[This Document is the Property of His Britannic Majesty's Government.]
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36988
[B]
CHINA RAILWAYS.
CONFIDENTIAL.
[38933]
No. 1.
Rece Bre? I NOV 09
[November 1.]
SECTION 1.
Sir Edward Grey to M. Cambon.
Your Excellency,
Foreign Office, November 1, 1909. IN the communication made by your Excellency to this Office on the 21st ultimo on the subject of the Hukuang loan, the suggestion was made that the Chinese Government should be approached with a view to obtaining a contract, or at any rate an undertaking, in regard to the financing and construction of the whole length of the Szechuan line.
While agreeing that this course will eventually become necessary, it appears to His Majesty's Government that, as matters now stand, it would be preferable first to come to a definite agreement between the parties concerned as to the redistribution of the engineering sections on the line in such a way as to admit of the American claim to appoint an engineer without doing violence to the existing equilibrium of parties, and then to approach the Chinese Government with an arrangement, which would make it clear that the Powers were in complete accord as to the procedure.
In explaining this point of view to the United States Ambassador, who made enquiries as to the present state of the case, a fresh proposal for the redistribution has been put forward by His Majesty's Government.
The proposal will be communicated to the German Government in the memo- randum, copy of which I have the honour to enclose, and I trust that it may meet with the concurrence of the Government of the Republic.
I have, &c.
* Memorandum.
[2486 a-1]
E. GREY.
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