CO129-470 - Public Offices - 1921 — Page 185

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We decided to support the Marconi Company in their efforts to obtain a separate concession so as to prevent the whole control by wireless telegraphy in China passing into Japanese hands and being operated by the German Telefunken systent),

The result is that the Marconi Company have obtained two concessions from the Chinese Goverment, viz:-

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1. The Wireless Telephone Agreement, signed on the 27th August, 1918, by which the Chinese Ministry of War offered, return for a loan of 300,000 1., to adopt the Marconi system of wireless telephones for ten years, and to give the company a first option for the construction of a Sino-foreign wireless

factory in China.

2. The Wireless Telegraph Agreement, signed on the 9th October, 1918, after protracted negotiations and much opposition from Tsao-Ju-Lán and the pro-Telefunken officials of his Ministry, who at first wished to use for the Peking-Kashgar chain the four

Under this Telefunken stations secretly delivered in 1917. agreement the Marconi Company are to erect wireless stations at Kashgar, Urumchi, and Lanchow. The station at Hsiangfu, which is the last link in the chain, will, as already stated, be sup- plied with the old Telefunken installation from Kalgan adapted

to the Maroon! system,

Commenting on these agreementa, Sir J. Jordan says (No.519

of the 25th November, 1918)1)

"It has been necessary to depart for once from the policy hitherto pursued by His Majesty's Government, and allow a British firm to supply the Chinese Government with a loan for unspecified and uncontrolled purposes, The immediate justifio8- tion for such a step would be found in the impossibility of overcoming otherwise the strong pro-German Influence which still operates in the Chinese Government departments to the detriment

of/