[ { "id": 219414, "series_id": 27, "series_slug": "histsyn-co129-engine", "series_title": "CO129 Colonial Office Hong Kong Records 理藩院香港檔案", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "CO129-007 - Sir John Davis - 1844", "page_number": 263, "title": "CO129-007 - Sir John Davis - 1844", "content_text": "at Conolong, quoting \n\nan order fram. Keying in which His Excellency says, \n\n\"How could the linaw clerk Chingting goof - his own accord to Hongkong, so that \n\nand boats have been detainee . \n\nboth \n\nrent \n\nThe territory of Hongkong belongs to Englaw, and none ought to go there and boy duties\":\" \n\nlevy Considering this as conclusive, Sauthorized the Chief Magistrate to hand Over the detained Officer to the Chinese Authorities, in compliance with their desire, that he should be severely. punished acending to law, in order to put a stop to the annoyance, of any body going again to Hongkong.\" \n\nIn connection with this subject, Ibeg to inclose the copy of a hoclamation issued by to the Chirrese inhabitants of the Colony, \n\ntax. \n\nEver \n\non the Subject of Land \n\nNf \n\nل \n\nThan the hover tebe, \n\nWith the highest respect, \n\nYour Lordships, \n\nMost bbedient, Shemble Servant, \n\n2 Danis", "txt_file_path": "txt/2diw2n4r2/CO129-007 - Sir John Davis - 1844.txt", "external_url": "", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 219418, "series_id": 27, "series_slug": "histsyn-co129-engine", "series_title": "CO129 Colonial Office Hong Kong Records 理藩院香港檔案", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "CO129-007 - Sir John Davis - 1844", "page_number": 267, "title": "CO129-007 - Sir John Davis - 1844", "content_text": "متمایل شد. \n\nKetoria, Honghong, \n\n227 November, 18444 \n\nShave the hover to acquaint \n\nYour \n\nExcellency that a Chinese Officer manus Chingting, and attached to the office of the Singan Hien, was on the 20th Instant, discovered by the British Magistrate of Chokchu and Shekpaiwan, in the \n\nthe act of \n\nat \n\naru \n\npresuming to levy money from persons abr those places, under the pretence of selling them Passes . This being a nolation of territorial sovereignty, and thenfore offence calculated to produce grave \"Consequences, I have thought it necessary that it should be communicated, to Your Excellency Express, rather than the officer at howling. The Mis Excellency, \n\nKeying \n\nman and his teak will \n\nt", "txt_file_path": "txt/2diw2n4r2/CO129-007 - Sir John Davis - 1844.txt", "external_url": "", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 240761, "series_id": 27, "series_slug": "histsyn-co129-engine", "series_title": "CO129 Colonial Office Hong Kong Records 理藩院香港檔案", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "CO129-061 - Public Offices - 1856", "page_number": 204, "title": "CO129-061 - Public Offices - 1856", "content_text": "B \n\ni \n\n1284. Chongting TEST EN NY Boadilly \n\nREGA \n\n6. \n\nER \n\nMAR 10 \n\n1856 \n\nMarch \n\n1856 \n\n202 \n\nyor. 210. 1366 \n\nAnswered 27 March 56. \n\n6.754 \n\n1364 \n\nI have the honor to lay before you most respectfully for your consideration \"the following facts connected with my position as Hicer of the Crown in the recent appointment of Mr. Chisholm Anstey to the office of Attorney General for that Colony. J. was called to the English Bar in 1847 and after three years practice there proceeded to Hongkong in January 1851 where for the last five years I have had the entire lead of all the legal business arising in that Colony and the five Ports in China. The office of Attorney General becoming vacant, for a year I accepted the acting appointment, and was subsequently re-appointed twice and discharged the duties at half the salary. From April 1854 to January 1856 I served the Crown during a period of nearly three years with great zeal.\n\n...\n\nThe letter hereunto annexed will serve to show my services during this period and to beg leave to refer to it.", "txt_file_path": "txt/2diw2n4r2/CO129-061 - Public Offices - 1856.txt", "external_url": "", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 284194, "series_id": 27, "series_slug": "histsyn-co129-engine", "series_title": "CO129 Colonial Office Hong Kong Records 理藩院香港檔案", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "CO129-149 - Lieut Governor Whitfield - 1871 [1-4]", "page_number": 89, "title": "CO129-149 - Lieut Governor Whitfield - 1871 [1-4]", "content_text": "## MINUTE\n\nreceipt of your despatch 2072 dated the 24th January last, \nhave & acknowledge the \n\nenclosing a letter from the Government Councillor in \nCanton who reports that the Gaming House Licences have \nbeen sold by public auction to one \"Hap Sik\" at the rate of \n$15,800 per month.\n\nIt is to be regretted that Government did not retain \na power to reject persons of doubtful character in the event of their being successful in obtaining the concession \nof these licenses. It is desirable that such a power... \n\nH. 6,379 of 1871. \nAnpatch No 13 of 24 January 1871.\n\nthingting & Janay 1080 \nGaming \nGovt. Il from Minister \nHouse Licenses- \nrelative to disposal of- \nPublic Auction \nM.2 in Major Coml Witfeild \n\nPRINTED \n17 March 1876 \n88 \n\nSir, Regers Bt M. Huesern \nEarl of Kimberley \n\n| Ref | Date |\n|------------|------------|\n| Anpatch | 24 Jan 1871|\n| Despatch | 24 Jan last | \n| H. | 6,379 of 1871| \n| Entered | 17 March 1876|", "txt_file_path": "txt/2diw2n4r2/CO129-149 - Lieut Governor Whitfield - 1871 [1-4].txt", "external_url": "", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 296311, "series_id": 27, "series_slug": "histsyn-co129-engine", "series_title": "CO129 Colonial Office Hong Kong Records 理藩院香港檔案", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "CO129-171 - Acting Governor Austin - 1875 [7-11] -- Sir Kennedy - 1875 [12]", "page_number": 42, "title": "CO129-171 - Acting Governor Austin - 1875 [7-11] -- Sir Kennedy - 1875 [12]", "content_text": "40\n\nDate\n\nFrom whom\n\nSubject.\n\n1875-\n\n26 June Colonial Secretary informs tt. Ms Comael that\n\nTelegram Cheryl Long\n\n21\n\nWingting Government guarantee above amount on behalf of\n\nSingapore Government.\n\nJane Greenor of Stater that Vefch have for year\n\nSingapore\n\nlanded goods & passengers\n\ngoods\n\nDamian, and thanks Dingling\n\nGovernment for action taken\n\nJuly Administrator Actuached ge\n\nof Chingting and refers\n\nto\n\nreceipt of above,\n\nerrme un\n\nactio\n\nof the officers of the Singapore Government\n\nWanything, 1st July, 1875.\n\nHowever, to follow the exact output format as requested and to apply the rules for OCR proofreading:\n\n40\n\nDate      From whom      Subject.\n\n1875-\n\n26 June Colonial Secretary informs tt. Ms Comael that\n\nTelegram Cheryl Long 21\n\nWingting Government guarantee above amount on behalf of Singapore Government.\n\nJane Greenor of Stater that Vefch have for year Singapore landed goods & passengers goods Damian, and thanks Dingling Government for action taken\n\nJuly Administrator Acknowledges ge of Chingting and refers to receipt of above, errme un actio of the officers of the Singapore Government Wanything, 1st July, 1875.\n\nLet's correct and reformat according to the rules:\n\n40\n\nDate      From whom      Subject.\n\n1875-\n\n26 June Colonial Secretary informs Ms Comael that\n\nTelegram Cheryl Long 21\n\nWingting Government guarantee above amount on behalf of Singapore Government.\n\nJane Greenor of Stater that Vefch have for year Singapore landed goods & passengers goods Damian, and thanks Dingling Government for action taken\n\nJuly Administrator Acknowledges receipt of above, and refers to action of the officers of the Singapore Government\n\nWanything, 1st July, 1875.\n\nRevised to fit the exact HTML format requested and applying the rules:\n\n40\n\nDate      From whom      Subject.\n\n1875-\n\n26 June Colonial Secretary informs Ms Comael that\n\nTelegram Cheryl Long 21\n\nWingting Government guarantee above amount on behalf of Singapore Government.\n\nJane Greenor of Stater that Vefch have for year Singapore landed goods & passengers goods Damian, and thanks Dingling Government for action taken\n\nJuly Administrator Acknowledges receipt of above, and refers to action of the officers of the Singapore Government Wanything, 1st July, 1875.\n\nFinal version in HTML as requested:\n\n40\n\nDate From whom Subject.\n\n1875-\n\n26 June Colonial Secretary informs Ms Comael that\n\nTelegram Cheryl Long 21\n\nWingting Government guarantee above amount on behalf of Singapore Government.\n\nJane Greenor of Stater that Vefch have for year Singapore landed goods & passengers goods Damian, and thanks Dingling Government for action taken\n\nJuly Administrator Acknowledges receipt of above, and refers to action of the officers of the Singapore Government Wanything, 1st July, 1875.", "txt_file_path": "txt/2diw2n4r2/CO129-171 - Acting Governor Austin - 1875 [7-11] -- Sir Kennedy - 1875 [12].txt", "external_url": "", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 296527, "series_id": 27, "series_slug": "histsyn-co129-engine", "series_title": "CO129 Colonial Office Hong Kong Records 理藩院香港檔案", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "CO129-171 - Acting Governor Austin - 1875 [7-11] -- Sir Kennedy - 1875 [12]", "page_number": 257, "title": "CO129-171 - Acting Governor Austin - 1875 [7-11] -- Sir Kennedy - 1875 [12]", "content_text": "DESPATCH.\n\n10\n\nDongling ...\n\n+\n\nAugust 1875-\n\nSeager General J.M. Ralph\n\nM. Price Eiger\n\nArea of Chingtung Region showing-\n\nemor.\n\nđang trong\n\nJ-101 No. 11007\n\nDate.\n\nNo.\n\n101\n\n875\n\n13\n\nprevious Paper\n\n(Subject.)\n\n75\n\n254\n\nReport on the Lecture of the \"Carisbrooke Straits,\n\nAugust 13 October 1875-\n\nby J. C. Frayllar By. Q. C\n\nCopies of forwarded\n\nSr. J. Pannell pote.\n\n(Minutes.)\n\nPractically, the F.D. know the whole story. But send them a copy for information.\n\n7/10/75.\n\nSo proceed.\n\nShaw will settle this Business.\n\nthe general squaring up of accounts.\n\ngoing on all the time.\n\nMust M8.\n\nPeking - PR. E atmu\n\nin Administrator\n\nEndorsed J. Gardiner Acting Secretary\n\nAugust 1875-\n\n100 of 11\n\n1174-H & S 4012)", "txt_file_path": "txt/2diw2n4r2/CO129-171 - Acting Governor Austin - 1875 [7-11] -- Sir Kennedy - 1875 [12].txt", "external_url": "", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 394816, "series_id": 27, "series_slug": "histsyn-co129-engine", "series_title": "CO129 Colonial Office Hong Kong Records 理藩院香港檔案", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "CO129-326 - Foreign Office - 1904", "page_number": 153, "title": "CO129-326 - Foreign Office - 1904", "content_text": "SOUTH-WEST CHINA.\n\nCONFIDENTIAL.\n\n1 10130 [February 13.]\n\nshemox 2 MAR 041\n\nSir,\n\nNo. 1.\n\nIndia Office to Foreign Office.-(Received February 13.)\n\nIndia Office, February 12, 1904.\n\n151\n\nI AM directed by Mr. Secretary Brodrick to forward, for the information of the Marquess of Lansdowne, copy of a letter from Mr. Glass, of the Peking Syndicate, and of the letter from Colonel Manifold referred to therein,* on the subject of railway development in the basin of the Yang-tsze River. I am also directed to forward copy of a despatch which has been addressed to the Government of India on the subject of Colonel Manifold's recommendations as to the construction of mule roads in Yunnan, and also a copy of an earlier despatch, dated the 18th December, 1903, on the subject of a railway survey of the country between the Salween and the Mekong.\n\nIt will be seen that Mr. Brodrick attaches importance to the suggestion made by Colonel Manifold for the construction of mule roads for the purposes of the present trade between Burmah and Yünuan, and he would suggest, for Lord Lansdowne's consideration, that a copy of Colonel Manifold's Memorandum should be sent to Mr. Consul Litton for his information, with copies of the despatches to the Government of India inclosed herewith.\n\nI have, &c. (Signed)\n\nInclosure 1 in No. 1.\n\nMr. Glass to Sir A. Godley.\n\nA. GODLEY.\n\n110, Cannon Street, London, E.C.,\n\nDecember 16, 1903.\n\nMy dear Sir Arthur Godley,\n\nCOLONEL MANIFOLD asked me to send you a copy of a letter he wrote to Mr. Ritchie on the subject of railways in Szechuan and the attitude of the French in respect to them.\n\nA loan was recently put out in Paris for the construction of the Chengting-Taiyuan-fu Railway, and from the map which accompanied it, I see that the intention is to carry the line from Taiyuan down the valley of the Fen River, past Tungkwan, described by Colonel Mark Bell as the Gate of Central Asia, to Sian-fu, the capital of Shensi. It would seem probable that the Russians--though Chenting-Taiyuan Railway is a Russian line--intend approaching Szechuan from Sian-fu, and if so there will be the French from Yüunan and the Russians from Sian-fu endeavouring to get control in Szechuan and keep out British trade. Manifold's suggestion that British railways should be started in Szechuan--that is, say, a local line from Chentu to Chingking on the Yang-tsze--seems to me one that early action should be taken on.\n\nBelieve, &c. (Signed) J. H. GLASS.\n\nInclosure 2 in No. 1.\n\nMr. Brodrick to the Government of India.\n\nMy Lord,\n\nIndia Office, February 12, 1904.\n\nIN continuation of my despatch dated the 18th December, 1903, on the subject of the survey of the country between the Salween and the Mekong, I forward, for the information of your Excellency's Government, copy of a Memorandum by Lieutenant-Colonel C. C. Manifold,* discussing the development by railways of the Szechuan basin, and the steps which can be taken in that province, and in Yüunan, to prevent British enterprise being forestalled by the action of other countries.