CO129-362 - Public Offices - 1909 — Page 73

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List of the various Classes of Foreign and Chinese Employés in the different sub-Sections on the Northern Section of the Tien-tsin-Pukow Railway,

Engineers of the first, second, and third grades, in charge of-

Machinery, engine shops, construction, registration, surveying, the receipt and issue of funds, correspondence, materials, telegraphs, and rolling stock. Overseers.

Deputies stationed on each section, and dealing with---

The purchase of land, correspondence, investigations, the preservation of order,

interpreting, receipt and payment of funds, supervision of work, Office servauts and messengers, guards, grooms, &c.

[This Document

71 the Property of His Britannic Majesty's Government,

RECO

C.O.

24967

Rre 26 JUL OC

CHINA RAILWAYS.

CONFIDENTIAL.

[24157]

(No. 142.) Sir,

(June 28.]

SECTION 2.

No. 1.

Mr. Bryce to Sir Edward Grey.-(Received June 28.)

North-East Harbour, Maine, June 16, 1909. I HAVE the honour to inform you that upon the receipt of your telegram of the 11th June relating to the proposed Hankow-Szechuan Railway I addressed to the Secretary of State a letter on that subject, a copy of which I enclose.

The reported wish of American financiers to participate has attracted some attention in this country. Articles appear in the newspapers, copies of three of which, one purporting to include a statement issued by the State Department, are enclosed herewith.*

I have, &c.

JAMES BRYCE.

Inclosure 1 in No. 1.

Mr. Bryce to Mr. Knox.

Dear Mr. Secretary,

North-East Harbour, Maine, June 14, 1909. YOU will doubtless have already heard from your Ambassador in London of the conversation that has passed between him and Sir Edward Grey regarding the proposed Hankow-Szechuan railroad in China. I need therefore only observe that in July, and again in September 1905, my predecessor at Washington enquired of the United States Government whether any American financiers desired to take part in that enterprise, and that your Government replied that the project had been announced publicly, but that no American financiers had intimated any wish to take part in it, and that thereupon my predecessor had in October 1905 verbally informed the United States Government that the British and French financial groups who were taking up the matter had, under the circumstances, assumed that American financiers had no wish to join, and were proceeding upon that assumption. No objection was then or subsequently taken by the United States Government; and the United States Embassy in London was informed that any suggestion or offer on the part of American financiers must be considered to have lapsed.

As His Majesty's Government now gather from your Ambassador in London that a wish to join in the enterprise has now been expressed by some American financiers, I am instructed to say to you that nothing is or could be farther from the wish of His Majesty's Government than to do anything which could be prejudicial to any rights or But so far as British obligations existing between the United States and China. capitalists are concerned the action of the latter in going on alone appears to His Majesty's Government to have been justified under the circumstances, and they could His Majesty's not have been expected, after what had passed, to have done otherwise. Government therefore earnestly hope that the United States Government will, having regard to these facts, think fit to instruct their Minister at Peking not to place obstacles in the way of the issue of an Imperial edict approving the agreement for the making of the railroad, which has been already signed. That. agreement has been the outcome of protracted and difficult negotiations. Were it now to be prevented from taking effect, a situation would arise which His Majesty's Government could not view without serious apprehension.

I am further instructed to convey to you the suggestion of His Majesty's Govern- ment that it would be desirable that in any further arrangements regarding a loan in which a recently formed group of American financiers might desire to take part, communications should be addressed to the British and French and German banks concerned.

* Two not printed.

[2317 ee-1

-2]

I am, &c.

JAMES BRYCE.