CO129-362 - Public Offices - 1909 — Page 662

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

CHINA RAILWAYS,

CONFIDENTIAL.

666

[September 13.]

SECTION

[33410]

No. 1.

Hong Kong and Shanghae Bank to Foreign Office.-(Received September 13.)

Dear Sir Francis,

31, Lombard Street, London, September 11, 1909. BY request of Mr. Addis, I send you copies of letter received from Mr. Rehders, also copy of Mr. Addis's reply, for your information.

Yours very truly,

A. M. TOWNSEND.

Dear Mr. Addis,

Inclosure 1 in No. 1.

Mr. Rehders to Mr. C. S. Addis.

Deutsch-Asiatische Bank, Berlin W. 64, September 6, 1909. I HAVE to thank you for your letters of the 30th ultimo, 2nd and 3rd instant, and hope that you will have a pleasant time and find the necessary recreation during your holiday.

As regards your letter of the 2nd instant, I am extremely sorry I cannot follow you, From the very beginning our syndicate has maintained that there are not two but one business comprising the railway lines. Now, if one line is invaded, the logical consequence is that the whole business is impaired, and that there must be an equitable readjustment of all sections for both lines.

In your letter of the 3rd instant you say that we appear to have arrived at a stage when the negotiations should pass from the bands of the financial groups into those of their respective Governments. I must confess that I do not quite understand what you mean. As our Foreign Office has no news about this matter, nor have we heard anything from Mr. Cordes, I do not see in which way our respective Governments will be able to intervene to our satisfaction. An explanation on this subject will be received with many thanks, and I daresay that if an intermediation should be practicable we will cause the needful to be done with our Foreign Office.

I would be glad to receive an early reply, though you are absent from London. May I still refer to your letter of the 11th August and to the memorandum of the Chinese Central Railways (Limited). It states clearly that no one party can be called upon to sacrifice more than the others, seeing that the sacrifice is for the common good, i.e., to enable the loan to go through at all.

This certainly also ought to stand good when a rearrangement of the chief engineers must take place.

Believe me, &c.

Inclosure 2 in No. 1.

E. READERS.

Dear Mr. Rehders,

Mr. C. S. Addis to Mr. Rehders.

Southern Lodge, St. Andrews, Scotland, September 10, 1909.

YOUR letter of the 6th instant has been forwarded to me here. I am writing far from my papers, and amid surroundings which are not congenial to correspondence, but I shall try to make clear to you our position with regard to the two points you raise.

First, as regards engineers:

The Berlin Intergroup Agreement of the 14th May, 1909, placed the British in possession, as regards engineers, of the whole of the Hankow-Canton and of one-third of the Hankow-Szechuan Railway, as against one-third of the latter line only to the Germans and French respectively.

[2413 n -2]

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