CO129-363 - Public Offices & Others - 1909 — Page 274

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

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273

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M 9 DEC 09

CHINA RAILWAYS.

CONFIDENTIAL.

[November 24.]

SECTION 2.

[42419]

Your Excellency,

No. 1.

Sir Edward Grey to Count Metternich.

Foreign Office, November 24, 1909. I HAVE the honour to acknowledge the receipt of your Excellency's memorandum of the 5th instant, giving the views of the Imperial German Government in regard to the proposal made to your Excellency on the 1st instant, for the redistribution of the engineering sections on the Hankow-Szechuan line in such a way as to admit of the American claim to appoint an engineer on one half of the extension without doing violence to the existing equilibrium of parties.

On the 12th instant the United States Ambassador informed me that the settlement of the Hukuan loan proposed by Mr. Straight, the representative of the American group in China, viz., that au American engineer should be appointed for the Hsiang-Yang-Kuangshui section of 200 kilom., to co-operate with and be subject to the general direction of the German chief engineer, and that by private arrangement the Szechuan line is to be divided as follows--

1st section of 500 kilom., French chief engineer ;

American chief engineer; and British chief engineer;

2nd

600

25

}}

3rd

500

"

was acceptable to the Imperial Government, on condition that the American engineer for the Hsiang-Yang-Kuangshui section would not interfere with the judgment of the German chief engineer in respect of the purchase of materials. His Excellency expressed the hope that as a settlement on the above lines was understood to be in harmony with the proposals of His Majesty's Government the latter would invite the British group to sign the agreement.

It was,

A reply was returned to this communication to the effect that an arrangement of the kind described was in fact agreeable to His Majesty's Government. however, pointed out that information furnished by Mr. Whitelaw Reid did not appear to be in accordance with the views of the Imperial Government as given in your Excellency's memorandum of the 5th November, but the hope was expressed that the former was of more recent date, as the arrangement proposed by Mr. Straight was one to which His Majesty's Government would have no difficulty in adhering.

I am in the circumstances prepared to send instructions to His Majesty's Minister at Peking to concert with his colleagues as to obtaining the extension from the Chinese Government, and I have the honour to inquire whether the German representative at Peking will receive similar instructions.

I have, &c.

E. GREY.

[2486 aa--2]