4
British court of law, the British aud Chinese Corporation (Limited) are prepared to accept the proposal, provided that your Excellencies will be good enough to give them assurances on the following points:
1. That the portion of the loan funds already applied to the Shanghai-Fangchow- Ningpo Railway under provincial management will first be replaced in the Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank at Shanghai.
2. That the provincial railway companies of Kiangsu and Chekiang will not be granted assistance from Government funds, and that if in the future foreign capital is required for the Shanghai-Hangchow-Ningpo Railway it will be borrowed from the British and Chinese Corporation.
3. That the extension of the Kaifeng-Hsüchow Railway to the coast will be undertaken with loan funds borrowed from the British and Chinese Corporation (Limited) if the Kiangsu provincial company fails to carry out its rights of constructing a line to Haichou within twelve months after the present negotiations have been completed by the signature of a final agreement.
4. That a preliminary agreement to employ the loan funds for the construction of Excellencies" the Kaifeng-Hsüchow Railway will be entered into forthwith between your board and the corporation on the same terms as are contained in the Shangbai- Hangchow--Ningpo Railway loan agreement for submission on the one hand by memorial to the Throne, and on the other for production before the proper British court -it being understood that this preliminary agreement will be signed as the final agreement as soon as the sanction of the proper British court to the transfer of the loan funds has been obtained and the Imperial decree approving the agreement has been communicated by the Wai-wu Po to His Britannic Majesty's Minister in Peking. Conversely, if sanction to this agreement be withheld on either side, the preliminary agreement will of course have no effect.
As soon as your Excellencies favour me with assurances on the above points, I shall be glad to submit to your Excellencies a draft of the preliminary arrangement.
Awaiting the favour of your Excellencies' reply, I have, &c.
Sir,
Enclosure 4 in No. 1.
Prince Ch'ing to Sir J. Jordan.
Peking, March 11, 1911.
I HAVE the honour to acknowledge the receipt of your Excellency's note ou the subject of the Shanghai-Hangchow-Ningpo Railway, in which you refer to breaches of the agreement and to the reported dismissal by the Kiangsu Railway Company of the British engineer-in-chief, and request that the control of the railway be recovered without further delay.
The matter was at once referred to the Board of Communications, which has replied stating that it has already taken exception to the action of the Kiangsu and Chekiang railway companies in abolishing the railway bureau and dismissing the British engineer-in-chief, and is now considering what steps should be taken in the future. As soon as a scheme has been decided upon the board will communicate it in
due course.
In the meantime, pending the arrangement by the Board of Communications of a scheme, when a further reply will be sent, I have the honour to inform your Excellency of the above, and avail, &c.
PRINCE CH'ING.
O
[This Document is the Property of His Britannic Majesty's Government.
CHINA RAILWAYS.
CONFIDENTIAL.
[13250]
[April 10.]
SECTION 2.
Reat !! MAY
II
No. 1.
Sir J. Jordan to Sir Edward Grey.-(Received April 10.)
(No. 129.) Sir,
Peking, March 23, 1911. I HAVE the honour to enclose the copy of a despatch which I have received from the acting British consul at Chungking reporting that a new survey has been made for the railway which the provincial authorities aspire to build between Yünnan-fu and Sui-fu, on the Yang-tsze River.
The realisation of the project is still very problematical, but the report is of interest as showing the work that the American engineers employed by the Government of Yunnan are doing.
I have, &c.
Enclosure in No. 1.
Acting Consul Toller to Sir J. Jordan.
J. N. JORDAN.
(No. 7.) Sir,
Chungking, February 22, 1911. MR. DAWLEY, the American engineer engaged by the Szechuan-Yunnan Railway Company, arrived here on the 17th instant, after a thirteen months' journey from Yunnan-fu, during which time he has made an accurate survey of the country to be traversed by the proposed railway from that city to the Yang-tsze. Mr. Dawley kindly showed me his general plan of the line, and I now have the honour to enclose a sketch-map that I have prepared,* illustrating the points in which the route proposed by Mr. Dawley diverges from those suggested by previous surveyors. (My diagram is adapted to the General Staff Map of Yunnan: Mr. Dawley's tracé is indicated by a continuous red line; other suggested routes by dotted red lines.)
The essential feature of this new route is the use of the valley of the River Niu-lan. It is claimed that this course not only shortens the distance considerably, but also gives a much easier gradient-through a distance of some 200 miles the incline is only 1 per cent. A further advantage is that this line would not pass through any part of Kueichou, so inter-provincial complications will be avoided.
A few miles south of Chao-t'ing the line leaves the valley of the Niu-lan and joins, at T'ao-tien P'u, the previously proposed route, To do this it goes up the bed of a small tributary of the river, the gradient here rising to as much as 2 per cent., though it is hoped that a resurvey will reduce this figure.
North of Chao-t'ung still more serious difficulties are encountered. Mr. Dawley considers that it would be impossible to take the line through Ta-kuan Ting (the course indicated in earlier surveys), and proposes to follow a river valley to the west, about midway between that town and Yung-shan Hsien. He admits that even this route would present very grave engineering problems, for in one place there is a drop of 1,600 feet in 16,000. This could be escaped by tunnelling, but he wishes to obviate that as far as possible, so has left his assistant, with a party of Chinese surveyors, to try to discover some practical detour. Mr. Dawley's line joins that of the former survey at Hsin-kai, north of Ta-kuan Ting, and thence follows the valley of the Heng River to An-pien, and that of the Yang-tsze to Sui-fu. The total length of this new route is 410 miles, and the cost of construction is estimated at from 25,000,000 to 35,000,000 taels. The amount of capital collected by the railway company up to the date of commencement of the survey was 2,000,000 taels.
Mr. Dawley is, I understand, engaged under a three years' contract, about half of which has yet to run.
His annual salary is said to be 15,000 dollars gold, and he is provided with an American assistant, Mr. Hawke by name, and a large staff of Chinese engineers, trained in the Yunnan-fu Railway College.
[1985 -2]
*Not reproduced.
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