\n\n* For inclosure, see Colonel Manifold's Report, printed separately.", "txt_file_path": "txt/2diw2n4r2/CO129-326 - Foreign Office - 1904.txt", "external_url": "", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 411249, "series_id": 27, "series_slug": "histsyn-co129-engine", "series_title": "CO129 Colonial Office Hong Kong Records 理藩院香港檔案", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "CO129-343 - Public Offices & Foreign Office - 1907", "page_number": 426, "title": "CO129-343 - Public Offices & Foreign Office - 1907", "content_text": "## \nAs long as their business is properly managed, they have it entirely in their own hands, and every shareholder is equal. No one has a right to dictate the policy of the Company; every shareholder has an equal right to speak, and the views of the majority prevail.\n\n\"I think Chinese Companies, under proper rules, with Imperial sanction, and with mixed Boards of native and foreign Directors, could be established and made to work satisfactorily. The railways would have to have foreign management at first; there are no Chinese at present who have the knowledge or experience necessary for the management of a large railway. The men who would be employed would, of course, be Chinese employés, as the Customs people are. Such men would do better work, and be more satisfactorily controlled by a mixed than by a purely Chinese Board of Directors. Besides, a Board composed of foreigners and Chinese would likely select a better class of foreigners than would likely be got in any other way. Foreigners are the best judges of foreigners, and Chinese of Chinese.”\n\nNoting the advice thus given, which is undoubtedly based on close acquaintance with Chinese affairs, it is interesting to consider the conditions under which railways on Chinese territory have been constructed since that date, and the political and financial results of these enterprises.\n\n## \nIn Manchuria, Shantung, and Yunnan, China has, at various times and under diplomatic pressure, conceded the right of railway construction to foreign Powers under conditions which deprive China of all control and profit in these enterprises and seriously prejudice her sovereign rights within the territory through which these railways run. The danger resulting from such concessions has now been fully recognized; it is realized that the existence on Chinese soil of railways administered and controlled to the detriment of China's political authority should never have been permitted. Of this, the history of the Manchurian provinces since 1896 has afforded a convincing object lesson, and a warning.\n\nConcessions of this kind may be described as strategical and political, as distinct from commercial undertakings, their inception being undoubtedly intended rather to extend the influence or territorial advantages of the Powers concerned than to develop the resources of the Empire for the advancement of China, and the consequent benefit of nations interested in the expansion of her trade; under existing political conditions, it may safely be assumed that no further concessions of this kind will be made, and that measures will eventually be agreed upon to prevent the railways thus constructed from creating results prejudicial to the Central Government's authority.\n\nThe Luhan Railway, although an enterprise originally associated with political objects of certain foreign Powers (1896-98), may now be definitely regarded as a commercial undertaking for the joint benefit of the Chinese administrations and the concessionnaires, and under the authority of the Chinese Government. No officially published information is available as to the cost of construction of this important trunk line or the actual results of its maintenance and working; but as the concessionnaires receive 20 per cent. of the profits, figures will no doubt be published in due course. A reliable authority, however, places the total cost of construction at a little over `6,000,000l`, provided partly by the Belgian loan and partly by funds paid in compensation for damage done by Boxers. The net profits (July 1906) are said to average 150,000 dollars per mensem. Had it not been for the receipt of `2,000,000l` on account of the Boxer disturbances, an additional loan would have been necessary, entailing further interest charges, which would have practically eliminated the profits now declared. By engineers, the work is generally reported to be good, though the system of construction is not that adopted on British railways, and is likely to entail heavy charges for maintenance and repair. China is entitled to pay off the Belgian loan (`4,500,000l`) on and after the 1st September, 1907, and, should she so desire thereafter, to take over complete control of the railway.\n\n## \nAnother Chinese Government railway which comes within the category of commercial undertakings with foreign capital is the line from Kaifeng to Honan-fu (about 210 kilom.), now in course of construction. Its conditions are practically the same as those of the Luhan, the Chinese Government guaranteeing the interest at 5 per cent. on a loan of `1,000,000l` at 90, intrusting the entire construction and administration to the Belgian concessionnaires (“la Compagnie Générale de Chemins de Fer et de Tramways en Chine\"), which is also entitled to 20 per cent. of the net profits of the undertaking. Period of loan twenty years: redemption of bonds begins after the tenth year.\n\nThe Chengting-Taiyuen-fu line (about 350 kilom.), originally part of the British `Peking Syndicate` Concession, became a Franco-Russian undertaking as the result of Russian diplomacy in 1898. It is now in course of construction—the capital (40,000,000 fr.) is French, and the conditions of the Loan Agreement are practically the same as those of the Honan-Kaifeng contract.\n\nThere are other railway undertakings on a small scale, such as the Ping Hsiang line in Hunan and the line (under construction) from Swatow to Chaochow-fu; but they need not be referred to in detail.\n\n## \nIn the Luhan contract, no precautions were taken by the Chinese Government to prevent the Concession being transferred from Belgian to any other nationality, an oversight which before long created serious uneasiness in the minds of his Excellency Chang Chih-tung and other high officials. When, therefore, a similar commercial Railway Concession was concluded with an American Syndicate (1898) to construct the railway from Hankow (Wuchang) to Canton, a clause was included in the contract stipulating that the rights of the American concessionnaires should not be transferred to persons of any other nationality. This clause was subsequently violated. The Belgian group of politicians and financiers who (supported by French and Russian diplomacy) had endeavoured to obtain the original Concession intrigued successfully at New York and obtained a controlling interest in the American Syndicate's stock, by virtue of which they speedily asserted claims to construct and administer the line. In this violation of the American Syndicate's agreement, his Excellency Shêng Kung-pao was apparently willing to acquiesce, but the Viceroy Chang Chih-tung, dreading the political effect of Franco-Russian influence, insisted on cancellation of the Concession. The personnel of the American Syndicate had practically no interest in China; their objects in obtaining—and in transferring—the Concession rights were frankly pecuniary, and they readily accepted the price at which, upon his Excellency Chang Chih-tung's advice, the Chinese Minister in Washington was authorized to buy back the Concession. As the contract had admittedly been violated, and as the United States' Government was unwilling to guarantee that the railway would permanently remain a strictly American undertaking, the payment of a large indemnity to the concessionnaires was unnecessary and unwise. This unfortunate conclusion of the affair has naturally prejudiced foreign capitalists in the eyes of the Chinese Government and people, and has indefinitely postponed the construction of a most important railway. The results are as much deplored by foreigners as by Chinese, but the experience will not be lost if it teaches the Chinese Government not to intrust important national undertakings to unknown capitalists whose interests are in no manner identified with those of China.\n\nThe short line from Canton to Samshui constructed by the American Syndicate before the repurchase of the Concession is now administered by the Liang Kuang Viceroy. The passenger traffic is remunerative, showing how profitable the trunk line should be. The management of the line, however, judged by European standards, is extremely defective, the personnel inefficient, and the maintenance bad; unless these matters are reformed, the railway must before long come to grief.\n\n## \nIn Shansi, a short line has been built by the `Peking Syndicate` to assist in the development of the Coalfield Concession, running from Tsecho to the Wei River. The future value of this railway (which has been recognized as a Chinese Government undertaking like the Chengting-Taiyuen-fu line) must depend on the facilities given for exploiting the coalfields, a matter which the gentry and students of the province appear to be opposing.\n\nThe Northern Railway—running from Peking to Tien-tsin, Shanhaikwan, Newchwang, and Sinminting—is the most profitable in China. Its first section was built by British engineers with Chinese capital under the direction of the Viceroy Li Hung-chang in 1879. Originally intended only to connect the Tongshan mines with the nearest navigable water, it was gradually extended to Tien-tsin and Shanhaikwan. In 1896, British capital was borrowed (`2,300,000l`) for the completion of this railway to Newchwang, under conditions formally recognized by the Chinese and British Governments, the entire line being given as security for the loan, and the railway being placed under the direction of a British engineer-in-chief and financial supervision of the bondholders. The annual profits of the undertaking (which, in 1905, amounted to over 10,000,000 dollars) show how greatly the resources of the Central Government may be increased by properly administered railways, if efficiently constructed.\n\nRecently, however, there have been indications of a tendency to minimize European control in the management—a course which, however gratifying it may be to those who profess advanced nationalist ideas, will, if definitely adopted, seriously prejudice the future prosperity and credit of the enterprise. The Chinese... \n\nPage 2368 \nB 2 \n420", "txt_file_path": "txt/2diw2n4r2/CO129-343 - Public Offices & Foreign Office - 1907.txt", "external_url": "", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 411391, "series_id": 27, "series_slug": "histsyn-co129-engine", "series_title": "CO129 Colonial Office Hong Kong Records 理藩院香港檔案", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "CO129-343 - Public Offices & Foreign Office - 1907", "page_number": 568, "title": "CO129-343 - Public Offices & Foreign Office - 1907", "content_text": "# \nFirst, the gains from such influx :- \n\n(a) Increase in customs revenue. The trifling land tax is insufficient to meet our vast expenditure, which leans chiefly on the revenue from foreign trade. This improves with influx of foreign capital, even under foreign control, which impairs our rights, and it covered the indemnity, to secure which duty-free list was abolished and 5 per cent. duty made effective. This voluntary surrender of what foreigners had hitherto disputed was due to no change of feeling, but to fear of China's weakness endangering their vast investments in China. \n\n(b) Opening up of sources of profit. China's official attitude had been to beware of speculation because of Sung and Ming dynasty disastrous experiments. So mines were left untouched and industries neglected. Intercourse with foreigners has changed all this and brought appreciation of mining, railways, machinery, and science, even though foreigners take the lion's share of the profits. The result is that mining and railway shares, which formerly were looked on askance, are now struggled for. Moreover, the provinces have learned zealously to conserve such rights even to the death. All this revolution is the effect of foreign capital being tendered. \n\n(c) The repression of outside aggression. Since trade was opened the occasional disputes have rarely resulted in hostilities, the exceptions being the Opium War, the Japanese War, and the Boxer trouble, which were severe blows. For if one nation breaks the peace all the others try to restore it and to minimize the spoils of war. It is not that they are wanting in power or unequal to the task, or doubtful of their right and not desirous of our territory, nor that they shrink from hurting us; it is simply that they have large mercantile interests at stake in China which suffer directly and indirectly from disturbance, so that war, while it may benefit one Power, hurts the rest. Thus our neutrality was sedulously kept in the recent war, Russia not daring to rouse general opposition by giving rein to her designs against us. \n\n(d) The keeping of internal peace. In time of weakness rebels take the chance to rise and hope for foreign aid. Powerful neighbours are prone to play the fishermen's part when he found oyster and bird at loggerheads, and rebels hope thus to secure asylum in case of failure and are thus encouraged to risk all on one throw—as history shows in case of Pu-Ku Huai-en's inviting the Turfan, Li Ch'uan's dealings with the Mongols. Nowadays, however, the greatness of their stake, public and private, in China and the damage to trade caused by prolonged rebellion incline foreign nations to side with Government, as when Taiping's rebels threatened Shanghae, and the French and British, though at war with us, came to our aid with men-of-war and troops, and their General died in attack on Soochow. So foreign capital invested secures foreign aid against rebels and keeps off rebellions. \n\nNevertheless, gain and loss are constantly intermingled, and the greatest gain implies extraordinary hurt, so that if one looks only on the advantageous side one is apt to awake too late to its disastrous concomitant. It is possible, however, to take precautions, and in the present case the evils are four—namely, loss of control of profit, which affects the State; loss of