CO129-371 - Public Offices - 1910 — Page 324

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[This Document is the Property of His Brian

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CO 322 5654

CHINA RAILWAYS.

CONFIDENTIAL.

REC [Februky734 FEB 10

SECTION 1.

(4355]

No. 1.

(No. 28.) Sir,

Sir J. Jordan to Sir Edward Grey.-(Received February 7.)

Peking, January 23, 1910. WITH reference to my despatch No. 19 of the 12th January and to my telegram No. 14 of to-day, I have the honour to enclose in translation the draft of a letter which Mr. Liang Shih-yi proposes to address to the British and Chinese Corpora- tion stating tho conditions for the change of the Shanghae-Ilangchow-Niugpo Railway Loan Agreement into an agreement for a railway from Kaifengfu to Hsüchoufu.

This draft is the result of conversations between Liang, Hillier, and myself, and the effect of it is to bind the Board of Communications to make the loan agreement of the 6th March, 1908, apply en bloc to another railway, if within four months from the date of signature they do not succeed in bringing the Kiangsu and Chekiang Bureaux to reason. If the bureaux submit to the proper execution of the 1908 agreement within that time, the amount they have spent legitimately on railway construction will be paid out of the loan funds, but if they do not submit, the sums already withdrawn must be re-deposited with the Hong Kong and Shanghae Banking Corporation at Shanghae, and the original loan will remain intact for the purposes of the Kaifengfu-Istichoufu

Jine.

The exchange of letters which is to form the new agreement is primarily intended to assist the Board of Communications to bring pressure to bear on the bureaux, but if it should fail in this object, I think that the alternative railway would be a better undertaking than the Shanghae-Ningpo line, and that the corporation would therefore be well advised to give Mr. Liang's draft their most favourable consideration.

I have, &c.

J. N. JORDAN.

Enclosure in No. 1.

Draft of letter from Mr. Liang Shih-yi to the British and Chinese Corporation.

Gentlemen,

January 30, 1910. THIS directorate-general, in co-operation with the British and Chinese Corporation, proposes to change the Shanghae-langchow-Ningpo railway loan agreement executed by the said two parties on the 4th day of the 2nd month of the 34th year of Kuanghsü (6th March, 1908), to an agreement for a railway from Kaifeugfu to the neighbourhood of Istchoufn.

All the clauses embodied in the said agreement, with the exception of names of places, shall remain unaltered. The directorate-general shall re-deposit with the Hong Kong and Shanghae Banking Corporation, Shanghae, all the funds previously withdrawn from that bank, and they shall be drawn by the Kaifengfu to Hsuchoufu railway administration in accordance with the loan agreement, for the various requirements of construction.

But with regard to this matter it must beforehand be clearly understood that, commencing from the date of the exchange of signed letters between the British and Chinese Corporation and this directorate-general, if within a term of four months the Kiangsu and Chekiang Railway Companies shall submit to the carrying out by the Yu-Chuan-Pu in every particular of the Shanghae-Hangchow-Ningpo railway loan agreement of the 4th day of the 2nd month of 34th year of Kuanghs, then the change to a loan agreement for a railway from Kaifengfu to Hsuchoufu referred to in the present letter, although this directorate-general, jointly with the British and Chinese Corporation, shall already have made application to the British High Court of Justice, or the British High Cour of Justice shall already have granted this application, this arrangement shall nevertheless become entirely null and void, and the two parties shall be bound as before to carry out the provisions of the railway loan agreement signed on the 4th day of the 2nd month of the 34th year of Kuanghsü.

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