CO129-470 - Public Offices - 1921 — Page 340

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Company are in a position to supply without serious delay

installations of the kind contemplated under the American

contract.

3. I have hitherto failed to obtain an official copy of

the American contract though attempts have been made to do so both from the American Legation and from the Chinese Government. According to the press version the American Company is to erect

stations as contractors to the Chinese Government and has the

right to operate them for ten years or until the Chinese Goverment repay the whole cost of erection. The repayment may be made at any time within that ten years' period.

4. Again the answer is yes. The Chinese National

Company are in a position to supply an installation as good and no higher in price.

It follows that the American contract infringes the Marconi agreement without a doubt. The Cables Companies' agreements are also infringed unless it contains a clause similar to that in the Mitsui contract which requires that the Cable Companies' consent shall be obtained before the operation of the stations. The Mitsui agreement proper is not infringed, but only the supplementary monopoly clause reported in my despatch No.231 of 1919, against which our protests have been lodged with the Chinese and Japanese Governments.

The agreement of the Chinese National Company is preferential only in the sense that the Chinese Government

undertake /