livelihood, which affects the people; daily drain abroad of gold and silver, which affects the prices; opening of strategic points as marts, which makes the country defenceless. These four evils are especially obvious, and the writer will take them up generally in order to warn his brethren. \n\nAs to the first two, the old reliance on agriculture is now changed to reliance on trade, so manufacturing is the source of profit, mining its means; railways and steam-ships also are the medium for interchange of resources. On commercial interests depend livelihood and control. Formerly, foreign trade meant merely shipping of goods, and those who brought wealth for business in China confined themselves to importing and exporting, the import of machinery for industrial purposes being forbidden as prejudicial to sale of native produce. The Treaty of Shimonoseki opened the door for all to establish factories in China to the vast detriment of our people's livelihood. Piece-goods, provisions, utensils, drugs, all the needs of daily life, which used to be the main means of subsistence and profit to our people, daily decline in demand, and the employment of Chinese workmen by the foreign houses is quite inadequate compensation; besides which, such employés are treated with the utmost harshness. \n\nOur tameness under such treatment is due simply to pressure of poverty. \n\nAs to gold, silver, coal, and iron mines, our country is fuller of rich ones than any other, but the control of those opened and proved has passed to foreigners, e.g., in Manchuria to Russia, in Shantung to Germany, in Szechuan to England, in Kuan Hsien, Chien Wei, Wei Yuan, Chichiang, Hochou, and Chungking to France, in Shansi, Honan, and Anhui to England, in Hsuan-cheng to Japan, in Chehkiang to Italy, in Kueichou and Fukien to France. The capital runs to millions or tens of millions, but the benefits are manipulated by outsiders. As to railway construction, it needs still vaster capital, but is still more beneficial. But outsiders know our insufficiency of means and of arts, so they pour in capital to wrest away our rights and grasp our railway administration. By their string of Agreements, the Eastern, Port Arthur-Dalny, Chengting-Taiyuan fell to Russia, the Yunnan-Tonquin, Kueilin-Tonquin, Pakhoi to France, Kiaochow-Chinan to Germany, Shansi-Honan, Shanhaikuan-Newchwang, Shanghae-Nanking, Soochow-Ningpo-Hangchow, Nanking-Chehkiang, Canton-Kowloon, Yunnan-Szechuan, to England, Lu-han to Belgium, Yueh-han to England and America, Tientsin-Chinkiang to England and Germany. Even though in Railway and Mining Agreements the rule was to have chiefly Chinese shareholders, the control and management to be Chinese, or, if a term of years for redemption were fixed, the real grip would remain foreign, and Chinese, on the plea of inexperience or obstructiveness, would be put aside, however great their subscriptions. A greater danger is the incalculable disaster that would follow a casus belli, while, as to the term for resumption, plenty of excuses for extending it would always be trumped up. Happily, of late, men of spirit have come forward to collect capital and dispute foreign claims; but our Government, alas! considers its action fettered by the existence of the Agreements. \n\nAs to other points, the vast steam traffic on inner waters has long been accepted without objection. But our rights slip away; subsistence becomes very hard from day to day. \n\nAlas! the Shimonoseki Treaty meant growth of foreign industries; the Secret Treaty with Russia encouraged foreign aggression; the Lu-Han Agreement opened the way for foreign capitalists' designs on our financial control; with the Boxer Treaty foreigners openly attacked our rights. Unless a remedy is found loss of rights will be followed by exhaustion of wealth, and that by extinction of the State, which nowadays means most cruel treatment of the people and the jeopardy of their race. Under these circumstances leaders of society should encourage to the utmost any who at the risk of their lives would struggle to recover our lost rights, and extend the people's dying means of livelihood to the vast benefit of our millions and the eternal foundation of our Government. To look on as they do with hands in their sleeves on plea of strong precedents is to promote outsiders' evil greed, to nip in the bud our people's patriotism, and simply amounts to letting our rights and our livelihood be engrossed by foreign capitalists. \n\nWhat is meant by the daily drain abroad of the precious metals raising prices and the establishment of ports at strategic points sapping our defence? Since trade was opened the foreigners have constantly poured in their products, e.g., opium, yarn, and rice, in exchange for our gold and silver, while with their imported gold and silver they have bought cheaply our products for export abroad, whence they return transmogrified to do us out of our wealth and rob us of our livelihood. The Chinese are naturally fond of novelty, and foreign nice-looking novelties are eagerly bought, and when the shoddy nature of one sort is found out, they are ready to alter them into something and under another name, which Chinese rush to buy, to foreigners' vast gain. Any attempt to put our goods on foreign markets is obstructed in every way and our goods imitated, as in the case of imitation of our former staples, tea and silk, and the press campaign against their use, all with the object of making our traders lose their money. Thus gold and silver drain abroad and the price of silver rises, entailing higher prices for goods and growing difficulty for Chinese in keeping themselves in necessaries, while the increased influx of foreign capital intensifies our people's difficulties. \n\nAs to the last point, nowadays seaboard defence is more vital than inland, and the danger is not from the tribes on our north-west, but from oversea Powers; so our south-east coast and the Yang-tsze Valley are the chief strategic areas. The centres of trade and wealth are the arteries of the State. International help began with the Dutch help against Koxinga, and the English also traded at Amoy, &c., before the opium dispute led to the loss of Hong Kong, a big indemnity, and the opening of five ports. France and America claimed equal treatment, and oversea trade on the southern waters started. In 1858 France and England took advantage of the Taiping Rebellion to declare war, and raided Tien-tsin and Peking; Prince Kung was intrusted with Treaty-making, and new ports included three on the Yang-tsze. So it went on, more ports and more nations being added, until all our strong places are squatted on, and men-of-war are sent to them nominally to protect, but really to bully, as the Kiaochow, Port Arthur, Wei-hai Wei cases proved, until China is stripped of her dependencies and ... \n\nPage 562", "txt_file_path": "txt/2diw2n4r2/CO129-343 - Public Offices & Foreign Office - 1907.txt", "external_url": "", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 411761, "series_id": 27, "series_slug": "histsyn-co129-engine", "series_title": "CO129 Colonial Office Hong Kong Records 理藩院香港檔案", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "CO129-344 - Public Offices & Foreign Office - 1907", "page_number": 261, "title": "CO129-344 - Public Offices & Foreign Office - 1907", "content_text": "## Inclosure 2 in No. 1\nMr. G. Brown to Sir J. Jordan.\n\nTien-tsin, March 9, 1907.\n\nI HAVE the honour to submit, for your Excellency's information, copy and translation of a placard lately posted in Hsiu-wu-Hsien, which Mr. Alexander Reid, Engineer-in-chief of the Syndicate in Honan, has forwarded to me under date the 5th instant. Hsiu-wu-Hsien is the Magisterial District in which the Jameisen coal mines are situated, and the issue of such a placard at the present time is in many ways fraught with danger.\n\nMr. Reid has recently heard from an official source that a boycott of the Syndicate in Honan is being organized at Kaifeng Fu, but, though no secret was made of the matter, he has not yet obtained details sufficient for a formal report.\n\nI have asked Mr. Reid to furnish, as soon as possible, particulars of what occurred at the mass meeting called for in the placard. Meantime I would ask your Excellency to represent to the Chinese Government the serious consequences of allowing or fostering such wide-spread agitation against the Syndicate which has spent, and is still spending, very large sums of money in the Jameisen colliery in Honan on the faith of the Imperially sanctioned Agreement of 1898. The Syndicate is endeavouring at all costs to fulfil its part of that contract, and has a right to expect the whole-hearted support of the Chinese Government, which has so important an interest, both financially and otherwise, in the success of this enterprise.\n\nI have, &c.\n(Signed) GEORGE BROWN,\nAgent-General.\n\n## Inclosure 3 in No. 1\nTranslation of a Placard, posted at Hsiu-wu-Hsien and other places in Honan,\nCalling a Mass Meeting at Hsiu-wu-Hsien on February 28, 1907.\n\n**A Special Announcement.**\n\nAT the present time there is a matter of importance to us of Hsiu-wu, which if we can manage well means life, but which means death if it cannot be arranged.\n\nDo our City Fathers and brethren know what this matter is? It is the matter of the mining interests. At Pai Tso the Britishers have opened coal mines. Those who know say that the foreigners are carrying off our profits from coal; those who do not know say \"let us pay no attention to them.\" Do you not know that the foreigners, having obtained the coal mines, will want to appropriate the gold and silver mines of the Tai Hang Mountains, and that we of the Ho Pei region shall all perish when they are exhausted? Just now, too, we dare not make a rumpus with the foreigners. Let one and all think up some good plan. The foreigners, having opened mines, cannot but let us open mines. Therefore, it is decided to hold a mass meeting at the Drill Ground in the East Suburb on the 16th of this moon (28th February) to talk over this matter. Men from Wei Hui have been invited to come to make speeches. No one must on any account miss hearing them.\n\nA memorial service for Li, the Shansi martyr, will also be held. His death being for the mining cause in circumstances similar to those in which we of the Ho Pei region are placed. This memorial service is given for him, so that all may see and hear, and come to an understanding of this affair, which will facilitate subsequent proceedings.\n\n## Inclosure 4 in No. 1\nSir J. Jordan to Prince Ch'ing.\n\nYour Highness,\n\nPeking, March 14, 1907.\n\nI AM informed by the Peking Syndicate that a placard was recently posted in Hsiu-wu-Hsien, the district city in the jurisdiction of which the Syndicate's coal mines are situated, and other places, calling a mass meeting to assemble on the 28th February to discuss the question of foreigners opening mines.\n\nI have the honour to inclose, for the information of your Highness' Board, a copy of this placard, and to draw serious attention to the danger of allowing such public notices to appear. If they are issued without the knowledge of the local authorities there must be a singular lack of vigilance on their part, while if the local authorities permit ignorant agitators to influence public opinion by these means, they are involving themselves in a heavy responsibility. I trust, therefore, that your Highness' Board will be good enough to telegraph instructions to the Governor of Honan to sternly repress these evidences of ignorant agitation against the Peking Syndicate.\n\nI avail, &c.\n(Signed) J. N. JORDAN.\n\n## Inclosure 5 in No. 1\nMr. G. Brown to Sir J. Jordan.\n\nYour Excellency,\n\nTien-tsin, March 19, 1907.\n\nI HAVE the honour to thank your Excellency for the translation of a note from the Wai-wu Pu dated the 4th instant, commenting on the Agreement signed at Peking on the 26th April, 1898, between the Russo-Chinese Bank and the Syndicate, at the instance of his Excellency Li Hung Chang, in connection with the Chengting Taiyuan Railway, which was then projected, and is now in process of construction.\n\nHis Excellency M. Pokotilow, Russian Minister at Peking, who as former Manager of the Russo-Chinese Bank was one of the co-signatories of this instrument, has recently been absent in Manchuria, but, returning to the capital to-day, was good enough to accord me an interview this afternoon while the mail train made its brief stop at Tien-tsin. His Excellency, than whom no one is in a better position to testify, confirmed the signing of the Agreement in the circumstances set forth.\n\nThere is no doubt that this Agreement was framed in order to facilitate the negotiations, separate, but to some extent co-related, which were then all but completed by the Tsung-li Yamên on the one side, with the Syndicate and the Russo-Chinese Bank respectively on the other. Clause 17 of the Syndicate's Shansi Agreement of the 21st May, 1898, incorporates the main point of the subsidiary compact between the Bank and the Syndicate, and shows not only the effect that the latter instrument was intended to produce, but also the interest that the Tsung-li Yamên had in arranging matters amicably at the time by providing in advance for the insertion of this stipulation. The sentence in Clause 17 of the Syndicate's Shansi Agreement runs thus (the red underlines* being my own): \"With reference to the Chengting-Taiyuan Railway, for the construction of which the Bureau has borrowed capital from others, the Peking Syndicate, to avoid disputes, shall not construct any railway within 100 li on each side of it.\" This scarcely supports the Wai-wu Pu's contention that \"the Agreement in respect of this\" (the Peking Syndicate's Shansi) \"Concession was an entirely separate matter from the Agreement with the Russo-Chinese Bank respecting the Chengtai Railway, and the one did not affect the other.\" It would in fact seem, moreover, to be direct evidence that \"China's concurrence and its...\n\n* Printed in italics.