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[This Document is the Property of His Britannic Majesty's Government.]
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CHINESE LOANS AND CONCESSIONS.
CONFIDENTIAL.
[April 19.]
SECTION 2.
F 1415/181/10]
Sir,
No. 1.
Post Office to Foreign Ofice.-(Received April 19.)
General Post Office, April 18. 1921.
I AM directed by the Postmaster-General to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of the 11th instant concerning a request by the Eastern Extension Telegraph Company that the British Minister at Peking should be instructed to support the Eastern Extension and Great Northern Telegraph Companies in their endeavour to secure an extension of their working agreements with the Chinese Government for a further period beyond 1980.
The Postmaster-General understands that, under the proposals now in question, the companies would cease after 1930 to have a veto on the landing in China of cables from other countries, but that (besides continuing to work the existing cables between Shanghai, Chefoo and Taku, and also working the new cable which the Chinese Administration propose to lay between Shanghai and Chefoo) they would have the exclusive right to lay and work on behalf of that Administration any additional cables required by the traffic between Shanghai, Chefoo and Taku.
Such an arrangement would not appear to involve any monopoly which could reasonably be objected to, especially if the cables were worked as part of the internal system of the Chinese Administration and were thrown open on equal terms to traffic exchanged between China and other countries by any exterual cable or wireless system without distinction of ownership; and if the companies propose that their application for an extension of their working agreements should be subject to these conditions, the Postmaster-General is of opinion that it should be supported by His Majesty's Govern- ment. This is, he thinks, the more desirable on account of the steps already taken by Japan towards securing the control of the Chinese internal telegraph system,
In view, however, of the difficulties which have arisen in regard to telegraphs in China, and of what the Postmaster-General understands to be the desire of the Secretary of State that these difficulties should in future be avoided as far as possible by common action on the part of all the cousortium Powers, the Postmaster-General would suggest, for Lord Curzon's consideration, that it might be well to inform those Powers of the steps which are being taken in the matter.
With regard to paragraph 2 of your letter, I am to point out that in clause 2 of the agreement of the 23rd April, 1901 (Parliamentary Paper No. 151), between His Majesty's Government and the Eastern Extension Company for the provision and working of a cable between Chefoo and Wei-hai Wei, the Company undertook that all traffic between Hong Kong, Shanghai, Chefoo and Wei-hai Wei should, as far as practicable, be transmitted throughout exclusively by British staff,
I am, &c.
F. J. BROWN.
6961 -2
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