CO129-384 - Public Offices - 1911 — Page 194

Enclosure 2 in Sir J. Jordan's ho

Wednesday. June 28, 1911.

271 of July 4, 1914

REED of Real 25 JU I

28542

192

Sir John Jordan accompanied by Mr. Barton called at 12) JUL 1911 Bay 11

the Board of Communicatione at 3 p.m. and saw Li ki,

with whom was Mr. C. K. Yuan.

Sir John Jordan said that he came at the re quest

of the Governor of Hongkong to urge the speedy conclusion of the Canton-Kowloon Railway Working Agreement. The negotia- tions had been proceeding at Hongkong for several months with little result and in view of the expected opening of the line in August, the settlement of the matter had become urgent.

Shang Kung-pao had assured him of his desire for a spe dy net-

tlement, and he would be glad to learn where the difficulty

lay and any suggestions for its removal.

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Lord Li said that the principal difficulty was the

division of profits: the Chinese section being four times

the length of the British, the Chinese had claimed 80/100 or

the profitsj the British however claimed that the Chinese

share should be only 60/100ths in view of the greater relative

cost of the British section: the Chinese had offered to accept

75/100ths a month ago, but this was as great a concession as

they could make.

Sir John Jordan replied that this 5% could not pro-

perly be called a concession. Any concession had been made on

the side of the British who had consented to negotiate on a

basis of Joint Working instead of Joint Manament which had

been the original intention of the Loan Agreement. Joint Man-

agement was still, in his opinion, the best solution and had

not been entirely waived and unless the Chinese negotiated for

Joint Working in a generous spirit, it might be reverted tok. Further Liang Shih-yi - the late Director-General of Railways had agreed to the principle that division of profits should be based on capital outlay rather than on mileage and finally the Hongkong doverment had recently met the Chinese Govern- ment on many points regarding police and customs procedure and

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