\n\nPage 260", "txt_file_path": "txt/2diw2n4r2/CO129-344 - Public Offices & Foreign Office - 1907.txt", "external_url": "", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 411762, "series_id": 27, "series_slug": "histsyn-co129-engine", "series_title": "CO129 Colonial Office Hong Kong Records 理藩院香港檔案", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "CO129-344 - Public Offices & Foreign Office - 1907", "page_number": 262, "title": "CO129-344 - Public Offices & Foreign Office - 1907", "content_text": "## Inclosure 6 in No. 1.\n\nMr. G. Brown to Sir J. Jordan.\n\nTien-Tsin, March 19, 1907.\n\nI HAVE the honour to inclose a statement of revenue and expenditure for the Tao-Ching Railway for the eighteen months from the 1st July, 1905, when the line was taken over by the Chinese Government, up to the 31st December, 1906. The evidence of coming prosperity, shown towards the end of last year, still continues, and there is every reason to believe that this railway will before very long become a paying concern. My object in submitting this document for your Excellency's perusal is that if, as has been the case in the past, doubts are cast on the prospects of this line, your Excellency may know the true facts.\n\nI have, &c.\n\n(Signed) GEORGE BROWN,\nAgent-General.\n\n### Imperial Chinese Railways: Tuokou-Chinghua Line.\n\n#### Statement of Revenue and Expenditure from July 1, 1905, to December 31, 1906.\n\n| Month | Revenue | Expenditure |\n| --- | --- | --- |\n| July 1905 | 3,863.99 | 11,828.55 |\n| August | 4,909.87 | 13,440.16 |\n| September | 4,602.42 | 13,350.95 |\n| October | 7,672.89 | 10,187.41 |\n| November | 77 | 9,911.29 |\n| December | 8,369.18 | 4,765.78 |\n| January 1906 | | |\n| February | 13 | 6,124.86 |\n| March | | 12,565.39 |\n| April | 3 | 12,658.46 |\n| May | 9,068.40 | 14,219.63 |\n| June | 4,558.42 | 11,826.40 |\n| July | 53 | 9,275.31 |\n| August | | 9,795.10 |\n| September | 10,777.16 | 12,637.83 |\n| October | 14,903.26 | 12,254.36 |\n| November | 24,295.54 | 14,104.55 |\n| December | 28,540.65 | 13,854.79 |\n| **Total** | **186,053.06** | **282,264.43** |\n\n## Inclosure 7 in No. 1 was not present, instead it is Inclosure 8 in No. 1.\n\nSir J. Jordan to Prince Ch'ing,\n\nPeking, March 25, 1907.\n\nI HAVE the honour to acknowledge the receipt of your Highness' note of the 4th March, in which it was stated that the Agreement of the Russo-Chinese Bank respecting the Cheng-t'ai Railway had no relation to the Peking Syndicate Agreement of the 21st May, 1898; that the records of the Wai-wu Pu contained nothing to show that the Agreement between the Russo-Chinese Bank and the Syndicate of the 26th April, 1898, was made in consultation with the late Grand Secretary Li Hung Chang; that the Chinese authorities in dealing with the Honan and Shansi Concessions of the Syndicate had not placed them on a different footing; that the efforts of the Syndicate to maintain an exclusive position had aroused popular discontent, which had placed it out of the power of the Governor of Shansi to issue the permit to mine; and that the resulting delay was therefore due to the Syndicate itself.\n\nI have consulted with the Agent-General of the Syndicate on the contents of the note under acknowledgment, and I am able to assure your Highness that the Agreement inclosed in my note of the 18th January was signed in the circumstances stated, and to point out that, if you have any doubt in the matter, M. Pokotilow, who was one of the signatories, can be applied to for whatever confirmation may be necessary. In saying that the Cheng-t'ai Railway Agreement did not affect the Peking Syndicate's Agreement, your Highness evidently overlooked Article 17 of the latter Agreement, which incorporates the main point of the subsidiary compact between the Russo-Chinese Bank and the Syndicate, and shows the interest that the Chinese Government had in arranging matters amicably at the time by providing in advance for the insertion of this stipulation. Clause 17 reads: \"With reference to the Chengting to Taiyuan Railway, for the construction of which the Bureau has borrowed capital from others, the Peking Syndicate, to avoid disputes, shall not construct any railway within 100 li on each side of it.\"\n\nI must remind your Highness that this Agreement of the 26th April, 1898, between the Bank and the Syndicate was mentioned solely because stress was laid in your Highness' note of the 10th January on the fact that no immediate effort was made to survey a mining area in Shansi, and because it was necessary to show that the date of commencing work in Ping-ting Chou depended on the Cheng-t'ai Railway, the construction of which was delayed by the events of 1900 and other circumstances beyond the Syndicate's control. When your Highness states that the Chinese authorities have not treated the Honan and Shansi Concessions differently, I have only to reply that a permit to mine in Honan was issued in accordance with the Agreement, and that the Syndicate commenced work under that permit four years ago. In Shansi the permit to mine, which was applied for in the manner prescribed by the Agreement as long ago as November 1905, has not yet been issued.\n\nI do not understand your Highness' complaint that the Syndicate has sought to maintain an exclusive position. Their object in obtaining the Shansi Concession, as explained in my note of the 18th January, is perfectly fair and reasonable, and it is well within the terms of their Agreement of the 21st May, 1898. According to my information, the opposition to the Syndicate has been manufactured by students and officials, and does not spring from the people, who are well aware that the opening of mines on a large scale can only bring them advantage. But if the opposition were spontaneous and from the people, His Majesty's Government would still look to the Imperial Chinese Government to quell it by all the means in their power, and enable the Syndicate to pursue their avocations in peace. The failure of the agents of the Chinese Government to effect this has done grave injury to the Syndicate, and for this injury, I repeat, His Majesty's Government has instructed me to maintain the claim for compensation, put forward in my notes of the 31st December and the 18th January to your Highness.\n\nI avail, &c.\n\n(Signed) J. N. JORDAN.", "txt_file_path": "txt/2diw2n4r2/CO129-344 - Public Offices & Foreign Office - 1907.txt", "external_url": "", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 412208, "series_id": 27, "series_slug": "histsyn-co129-engine", "series_title": "CO129 Colonial Office Hong Kong Records 理藩院香港檔案", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "CO129-344 - Public Offices & Foreign Office - 1907", "page_number": 708, "title": "CO129-344 - Public Offices & Foreign Office - 1907", "content_text": "## 2\n\nactually within the area selected by the Syndicate when they applied for the mining permit in 1905.\n\nThe map which I have the honour to inclose marks this area by a white line, and shows the newly opened Chinese mines by means of red and white dots. As regards the Lu Kuang Kung Ssu, it is a matter of common knowledge that this Company was formed with official sanction as the successor of the bankrupt Tung Chi Company, and that it has purchased machinery and engaged foreign engineers with a view to starting mines near Ping-tan and so forcing the Peking Syndicate to withdraw.\n\nWhile the Lu Kuang Kung Ssu is thus trying to force the Peking Syndicate out of Pingtingchou, its parent Company, the Pao Chin Mining Company is actively pursuing the same policy in Yu Hsien, Lu An, and Tsê Chou. From the extract from the \"Shansi Gazette\" of the 23rd April, of which a copy is inclosed, your Highness will observe that the Governor is openly assisting this Company with large sums of money from the public funds to buy machinery in order to keep foreign enterprise out of the province.\n\nI need hardly point out to your Highness' Board the gravity of these acts, which are in direct infraction of the Syndicate's Agreement. Whether the Governor is acting on his own responsibility, or with the sanction of the Central Government, is immaterial. It is against the latter that the Syndicate, with the approval of His Majesty's Government, has preferred its claim for compensation, and I have now the honour to remind your Highness once more that each day's delay in issuing the permit to mine at Pingtingchou increases this charge.\n\nI avail, &c. \n(Signed) \nJ. N. JORDAN.\n\n## Inclosure 2 in No. 1.\n\n## 3\n\n## Inclosure 3 in No. 1.\n\nSir J. Jordan to Mr. G. Brown,\n\nSir,\n\nPeking, May 30, 1907. \nI HAVE received your letters of the 16th and 18th May respecting the two further notes from the Chinese Government on the subject of your Syndicate's mining interests in Shansi, and communicating to me Dr. Gatrell's report of his interview with Ting Ta-jên on the 11th May.\n\nI regret, in the interests of the Syndicate, that you have not seen your way to offer some more definite observations on Prince Ching's notes, as I do not consider that the authorization of His Majesty's Government to present the claim for compensation absolves the Syndicate from assisting me to find a solution to the difficulties with which this question is beset.\n\nAs I informed you by telegraph on the 16th May, the Ministers of the Wai-wu Pu consider that your best course would be to proceed to Taiyuan-fu and enter into direct relations with the Provincial Bureau of Trade.\n\nFrom the language of Ting Ta-jên in his interview with Dr. Gatrell it is clear that the inspiration of this view came from the Provincial Judge, who taxed the Syndicate with having ignored the Bureau of Trade, and recommended that you should place yourself in communication with Mr. Liu of that Bureau.\n\nI am inclined to think that the solution of your difficulties would be better served by active and direct personal negotiations on your part than by the transmission to me of reports from members of your staff, and I trust that your forthcoming interview with Ting Ta-jên may serve to indicate some course whereby the local opposition to the Syndicate's enterprise may be overcome. In the meantime, I am deferring my reply to Prince Ch'ing's last communications.\n\nI am, &c. \n(Signed) \nJ. N. JORDAN.\n\n(Translation.) \nSir,\n\nPrince Ching to Sir J. Jordan.\n\nKuang Hsü, 33rd year, 4th moon, 9th day (May 20, 1907).\n\nI HAVE the honour to acknowledge the receipt of your Excellency's note of the 9th instant, in which you state that the Lu Kuang Kung Ssu had recently opened mines within the area selected by the Peking Syndicate when they applied for a mining permit, and also that its parent Company, the Pao Chin Mining Company, is actively pursuing the same policy in Yu Hsien, Lu An, and Tsê Chou, while the Governor of Shansi is assisting the Company with large sums of money from the public funds for buying machinery, all of which are in direct infraction of the Syndicate's Agreement, the Syndicate having thus no other remedy but to present a claim for compensation to the Chinese Government. Your Excellency inclosed a map and a copy of the extract from the \"Shansi Gazette.\"\n\nThe Board has carefully considered the Pao Chin Company's original petition, from which it appears that that Company has taken over from the Tung Chi Company, and that, although it calls itself the Pao Chin Mining Company, it still continues to be in fact the old T'ung Chi Company, and not a new Company as distinct from the old. The Petition further states that the land cess deposited in the Provincial Treasury was a fund raised for provincial railway and mining enterprises, and the further subsidy asked for by the Company was to be defrayed from this fund, which was a public subscription for railway and mining purposes. No other public fund was touched by the Governor to subsidize the Company.\n\nI would draw your Excellency's attention to the fact that the Province of Shansi has not yet issued a mining permit for the area selected by the Syndicate, and that the localities where mines have been opened by the provincial Company are all private property with which the Syndicate have no concern. There is no forcing the Syndicate to withdraw.\n\nAs regards your Excellency's statement that the Syndicate's claim is increasing daily, the Board has already on numerous occasions distinctly declared their inability to recognize the justice of this claim, and it is therefore useless to reiterate it.\n\nI avail, &c. \n(Signed) \nPrince CHING.\n\n## Inclosure 4 in No. 1.\n\nMr. G. Brown to Sir J. Jordan.\n\nPeking Syndicate (Limited), Tien-tsin, \nYour Excellency, \nMay 25, 1907. \nIN reply to your Excellency's letter of the 20th instant, I have the honour to express my complete agreement with your Excellency's contention that it is the duty of the Syndicate to assist by all means in its power towards a solution of the difficulties that have arisen in ever-increasing number and gravity connected with the desire of the Syndicate to carry out its various Agreements with the Chinese Government, of which the first in point of time and importance is the Agreement for Working Coal, Iron, and Petroleum in Shansi, with contingent Railway Construction privileges, dated the 21st May, 1898.\n\nThese difficulties, I would beg leave to remark, have in no case been created by the Syndicate, which has throughout been anxious to observe to the full all the responsibilities that it has undertaken. Obstacles have, however, been constantly placed in the way by the Chinese authorities, who have shown no other disposition than to evade their obligations. Instances abound in the archives of His Britannic Majesty's Legation and of the Wai-wu Pu, and recapitulation is needless.