CO129-371 - Public Offices - 1910 — Page 560

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

AFFAIRS OF CHINA,

CONFIDENTIAL.

[11126]

No. 1.

[April 2.]

SECTION

0.0.

557

12550

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Red 28 PR 10

Acting Consul Rose to Sir Edward Grey.-(Received April 2.) (No. 1. Confidential.) Sir,

Tengyueh, February 24, 1910. I HAVE the honour to enclose the duplicate of a report which I have to-day addressed to His Majesty's Minister at Pekin on the subject of an armed raid by a Chinese tribal chief into the British unadministered territory on the north-east frontier

of India.

I have, &c.

ARCHIBALD ROSE.

(No. 3. Confidential.) Sir,

Enclosure 1 in No. 1.

Acting Consul Rose to Sir J. Jordan.

Tengyuch, February 24, 1910. I have the honour to invite a reference to my telegram No. 1 of the 22nd February, and to your reply of the 23rd, authorising me to make representations to the taotai in regard to an armed raid, which is believed to have been made by the Chinese tribal chief of Tengkeng across the undelimited frontier west of the River Salween (latitude 25° 55') into the unadministered terrritory claimed for Great Britain by His Majesty's Minister in his despatches to the Wai-wu Pu dated the 30th January, 1904, and the 1st May, 1906.

I have the honour to enclose copy of a despatch which has been addressed to me by the Government of Burmah giving details of the raid, in the course of which it appears that the village of Pien-ma (Epimaw) was burned, cattle and property looted and neighbouring districts threatened, whilst a force of 500 men from Tengkeng is reported to be still in occupation of the villages of Lower Pien-ma and Hpawte (shown in the map attached to Mr. Litton's despatch No. 8 of the 20th May, 1905). I am sending at the same time copy of a letter which I have to-day addressed to the Tengyueh taotai calling upon him to recall the raiders from British territory, to punish the chieftain of Tengkeng and to compensate the villagers for all losses which have been incurred, and, though I have thought it better to raise no con- troversial point with regard to the actual frontier line, it is not unlikely-in view of the despatches from the Wai-wu Pu to His Majesty's Minister of the 9th May and the 30th August, 1906-that the taotai will decline to recognise that Tengkeng has violated the international boundary.

In his despatch No. 4 of the 19th January, 1908, my predecessor reported the complaint of certain Chinese merchants that the Tengkeng sawbwa had recently increased his toll on coffin wood from the country in the valley of the Ngawchang Kha, and the present trouble appears to have arisen from a refusal to pay this toll on the part of the villagers, who were doubtless prompted by the visit in 1905 of Mr. Litton and Mr. Leveson in company with Shih Taotai to believe that they might regard them- selves in future as British subjects, and who consequently seek their remedy against Tengkeng's oppression by the address of a petition to me and an appeal to the deputy commissioner at Myitkyina.

It will be remembered that the frontier has actually been demarcated as far north as Manung Pum in latitude 25° 35', whilst beyond that point it has been carried along in a north-easterly direction, following the line of the N'Maikha-Shweli and N'Maikha Salween watersheds to about latitude 26° 15′ north. As far as this point the country was surveyed and mapped during the expedition of 1905, whilst later information proves that the line of the watershed is continued for many miles along the clear-cut limestone ridge of the Salween Divide, which is evidently one of nature's most mag- nificent geographical and ethnographical boundaries. During his last journey in the

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