording of the Japanese Foreign Office, and may differ in phrasing from Mr. Kato's communica- tion, but the gist will be the same.

Mr. Ishii requested that the memorandum and the information contained therein might be treated as confidential for the present, as His Majesty's Embassy had so far alone been told. I gather that the Japanese point of view will be published later.

It is possible that the presence in Tokyo of Mr. Nakamura, president of the South Manchurian Railway, and the return of Count Komura from his holiday, have brought matters to a head. The action which the Japanese Government have now taken was foreshadowed in my despatch No. 198, Confidential, of the oth ultimo.

I have forwarded a copy of this despatch, with its inclosure, to Sir J. Jordan.

1 have, &c.

HORACE RUMBOLD.

Inclosure in No. 1.

Memorandum.

DURING the late war Japan built for military purposes a light railway between Antung and Mukden. The line was hastily and necessarily imperfectly constructed, and was wholly unsuited and insufficient for ordinary commercial purposes. But when the South Manchurian line passed into the hands of the Imperial Government the necessity for a connecting link between that line and the Corean system became apparent.

Accordingly, by article 6 of the arrangement complementary to the Treaty of Peking of 1905, it was agreed that Japan not only had the right to maintain the military line in question, but so to improve as to make it fit for the conveyance of commercial and industrial goods of all nations, or, in other words, to convert the purely military line into a commercial railway.

The objections of China, on the one hand, to the fulfilment of the treaty stipula- tions above mentioned, on what must be regarded as frivolous and inconsequential grounds, and the necessity under which Japan labours, on the other, to carry out

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