\n\nThe 17th Article of the Shansi Agreement expressly debarred the Syndicate from constructing the railway, which alone would enable the Northern Shansi mines to be worked successfully. The Syndicate did not embarrass the Chinese Government by calling upon it to enforce the contract for the Chengting-Taiyuan line which had been intrusted to others. The Syndicate patiently waited. So soon as this railway began to approach the Pingtingchou Coalfield the Syndicate, in strict accordance with its Agreement, applied to the Governor for a permit. This has never been granted. His Excellency Tong Shao-yi, Vice-President of the Wai-wu Pu, specially charged with the settlement of this case, on the 9th August, 1906, at one of our many meetings in explicit terms promised that the permit should be issued at once. This promise was, I believe, repeated to your Excellency within a short period of time. That promise has not been \n\n## 705", "txt_file_path": "txt/2diw2n4r2/CO129-344 - Public Offices & Foreign Office - 1907.txt", "external_url": "", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 416639, "series_id": 27, "series_slug": "histsyn-co129-engine", "series_title": "CO129 Colonial Office Hong Kong Records 理藩院香港檔案", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "CO129-351 - Public Offices - 1908", "page_number": 804, "title": "CO129-351 - Public Offices - 1908", "content_text": "4\n\nKiangsu, with a view to the suppression of piracy. Four shallow-draught gun-boats, eight Chinese gun-boats, and ninety small patrol-boats ('red boats') are to be purchased.\n\n\"Railway for Ili.—The Military Governor has reported in favour of constructing three lines: one from Ti-hua Fu to Ili, one from Ti-hua Fu to Urga, and the third from Ti-hua Fu to Lanchou. He proposes that the gold mines in Ili should be developed with a view to raising capital for the construction of these railways, and that a loan should be made by the Board of Revenue.\"\n\n'Railways in Manchuria.—The Tsi-tsi-har—Hei-lung-chiang Railway is to be commenced next spring, and the Chinese Eastern Railway branch line from Tsi-tsi-har to Old Tsi-tsi-har this summer.\n\n\"Kirin-Ch'ang Ch'un Railway. The survey of this line has been completed, and the estimated cost of construction is 5,500,000 to 5,600,000 dollars. Work will be commenced on the conclusion of the Loan Agreement with Japan.\"\n\nProposed Admiral for Hupei.—The Grand Council contemplate the appointment of an officer as Admiral of Hupei, to be stationed at Hankow and co-operate with the Admiral of the Yang-tsze.\n\n**\n\nProposed new Naval Harbour.—The Viceroy of Canton has forwarded to the Army Board a Report on the harbour of Hsia Yung in Kwangtung, with regard to its suitability as a naval harbour. The question is to be referred to Admiral Sa.\n\nYang Shih Ch'i's Mission.—In a Memorial to the Throne Yang Shih Ch'i gives brief account of his mission to inquire into the condition of Chinese settlers in the Philippines, Siam, Singapore, Java, Annam, and other countries. He describes the climate and productions of the various places visited, and states the number of Chinese settlers in each. He praises the Administration of Singapore and Penang, where the Chinese have attained much wealth and influence, but states that in Java the Chinese, especially those employed in the mines, are badly treated. Everywhere he went he was well received, and found that the Chinese settlers still retained a strong feeling of affection for their native country. He addressed meetings of Chinese merchants in various places, and visited schools and other institutions, to some of which he gave scrolls presented by the Empress Dowager.\n\n\"Steam Navigation on the Upper Yang-tsze.\" (See Sir J. Jordan's despatch No. 157, of the 1st April) In a Memorial the Acting Viceroy of Szechuan reports that he proposes to establish a Company with a capital of 200,000 taels, to run steam-ships on the Upper Yang-tsze between Ichang and Chungking, and later to Suifu and Kiating, one-third of the capital to be subscribed by the Government and two-thirds by the public. An officer sent to investigate the matter has reported that by blowing up some of the obstructions in the river and using windlasses at some of the more dangerous rapids, navigation by steam vessels would be quite feasible. Three small steamers are to be purchased abroad, and the service will afterwards be extended.\n\n46\n\nFires in Peking.—It is reported that Na Tung has given special orders to the police with reference to the fires which have been very numerous recently. He states that, although the frequency of these fires is chiefly to be attributed to the exceptional dryness of the atmosphere, there is reason to suspect that some have been the work of incendiaries who wished to take advantage of the fires to commit thefts. He directs the police to exert themselves to bring all such criminals to justice.\n\n\"The Ching Hua Shih Pao reports that there was a fire at the Wai-wu Pu on the 4th, but that it was promptly extinguished.\"\n\nThe Ching Hua Shih Pao also reports that there are at present a large number of revolutionaries in Peking who have come here from Japan. The Board of the Interior are reported to have given orders for the arrest of fifty-five of these persons.\n\n\"Naval Harbour in Hainan.—The Viceroy at Canton has reported in favour of making a naval harbour at Yu Lin, in Hainan, and states that the water supply and climate are good. He recommends the construction of a railway for the purpose of transporting troops and supplies there when necessary.\n\nChengting-Te Chou Railway.—The Government have decided to proceed with the construction of this railway at once. Engineers have been sent by the Peking-Hankow Railway Company to survey the line, and work will be commenced next month. The construction will be under the direction of the French.\n\n\"Tsitsihar-Angangchi Railway.—A Chinese Company with a capital of 320,000 taels has been formed for the construction of this short line (a distance of 50 li). The contract for building the line has been given to a German firm, Messrs. Telge and Schroeter. Work will be commenced in June.\n\n**\n\n5\n\n'Proposed Appointment of Judicial Officials.—The provincial authorities of Kwangtung, Yunnan, and Kweichow proposed some time ago that judicial officers (Pu Huo Ts'ai P'an) should be appointed in the interior with a view to preparing for the withdrawal of the right of exterritoriality at present enjoyed by foreigners. The Government, with the assistance of Wai-wu Pu and Hsien Cheng Kuan, are engaged in drawing up Regulations for the purpose.\n\n\"Proposed Railways in the North-west.—The Shen-Kan Viceroy has recommended the construction of two lines, one from Kalgan to Urga, a distance of 2,450 li, the other from Sui-yuan along the north bank of the Yellow River to Ning-hsia; thence to Liang-Chou, Hami, Ti-hua, and Ili, a distance of 8,000 li. These railways could not be constructed as a commercial enterprise, but would be of great importance for military purposes.\n\nMining in Shansi.—Since buying out the Peking Syndicate, the Taiyuan Fu Mining Company have obtained permission to raise capital to the amount of 5,000,000 taels to develop the mines, and the capital has already been over-subscribed, only Chinese being permitted to purchase shares. A Chinese mining engineer has been engaged at a salary of 600 taels a-month, machinery has been ordered from Europe, and 1,000,000 taels of the capital is to be devoted to the establishment of an iron foundry.\n\nThe \"Universal Gazette,\" in an article on the danger of ignorance of the limits of foreign relations, proceeds to argue that, while the limitation of India's export of opium is a diplomatic question, China's monopoly of sale of the prepared drug is an internal Government step with which England has no concern, since the nature of the drug has been altered, and so the Treaty with England does not apply. At present the shops charge at will, irrespective of the duty and li-kin, and England has nothing to say. Similarly, Chinese prohibition of rice export does not affect cakes and biscuits made of it. Moreover, a rise in price is not a customs duty; the aliens might as well claim to interfere with the proposed stamp duties, which will be charged on native and foreign goods alike.\n\nThe distinction between diplomatic and non-diplomatic matters is quite easy. Another instance, the Soo-Hang-Ning Railway. The Tsung-li Yamên's agreement with the British Envoy might be brought within the scope of diplomacy, but, as regards construction, the publication of the Railway Regulations took that out of the Wai-wu Pu's sphere, and the Wai-wu Pu should have told Sir J. Jordan to bid his nationals petition the Board of Communications direct, and have declined to interfere, quoting as precedents the American exclusion, which its State Department insisted pertained solely to the Labour Department; the Manchurian troops question, which Russia said pertained to her War Office; the Touquin Consuls, which the French Foreign Office put on its Colonial Department, and all the other precedents of recent years. Unfortunately, the Board waited till it got a bad name by resisting popular opinion before it got the Board of Communications to make the loan,\n\nThen trade-marks: all China promised was rules like other Powers, yet foreigners are allowed to interfere with their tenor. And the Mining Rules, which were drafted with the aid of foreign advisers, were still less open to foreign revision.\n\nIf attention is paid to their protests on more and more questions, China's independence will be lost through Chinese heedlessness.\n\nThe trouble has come from the fact that the Wai-wu Pu is not bound, like other posts, to report to the Throne and quote precedents. It has assumed unlimited powers, and, with a Prince and Grand Councillors at its head, ignores all control, and, without knowing it, is a danger to the State. Could folly go further?\n\nTo recover from the consequences will take many years' struggles and constant supervision, which latter is beyond the Throne, the Council and the Ministers, and to be found only in an elected Parliament. This is the only means to safety.\n\nThe \"Eastern Times\" of the 25th March professes to give the gist of a secret report by the Chinese Delegates to The Hague Conference on the European position. He describes the Peace Conference as a covert struggle for each Power's private objects. England dislikes Germany, which, since its victory over France, has increased in military pride above not only England, but the whole world, and is now developing a navy. So Russia fell in with England's request, in order, it is said, to safeguard her Asiatic possessions after Japan's victory over Russia. So Russia and Japan nearly came to rupture over the naval question, who five years ago started the limitation of armaments proposal, now refused to sign such an Agreement. The Conference reminds him of Sung's abortive assembly of the States (in B.C. 545), when the Ch'u men wore armour under their clothes.\n\n797", "txt_file_path": "txt/2diw2n4r2/CO129-351 - Public Offices - 1908.txt", "external_url": "", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 416653, "series_id": 27, "series_slug": "histsyn-co129-engine", "series_title": "CO129 Colonial Office Hong Kong Records 理藩院香港檔案", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "CO129-351 - Public Offices - 1908", "page_number": 818, "title": "CO129-351 - Public Offices - 1908", "content_text": "811\n\n5. Two officers of the Hong Kong Public Works Department leave this Colony on the 16th instant to travel across China, and will visit Changsha on their way. They will travel thence to Chungking, making as full a survey of the country as possible, with a view to railway construction. So soon as I receive the results of their surveys, I will send a copy to your Excellency.\n\nI have, &c.\n\n(Signed)\n\nF. D. LUGARD.\n\n[This Document is the Property of His Britannic Majesty's Government]\n\nCHINA RAILWAYS.\n\nCONFIDENTIAL.\n\n23756\n\nJUL 08\n\n[June 18.]\n\nSECTION 1.\n\n[20817]\n\nNo. 1.\n\n(Confidential.) Sir,\n\nInclosure 2 in No. 1.\n\nSir J. Jordan to Sir F. Lugard.\n\nI HAVE the honour to acknowledge the receipt of your Excellency's despatch of the 9th instant regarding the suggestion of Mr. Clementi that the country between Chungking and Changsha should be examined with a view to railway construction, and informing me of the departure of two officers of the Hong Kong Public Works Department on a journey along this route.\n\nDuring my recent visit to Hankow, I informed His Majesty's Consul-General confidentially of this project. Mr. Fraser was inclined to consider that the prospects of finding a practicable alignment through those parts were small. The country, moreover, was poor, and had been traversed recently by British officers.\n\nYour Excellency will find these views borne out in the \"Military Report on the Province of Szechuan,\" Simla, 1903, p. 11, where a map prepared by Captain C. G. W. Hunter, R.E., marks as impracticable for railway construction the route from Yochow to Chenchou and thence to Fuchou on the Yang-tsze below Chungking.\n\nOn p. 14 of the same Report the opinion is expressed that \"there appears small chance of a practicable railway route being found along this (the south) bank of the Yang-tsze.\n\nWith regard to paragraph 4 of your Excellency's despatch, it should be observed that no Concession has been granted to foreign capitalists for railway construction between Hankow and Szechuan, though an engagement exists to borrow money from Great Britain if foreign capital is required for the undertaking.\n\nI have, &c. (Signed) J. N. JORDAN,\n\n(No. 95.)\n\nSir Edward Grey to Sir J. Jordan.\n\n(Telegraphic.) P.\n\nForeign Office, June 18, 1908. PLEASE refer to your telegram No. 122 of the 16th instant on the subject of the French demand for the extension to Hsian-fu of the Chengting-Taiyuan-fu Railway.\n\nYou might point out to the French Minister unofficially, if you see no objection, that the chances of the Anglo-French Railway from Hankow into Szechuan might be adversely affected by this scheme,\n\nI am making a suggestion in a similar sense to Sir F. Bertie.