CO129-372 - Public Offices - 1910 — Page 521

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

517

25499

CHINA RAILWAYS.

CONFIDENTIAL.

[27717]

No. 1.

RECR [August 2.] REG19 AUG 10,

SECTION 1.

¡

Mr. Max Müller to Sir Edward Grey.-(Received August 2.)

(No. 226.) Sir,

Peking, July 14, 1910. AS I had the honour to inform you in my telegram No. 121 of yesterday, the German, French, and American Ministers and myself sent in to the Chinese Government identic notes requesting the definite signature of the agreement for a loan for the construction of the Hupei-Hunan section of the Hankow-Canton Railway and of the Hupei section of the Hankow-Szechuan Railway as initialled on the 6th June, 1909, by the Grand Secretary Chang Chih-tung and representatives of the British, French, and German banks, as well as of the supplemental agreement come to with a view to the inclusion of the American group in the former tripartite arrangement.

My American colleague and myself at the same time addressed to the Chinese Government identic notes reminding them of the promise given by Prince Ch'ing to the British and American representatives in October 1903, in regard to a line from Hankow to Szechuan, and pointing out that that promise must henceforward be held to extend to France and Germany as well as to Great Britain and the United States.

I have the honour to forward copies of these two notes and to explain that the lapse of time in forwarding them to the Wai-wu Pu has been due, firstly, to the fact that the American Minister only received his instructions on the 29th June, and, secondly, to the absence of him and Count Rex at Peitaiho, which entailed considerable delay in arriving at a text of the identic notes acceptable to all. Mr. Calhoun of course omitted from his note the reference to the protests of the 12th February and 22nd April as the American Legation did not join in them.

(Confidential.)

I have already, in my despatches No. 140 of the 4th May and No. 165 of the 25th May, expressed my views as to the difficulty we are likely to encounter in inducing the Chinese Government to accede to the request embodied in our identic note, and unless Mr. Calhoun, under instructions from his Government, changes his attitude, I do not think that we can look for much assistance from the American Legation in attaining our end. Mr. Calhoun has on two occasions tried to persuade me that the moment is singularly inopportune for presenting our scheme to the Chinese Government, as being likely to lead to a recrudescence of trouble in Hupei and Hunan, and the German Minister wrote only a few days ago that Mr. Calhoun was unwilling to join in the identic note and had referred again to his Government for instructions. He seems entirely oblivious of the fact that, but for the intervention of the United States Government at the last moment, the whole matter would have been settled more than a year ago and both the railways would already have been under construction.

The first secretary of the American Legation told me this morning that they looked on the dispatch of the identic note as a mere formality, not likely to lead to any result, and that, as far as he knew, his Minister did not propose to make any further representations on the subject.

I have, &c.

W. G. MAX MÜLLER,

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