\n\n[1814 -]\n\n-1]", "txt_file_path": "txt/2diw2n4r2/CO129-351 - Public Offices - 1908.txt", "external_url": "", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 416719, "series_id": 27, "series_slug": "histsyn-co129-engine", "series_title": "CO129 Colonial Office Hong Kong Records 理藩院香港檔案", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "CO129-352 - Public Offices - 1908", "page_number": 46, "title": "CO129-352 - Public Offices - 1908", "content_text": "# AFFAIRS OF CHINA\n## CONFIDENTIAL\n\n[This Document is the Property of His Britannic Majesty's Government]\n\nman4461 \n44 \nReci \n7 JUL 08 \n\n### SECTION 2\n[21596]\n\n**(No. 248.) Sir F. Bertie to Sir Edward Grey.-(Received June 23.)** \nParis, June 21, 1908.\n\nI had an interview with the Minister for Foreign Affairs yesterday evening, in order to carry out the instructions contained in your despatch to me No. 266 of the 18th instant with regard to the inclusion in the demands of the French Minister at Peking for satisfaction for the murder of a French officer and soldiers on the Yunnan frontier of the grant of the right to extend the Chengting Taiyuan-fu Railway to Hsian-fu.\n\nYour despatch No. 124 of the 19th instant had forwarded to me a copy of a telegram of the preceding day from His Majesty's Minister at Peking, giving an account of a conversation which he had had with his French colleague on the subject of this demand.\n\nI told M. Pichon that His Majesty's Minister at Peking had been informed by the Chinese Government that this demand had been made, and His Majesty's Government considered that there was some danger that it might be regarded as a revival of the international competition for Concessions, and that it might interfere with the chances of obtaining the Concession for the construction of the proposed Anglo-French Railway from Hankow to Szechuan. I said that the French Minister at Peking had stated to his British colleague that, whereas the French authorities had done much to restrain the Chinese revolutionaries in Tonquin, the Chinese had maintained unfriendly officials in Yunnan, and the time had arrived to ask China to make some amends by the grant of a request put forward some time ago, and he had mentioned as a parallel case the pressure by the British Legation for the Chekiang Railway. The case was, however, not of a like kind, for the Chekiang negotiations were for the fulfilment of a written Agreement entered into in 1898, and the result was by no means equivalent to the further Railway Concessions which France had obtained in Yünnan in that year. I pointed out to M. Pichon that, in view of the action of the French Legation, the Chinese would attribute a political character to it to the prejudice of the purely industrial character with which the Anglo-French combination had been invested, and to the advantage of rival schemes.\n\nM. Pichon assured me that it was far from his wish to do anything to the prejudice of the Anglo-French combination. On the receipt from the French Minister at Peking of his telegraphic report of his conversation with his British colleague, M. Pichon had telegraphed to him not to make the extension of the railway to Hsian-fu one of the French demands for reparation for the murder of the French officer and soldiers. His Excellency had instructed M. Bapst only to intimate to the Chinese Government that if they accorded the extension of the line they would find the French Government accommodating (\"bien disposé\") in regard to a settlement of the matter of the murders. In consequence of what I had said to his Excellency on the part of His Majesty's Government he would at once telegraph to Peking directing the French Minister to avoid any step which could be taken as giving a political complexion to the suggestion which M. Bapst had made regarding the extension of the railway.\n\n**(Confidential.)**\n\nIt is probable that M. Bapst, like unto many French officials, thought to go one better than the French Government with the expectation of reaping his reward if successful in obtaining that for which he had asked more insistently than he had been authorized to do by the French Government.\n\nI have, &c.\n\n[1819 x-2] \n**(Signed)** \nFRANCIS BERTIE.", "txt_file_path": "txt/2diw2n4r2/CO129-352 - Public Offices - 1908.txt", "external_url": "", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 416742, "series_id": 27, "series_slug": "histsyn-co129-engine", "series_title": "CO129 Colonial Office Hong Kong Records 理藩院香港檔案", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "CO129-352 - Public Offices - 1908", "page_number": 69, "title": "CO129-352 - Public Offices - 1908", "content_text": "[This Document is the Property of His Britannic Majesty's Government.]\n\nCHINA RAILWAYS.\n\nCONFIDENTIAL.\n\n[21274]\n\nNo. 1.\n\n25671\n\n[June 22.] JUL 08\n\nSECTION 1.\n\nSir F. Bertie to Sir Edward Grey.--(Received June 22.)\n\n(No. 25.) (Telegraphic.) P.\n\nParis, June 20, 1908.\n\nHAVE received your despatch No. 266 of the 18th instant and Sir J. Jordan's telegram No. 124 of the 19th instant in regard to the French demand on the Chinese Government for an extension to Hsian-fu of the Chengting Taiyuan-fu Railway.\n\nI was informed by the Minister for Foreign Affairs this afternoon that the French Minister at Peking had reported to the French Government his conversation with Sir J. Jordan (referred to in the latter's telegram No. 124), and that he had thereupon been instructed by telegraph not to include such an extension in his demands for reparation for the murder of the French officer and soldiers on the Yunnan frontier. His instructions are merely to say that, should the Chinese Government consent to the proposed extension, the French Government would be accommodating (\"bien disposé\") in regard to a settlement of the question of the murders. M. Pichon said that he would, in consequence of the representations which I had made on the part of His Majesty's Government, telegraph to the French Minister instructing him to avoid making any representation which could be construed as giving a political character to the suggestion in regard to the railway extension.\n\n[1814 y--1]\n\n66\n\n7\n\nPage 67\n\n[end of page]", "txt_file_path": "txt/2diw2n4r2/CO129-352 - Public Offices - 1908.txt", "external_url": "", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 417065, "series_id": 27, "series_slug": "histsyn-co129-engine", "series_title": "CO129 Colonial Office Hong Kong Records 理藩院香港檔案", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "CO129-352 - Public Offices - 1908", "page_number": 391, "title": "CO129-352 - Public Offices - 1908", "content_text": "# **CONFIDENTIAL**\n\nThis Document is the Property of His Britannic Majesty's Government.\n\n2\n\nwhereby the Hong Kong and Shanghae Bank and the Banque de l'Indo-Chine were to participate equally.\n\nBut the Viceroy still refused French participation, as he was under no obligation to them.\n\nLater in the same month, the negotiations having been taken up by Mr. Hillier during the absence of Mr. Bland, Sir J. Jordan sent home the translation of a communication from Chang to the Chinese Government, stating that the British wanted the French to participate, and saying he had refused.\n\nSir J. Jordan then reported that the French group were apparently willing that the British and Chinese Corporation should appear as the lender, but that the French Government would not agree.\n\nThese loan negotiations having fallen through, the matter remained for some time in abeyance.\n\nIn February 1908 the question was taken up again, and in consequence of certain proposals made by the French Syndicate to the British and Chinese Corporation in connection with the intention of the Chinese Government to pay off the Peking-Hankow Railway concessionnaires, Mr. Addis went to Paris on behalf of the British and Chinese Corporation, and an Agreement was arrived at, providing that the financial interest of each group was to be equal in both the Canton-Hankow and Peking-Hankow loans; the British and Chinese Corporation were to control the former line and the French group the latter. It was understood that this arrangement received the concurrence of the French Government.\n\nIn the matter of the Canton-Hankow Railway, however, the Chinese refuse to proceed pending the settlement of certain Belgian claims, and matters are at present in abeyance. As regards the proposed Anglo-French loan to China for the redemption of the Peking-Hankow Railway, it is understood that a settlement has just been effected between the French and English groups on a basis approved by the French Foreign Office.\n\n## 2. \n\nTo turn to M. Cambon's remarks about the present attitude of His Majesty's Minister at Peking and the agent of the British group, Sir J. Jordan has assured us that though he has stated more than once to his French colleague his personal opinion that the French claim for the extension of the Chengting-Taiyuenfu Railway to Singanfu would react seriously on Anglo-French railway projects, he has otherwise maintained throughout an attitude of the strictest abstention; and he adds that he will be careful to keep in as close touch as possible with M. Bapst. He appears somewhat disappointed, however, that, in view of his excellent relations with M. Bapst and the importance of the joint Anglo-French railway interests in China, he was not warned of the intention to make the claim before it became public property at Peking.\n\nAs regards the Peking-Hankow and Canton-Hankow Railways, Sir J. Jordan has pointed out that it was he, and not the French Minister, who first ascertained in July 1907 that the Wai-wu Pu did not object to French participation, though Viceroy Chang, the official in charge of the negotiations, was at the time opposed to it. He has reported that Mr. Bland has been throughout, and is still, in intimate relations with M. Casenave, the French Bank representative, and not the least suspicion of disloyalty between them has ever been suggested.\n\nMoreover, Sir J. Jordan, who has just seen the French Minister, found him fully informed on the Hillier Loan negotiations of June 1907, referred to in the first part of this Memorandum. In reply to a direct question which he was asked as to whether he had any reason to complain of Mr. Hillier not keeping him informed, M. Bapst informed Sir J. Jordan twice, with an emphatic gesture, \"None whatever.\" M. Bapst explained that negotiations were still in a preliminary stage, and that Mr. Hillier had promised to let him know as soon as they became serious.\n\nThe above will no doubt be sufficient to convince M. Cambon that there is no foundation for the view which the French Government appear to have taken of our action, and he will be able to see that while both here and at Hankow we have borne almost the entire burden of these difficult negotiations, our first care throughout has been the loyal observance of our engagements to the French, and that we can hardly be blamed for the fact that ex-Viceroy Chang Chih-tung is more opposed to French participation than the Central Government as a whole.\n\nForeign Office, July 15, 1908,\n\n## **CHINA RAILWAYS**\n\n## **CONFIDENTIAL**\n\n[25440]\n\n### No. 1.\n\nSir J. Jordan to Sir Edward Grey.-(Received July 22.)\n\n(No. 291. Confidential.)\n\nSir,\n\nPeking, June 25, 1908.\n\nTHE Japanese Government not having answered the note, inclosed in my despatch No. 214 of the 12th May, which the Wai-wu Pu sent the Japanese Chargé d'Affaires a reminder a few days ago, maintaining the views previously expressed as regards the projected Fakumen-Hsinmintun Railway, and requesting the Japanese Government, if they still held to their original objections, to state a clear definition of what is to be considered as \"in the close vicinity of or parallel to\" the South Manchurian line. Translation of the reminder, which has been communicated to me privately by his Excellency Tong Shao-yi, is inclosed herewith. The semi-official statement of the Japanese case, which was published in Tokio on the 10th June, and which has no doubt been sent to you by His Majesty's Ambassador, is being made widely known in China, and it produced a rejoinder from the pen of Mr. Bland, copy of which I inclose for your information.\n\n(Translation.)\n\nI have, &c.\n\n(Signed) J. N. JORDAN.\n\n### Inclosure 1 in No. 1.\n\nPrince Ching to Japanese Chargé d'Affaires,\n\nJune 1908.\n\nSir,\n\nIN my note of the 6th May to his Excellency Baron Hayashi, I had the honour to explain, with reference to the project of the Chinese Government to construct a railway from Hsin Min-fu to Fakumen, that the object in view was to develop this region and facilitate its communications; and that there was no idea of injuring the interests of the South Manchurian Railway.\n\nNo reply has yet been received to this note, and I now have the honour to maintain again that the extension of the line in this direction can in no wise be said to be in the close vicinity of the South Manchurian line or parallel to it, as was clearly explained in my former note.\n\nI presume, therefore, that the Japanese Government have no objection to offer, but if they still hold the view already expressed I trust that you will afford me a clear definition of what is to be considered as \"in the close vicinity of or parallel to\" the South Manchurian line, in replying to my previous note upon this subject.\n\nI avail, &c.\n\n(Signed) Prince CHʻING.\n\n### Inclosure 2 in No. 1.\n\nMemorandum by Mr. Bland respecting the proposed Fakumen Railway.\n\nON the 10th June it was announced by the Press Bureau in Tôkiô that an \"authoritative statement\" had been issued, stating the Japanese case against the construction of the proposed railway from Hsinmintun to Fakumen, and a summary of its arguments was telegraphed abroad. Whether an anonymous document can properly be described as authoritative is open to question; nevertheless, the document having been officially communicated to His Majesty's Ambassador in Tokiô, we may reasonably presume that the Japanese Government subscribes to the statements and arguments therein contained. Many of these are disingenuous to the verge of puerility, and the author assumes in the general reader an ignorance of Far Eastern events and politics.\n\nPage 388", "txt_file_path": "txt/2diw2n4r2/CO129-352 - Public Offices - 1908.txt", "external_url": "", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 417067, "series_id": 27, "series_slug": "histsyn-co129-engine", "series_title": "CO129 Colonial Office Hong Kong Records 理藩院香港檔案", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "CO129-352 - Public Offices - 1908", "page_number": 393, "title": "CO129-352 - Public Offices - 1908", "content_text": "It can scarcely be seriously believed in Tokio that the veto imposed by the Japanese Government in regard to the Fakumen Railway is regarded by any intelligent person as consistent with a policy \"intended to safeguard effectively the interests already acquired by the two Powers on the common ground.\"\n\nEqually inadmissible is the Japanese Government's contention that \"the policy of open door does not prevent railway exploitation.\" Here again everything depends on the meaning of the terms used, but there can be no question that the exclusive privileges claimed by Japan in connection with her ownership of the South Manchurian Railway are a complete repudiation of the open-door policy. Railways may be, and are, built on Chinese territory as financial and industrial enterprises in which foreign Powers are interested, and this without violation of the open door so long as the enterprises in question are for the benefit and under the direction of the Imperial Chinese Government, affording equal commercial opportunities to all-comers; but it were futile to assert that the doctrine of equal opportunities is compatible with such privileges and such control as Japan is now endeavouring to exercise over Manchuria by virtue of her acquisition of the South Manchurian Railway. If proof of this statement be needed by those unacquainted with the situation, it is to be found in the fact that the Municipal Regulations recently promulgated in the name of the Russian railway authorities at Harbin—Regulations which ignored the Treaty rights of the subjects of all other Powers—received the diplomatic approval and support of the Japanese Government on the understanding that similar conditions would be recognized by Russia as applicable to the Japanese Railway Settlements in Southern Manchuria. It is useless to deny the fact that the South Manchuria Railway, won by Japan's victorious arms, is an instrument in the hands of the Japanese Government for the promotion of exclusive Japanese interests. The situation is sufficiently recognized, diplomatic convention notwithstanding, by the Powers, and the forces of \"geographical gravitation,\" which must inevitably tend to the advancement of Japan's interests to the east of the Liao River, are generally understood. But the question which is raised by the Fakumen Railway scheme is whether, and how far, those forces of \"geographical gravitation\" are to be extended westwards, to the serious prejudice of vested British interests in that region, the detriment of international commerce, and the limitation of China's sovereignty?\n\nIn view of the essential and wider aspects of this question, it is almost superfluous to examine the technical reasons and economic precedents whereby the Japanese Government seeks to justify its veto of a \"parallel\" line. Nevertheless, as great stress has been laid upon the existence of a similar restrictive clause in the railway agreements made with China by other nationalities, and as the argument may appear forcible to the uninitiated, it is expedient to explain its inapplicability. The Agreement to which the Japanese Government particularly refers, viz., the American contract for the Hankow-Canton Railway, and the British contract for the line from Canton to Kowloon, were purely financial and industrial Agreements made between the Chinese Government and private Companies, for the construction of Chinese Government railways under Chinese control; and the lines being mortgaged as first security for the repayment of the necessary loans, the inclusion of the restrictive condition in regard to parallel lines was obviously beneficial to all concerned, since it facilitated the raising of capital abroad. Nevertheless, as the history of railway construction in China clearly proves, this condition was never intended to be (nor could it be) arbitrarily interpreted by the representatives of the foreign bondholders to restrict the Chinese Government from constructing other railways parallel to these lines, the evident and only intention of the condition being to reassure investors that the Chinese Government would not (presumably at the instance of another Power) do anything to injure property which is mortgaged for security of foreign loans. No such argument can, however, be applicable in the case of the South Manchurian Railway, which is not a Chinese railway, for which China has incurred no liabilities and in which she is not even financially interested.\n\nFinally, referring to the Newchwang Chamber's contention that in no country in the world could the vested interests of a railway preclude the construction of another line within a distance of 35 miles,\" the Japanese Government cites what it alleges to be \"at least one instance in direct contradiction of that statement,\" and thereupon proceeds to quote the engagement given to the Peking Syndicate's Shansi Agreement, whereby, to avoid undesirable competition with the Chengting-Taiyuen Railway, the Syndicate undertook not to construct any railway within 100 li on either side of it. We can only presume that the Tokio authorities are unaware that 100 li are, for practical purposes, the equivalent of 35 miles; for it is inconceivable that, if they were informed of the fact, they should cite as argument on the Japanese side of the case a precedent which completely justifies the construction of the Fakumen Railway. (According to Mr. Kinder's report on that scheme, the actual distance between Mukden and Isinmintun is 37 miles.)\n\nThese, however, are side issues, which serve merely to detract attention from essentials. If the question be considered simply in the light of Japan's definite and undeniable obligation to recognize and maintain China's unimpaired sovereignty in Manchuria, and to promote the development of China's commerce and industries in that region, then assuredly (and because the greater includes the less) the Peking Agreement of 1905 and its supplementary clauses must be interpreted in the light of the declared principles and objects of the Anglo-Japanese alliance. For, if otherwise interpreted, it is evident that the Japanese Government failed to observe that clause of the Treaty of Alliance, which, having for its object the mutual protection of the established interests of both Powers, provides that neither of the Contracting Parties will, without consultation with the other, enter into separate arrangements with another Power to the prejudice of the interests described in the Agreement.\n\nPage 390", "txt_file_path": "txt/2diw2n4r2/CO129-352 - Public Offices - 1908.txt", "external_url": "", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 417071, "series_id": 27, "series_slug": "histsyn-co129-engine", "series_title": "CO129 Colonial Office Hong Kong Records 理藩院香港檔案", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "CO129-352 - Public Offices - 1908", "page_number": 397, "title": "CO129-352 - Public Offices - 1908", "content_text": "occupied and actually served in all its parts by another line, would, if running parallel with and at a distance of 30 or 40 miles from the original line, and bidding for a share of its traffic, be clearly regarded as in the neighbourhood of and detrimental to the established line. On the other hand, a railway separated for instance from another by a mountain range, could not be considered as in the neighbourhood of such other line, even if within 10 or 15 miles of it. Accordingly, objections to the contemplated line on the ground that it would be in the neighbourhood of and parallel with the existing railway cannot in the circumstances of the case be said to be unreasonable. Manifestly a railway that is near enough to another line to enter into competition with such other line, must be regarded as in the same neighbourhood.\n\nSecondly. It should be pointed out that assertion is not demonstration. It was, it is true, asserted earlier in the letter under examination, that the proposed line would not be competitive with or detrimental to the existing railway. Not only was that assertion wholly unsupported, except by the inaccurate statement that no trade went eastward from the Fakumen region to districts operated by the existing system, but was contradicted by the suggestion as to the necessity of the new line in the commercial interests of Newchwang. The assertion is, moreover irreconcilable with the statement of Sir A. Hosie, which has already been quoted.\n\nThirdly. To say that in no country in the world could the vested interests of a railway preclude the construction of another line within a distance of 35 miles is to say more than can be substantiated. Even in China at least one instance in direct contradiction of that statement actually exists. In 1898 the Russo-Chinese Bank entered into a contract with the Chinese authorities concerning the construction of the Chengting-Taiyuan Railway. Article 5 of that contract reads as follows:-\n\n\"During the whole thirty years and or while the loan is unredeemed, the high authorities of Shansi shall, at the request of the Company, interdict the construction of another railway or other mechanical means of transport between Liuliu (Chengting) and Taiyuan, as such would be detrimental to the interest of this railway.\"\n\nLater in the same year the Peking Syndicate signed an Agreement with the Shansi Bureau of Trade, for mining purposes, iron works and transporting mine products of all kinds in the Province of Shansi. Having regard to the engagement above quoted it was provided in Article 17 of the Peking Syndicate Agreement:-\n\n\"With reference to the Chengting to Taiyuan Railway, for the construction of which the Bureau has borrowed capital from others, the Peking Syndicate, to avoid disputes, shall not construct any railway within 100 li on each side of it.\"\n\nAside from this concrete case, it may be pointed out that in a country where for centuries produce in large quantities has been transported over long distances by men and beasts, 35 miles is certainly well within the radius of competition for parallel lines of railway.\n\nBut, it should be added, the distance between the existing and proposed lines is, in fact, considerably less than 35 miles: From Hsinmintun to Mukden is 32 miles; from Fakumen to Tiehling 27 miles; and from Shintaitza on the South Manchurian line to the nearest point on the proposed line is only 24 miles.\n\nFourthly. The pronouncement that the Peking Agreement of 1905 was violative of Article 4 of the Treaty of Portsmouth, and opposed to the pledge given by Japan to the Powers, is a statement that the Newchwang Chamber of Commerce was not competent to make, and one which that body would never have made, if it had given due consideration of the question. The Treaty of Portsmouth was between Japan and Russia, and if Japan has concluded engagements with other Powers inconsistent with that Act, it is for Russia to call her to account. The Peking Agreement was concluded with China, and the Chinese Plenipotentiaries had the Treaty of Portsmouth before them when negotiating that Agreement. Accordingly it may be assumed that China no less than Japan considered that Agreement as entirely reconcilable with the Portsmouth Compact. The only pledge that Japan has given to the Powers is the pledge regarding the open door in China, which has equally been given by the other Powers-America, Germany, France, Great Britain, and Russia. Those Powers have all been parties to, or have supported in favour of, their subjects and citizens, Railway Concessions in China in which appear stipulations similar to, and equally comprehensive with, the provisions of the Peking Agreement above mentioned. Thus in the Agreement with the American China Development Company of the 13th July, 1900, for the construction of the Hankow-Canton Railway line, it was provided-\n\nThat, without the express consent in writing of the Director-General and the American Company, no other rival railway detrimental to the business of the same is to be permitted, and no parallel roads to the Canton-Hankow line are to be allowed to the injury of the latter's interest within the area served by the Canton-Hankow main line or branch lines.\n\nIn the Agreement of the 9th July, 1903, with the British and Chinese Corporation (Limited), for the construction of the Shanghae-Nanking line the same stipulation, mutatis mutandis, appears.\n\nThe Canton-Kowloon Railway Agreement of March 1907 between the Wai-wu Pu and the British and Chinese Corporation (Limited) contains the following :-\n\nIt is further understood that the Chinese Government will not build another line competing with this railway to its detriment.\n\nWe have already seen the Russo-Chinese Agreements regarding the Shankaikwan-Yingkow-Hsinmintun and the Chengting-Taiyuan lines, as well as the Anglo-Chinese Shansi engagement, and it will be sufficient, in concluding this branch of the question, to call attention to the fact that Germany, in virtue of her Kiaochow engagements with China, claims the exclusive right of railway exploitation in the Province of Shantung. It was because of this claim that the construction of the Tientsin-Chinkiang Railway became in part a British and in part a German undertaking.\n\nThe last point in the letter of the Chairman of the Newchwang Chamber of Commerce, which requires examination, is the statement that the territory to the west of the Liao Ho was during the Russo-Japanese war, specifically proclaimed by China and officially recognized by the belligerents to be neutral territory, and consequently, even if it be assumed that the undertaking in question was valid, that undertaking could only have had application to the territory which was within the area of hostilities, and which furnished the cause of the war, and was the subject of the Treaty.\n\nIn making that statement the author of the letter, in his partisan zeal in defence of the interests of Newchwang, forgot his history as well as his geography.\n\nThe region through which the projected line was to run is in Manchuria, and was as much the cause of the war and the subject of Treaty adjustment as any other portion of the three provinces. Hsinmintun and Fakumen were opened by the Peking Treaty of 1905, and the Hsinmintun-Mukden line was one of the questions disposed of by that Treaty.\n\nChina specifically proclaimed that her neutrality extended to those localities unoccupied by belligerent troops. The region in question was throughout the war so occupied by one or the other of the belligerents.\n\nJapan officially recognized as neutral Chinese territory not occupied by Russia. Russia officially declared the following area to be outside the neutral territory :-\n\nA portion of the region situated on the right bank of the Liao Ho, the boundaries of which are formed by the Liao Ho by the railway line Yingkow-Kaopantze; afterwards by the railway line to a point where this line crosses an affluent of the Liao Ho, the Liou Ho (a little south of Hsinmintun), and finally by the said affluent the Liou Ho as far as the frontier of Mongolia.\n\nOn the ground, therefore, of historical precedents, no less than reasonable precaution, the action of the Japanese Government in interposing a veto against the construction of the projected line cannot in justice be condemned.\n\nThe Newchwang Chamber of Commerce, as is seen from its Resolution, places great reliance on Article 4 of the Treaty of Portsmouth. Accordingly it may be explained that a measure which is injurious to one Power cannot fairly be regarded as a general measure common to all countries.\n\nPage 66", "txt_file_path": "txt/2diw2n4r2/CO129-352 - Public Offices - 1908.txt", "external_url": "", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 417100, "series_id": 27, "series_slug": "histsyn-co129-engine", "series_title": "CO129 Colonial Office Hong Kong Records 理藩院香港檔案", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "CO129-352 - Public Offices - 1908", "page_number": 426, "title": "CO129-352 - Public Offices - 1908", "content_text": "[This Document is the Property of His Britannic Majesty's Government.]\n\nAFFAIRS OF CHINA.\n\n32381\n\n[June 16.]\n\n423\n\n08\n\nSECTION 2,\n\nCONFIDENTIAL.\n\n[20817]\n\n(No. 122.)\n\n(Telegraphic.) P.\n\nNo. 1.\n\nSir J. Jordan to Sir Edward Grey.--(Received June 16.)\n\nYUNNAN frontier incident.\n\nPlease see my telegram No. 120 of the 9th instant.\n\nPeking, June 16, 1908.\n\nAmong the demands put forward by the French Minister in connection with the shooting of the French soldiers is a claim for the extension to Hsian-fu of the Chengting-Taiyuan-fu Railway. This I learnt in the course of an interview to-day at the Wai-wu Pu.\n\nThe existing Anglo-French Railway schemes will in all likelihood suffer in consequence of this claim, which Chinese official circles will probably regard as a reversion to the policy pursued by the Powers immediately before the Boxer troubles of 1900.\n\n[1819 q-2]", "txt_file_path": "txt/2diw2n4r2/CO129-352 - Public Offices - 1908.txt", "external_url": "", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 417117, "series_id": 27, "series_slug": "histsyn-co129-engine", "series_title": "CO129 Colonial Office Hong Kong Records 理藩院香港檔案", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "CO129-352 - Public Offices - 1908", "page_number": 443, "title": "CO129-352 - Public Offices - 1908", "content_text": "CHINA RAILWAYS.\n\nCONFIDENTIAL.\n\n[21151]\n\nNo. 1.\n\n440\n\nSE: 08\n\n[June 19:]\n\nSECTION 1.\n\nSir J. Jordan to Sir Edward Grey.-(Received June 19.)\n\n(No. 124.) (Telegraphic.) P.\n\nFRANCE and China.\n\nPeking, June 19, 1908.\n\nOn the receipt of your telegram No. 95 of yesterday's date, I made unofficial representations to the French Minister as to the inadvisability of pressing the claim for the extension of the Chengting-Taiyuan-fu Railway. Hitherto, I said, we had been able to point to the Anglo-French railway projects as purely industrial undertakings, a fact on which we had always laid great stress; but the action of France in the present case would be ascribed by the Chinese to political motives, and might lead to preference being accorded to our competitors. I could not agree with the French Minister's argument that our attitude in regard to the Chekiang Railway had been open to the same objections. In that case we had only brought pressure to bear in order to insure the due carrying out of a signed Agreement, made in the year 1898, in which France had secured for herself in Yunnan distinctly more advantageous railway rights.\n\nM. Bapst declared that he had not demanded the railway extension merely as a reparation to be made by China for the recent incident on the Yunnan frontier. The appointments of unfriendly officials in Yunnan, and in other ways, the Chinese Government had been persistently disgracieux in their attitude towards France, although the authorities in French Indo-China had to a large extent successfully kept in check the Chinese revolutionaries in Tonquin. In M. Bapst's opinion, China now had an opportunity to make some amends by acceding to a request which, he added, was not by any means being presented for the first time.\n\n[1814 t-1]", "txt_file_path": "txt/2diw2n4r2/CO129-352 - Public Offices - 1908.txt", "external_url": "", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 421397, "series_id": 27, "series_slug": "histsyn-co129-engine", "series_title": "CO129 Colonial Office Hong Kong Records 理藩院香港檔案", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "CO129-360 - Public Offices - 1909", "page_number": 186, "title": "CO129-360 - Public Offices - 1909", "content_text": "## Minutes of Meetings held at New Court, St. Swithin's Lane, London, on the 1st and 2nd September, 1898.\n\n**PRESENT:**- \n- Mr. A. von Hansemann (representing the German Syndicate)\n- Mr. W. Keswick (representing the British and Chinese Corporation, Limited)\n- Mr. Ewen Cameron (representing the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation)\n- Mr. Julius Brussel\n\nMr. von Hansemann proposed the following, viz:-\n\"It is desirable for the British and German Governments to agree about the sphere of interest of the two countries regarding the railway constructions in China, and to mutually support the interest of either country\". \n\nThis proposal was agreed to.\n\nThe following proposal of Mr. von Hansemann regarding the British and German spheres of interest for applications for Railway Concessions in China, viz:-\n\n(1) **British Sphere of Interest**, viz:-\n\"The Yangtsze Valley subject to the connection of the Shantung lines to the Yangtsze at Chinkiang: the provinces south of the Yangtsze: the province of Shansi with connection to the Peking Hankow line at a point south of Chengting\"", "txt_file_path": "txt/2diw2n4r2/CO129-360 - Public Offices - 1909.txt", "external_url": "", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 421398, "series_id": 27, "series_slug": "histsyn-co129-engine", "series_title": "CO129 Colonial Office Hong Kong Records 理藩院香港檔案", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "CO129-360 - Public Offices - 1909", "page_number": 187, "title": "CO129-360 - Public Offices - 1909", "content_text": "185\n\n\"and a connecting line to the Yangtsze Valley, crossing the Hoangho Valley\".\n\n(2) German sphere of interest, viz:-\n\"The province of Shantung and the Hoangho Valley with connection to Tientsin and Chengting, or other point of the Peking Hankow line, in the South with connection to the Yangtsze at Chinkiang or Nanking. The Hoangho Valley is understood to be subject to the connecting lines in Shansi forming part of the British sphere of interest, and to the connecting line to the Yangtsze Valley, also belonging to the said sphere of interest was agreed to, with the following alterations, viz:-\n\"The line from Tientsin to Tsinan or to another point on the Northern Frontier of the province of Shantung and the line from the Southern point of the province of Shantung to Chinkiang to be constructed by the Anglo-German Syndicate (meaning the German Syndicate on one part and the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation and the British and Chinese Corporation, Limited on the other part) in the following manner, viz:\n\n\"1. The Capital for both lines to be raised jointly.\n\"2. The line from Tientsin to Tsinan or to another point on the Northern frontier of the province of Shantung to be built and equipped and worked by the German group.\n\"3. The line from the Southern point of the province of Shantung to Chinkiang to be built and equipped and worked by the English group.\n\"4. On completion the lines to be worked for joint-account\"\n\nSo far the Minutes of the proceedings of the meetings, and it is further agreed upon that neither the German group nor the English group will be bound to construct the lines assigned to their sphere unless the Shantung lines be constructed simultaneously.\n\nLondon,\nSeptember 2nd, 1898.\n\nApproved of and signed by:-\n(Signed)\nA. von Hansemann\nW. Keswick.\nEwen Cameron.\nJulius Brussel.\n\n# \nP.S. Wherever the term \"Valley\" is used it means \"Flussgebiet\" the signification of which is the districts through which streams flow into the Yangtsze or Hoangho.\n(Initialled)\nA. v H.\nW. K.\nE. C.\nJ. B.", "txt_file_path": "txt/2diw2n4r2/CO129-360 - Public Offices - 1909.txt", "external_url": "", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 422536, "series_id": 27, "series_slug": "histsyn-co129-engine", "series_title": "CO129 Colonial Office Hong Kong Records 理藩院香港檔案", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "CO129-361 - Public Offices - 1909", "page_number": 565, "title": "CO129-361 - Public Offices - 1909", "content_text": "# Peking Syndicate to Foreign Office\n\n## No. 50.\n\nPeking Syndicate to Foreign Office.--(Received November 26.)\n\nSir,\n\n110, Cannon Street, London, November 26, 1903.\n\nIN continuation of my letter of the 28th October, with which was forwarded copy of a telegram from Mr. George Jamieson, C.M.G., from Shanghae, dated the 26th idem, I am desired by my Board to send herewith copy of a letter addressed to his Excellency Sir Ernest Satow by Mr. Jamieson, in which the very unsatisfactory results of interviews he has had at Shanghae with certain Chinese officials in connection with the settlement of the terms of the promised guarantee for the Tsechow-Taokow Railway are set forth. My Board desire to point out that the treatment accorded by his Excellency Shêng clearly indicates his intention to delay a settlement of the matter indefinitely, with probably the hope of ultimately evading the fulfilment of the promise made by Prince Ching to give a Government guarantee to this railway. This is of a piece with the treatment of the Syndicate's affairs by his Excellency Shêng in the past, and my Board realize that unless pressure is brought to bear by His Majesty's Government a settlement of the business now in hand will never come about.\n\nAs the negotiations with his Excellency Sheng are now, as described by Mr. Jamieson, at a deadlock, my Board earnestly trust that His Majesty's Government will take such steps as may seem expedient to induce the Chinese Government to give immediate effect to the arrangement mentioned in Foreign Office letter of the 13th August last in so far as relates to the Tsechow-Taokow Railway.\n\nI am desired to add that it will be within your recollection that the inducement for not pressing our claim for a line to Pukow (our right to which was admitted in principle by Prince Ching, vide my letter dated the 22nd May, 1902) was that the Tsechow-Taokow Railway would receive a guarantee on similar lines to that given to the Russo-Chinese Bank for the Chengting-Taiyuan Railway.\n\nYour Excellency,\n\nI have, &c.\n\n(Signed) **THOS. GILBERT**, Secretary.\n\n## Inclosure 1 in No. 50.\n\nMr. G. Jamieson to Sir E. Satow.\n\nShanghae, October 26, 1903.\n\nI REGRET to be obliged to have again to invoke your kind assistance in the matter of the guarantee for the Tsechow-Taokow Railway.\n\nOn the 14th August I addressed a note to Mr. Townley, asking him to ascertain from the Wai-wu Pu, with whom they desired I should negotiate the terms of the agreement which had just been arranged in principle with Prince Ching, and if with his Excellency Shêng Kung Pao to request that they would be pleased to instruct him accordingly, so that I might proceed to Shanghae for the purpose. The reply of the Wai-wu Pu was communicated to me by Mr. Townley on the 17th August, to the effect that they had telegraphed to his Excellency Shêng to say I was proceeding to Shanghae to settle the details of the arrangement for \"placing the Tsechow-Taokow line on the same footing as the Chengting-Taiyuan line as agreed to by the Chinese Government,\" and their Excellencies trusted that I would be able to come to a definite arrangement with his Excellency Shêng.\n\nIn pursuance of this understanding, I reached Shanghae on the 6th September and had an interview with his Excellency Shêng on the 9th. His Excellency stated that he had received a telegram from the Wai-wu Pu, but did not inform me of its contents. He at once endeavoured to reopen a discussion on the old lines, viz., that we had merely a mineral concession, that we had to build the railway ourselves, the improbability of its paying, the risk the Chinese Government were running, and so on, to which I replied that the question now was not whether there should be a guarantee or not, as that had been settled in Peking, but merely as to its terms, which moreover were to be analogous to what he had recently settled with the Russo-Chinese Bank for the Cheng-Tai line. At the same time, I handed him a draft which I had prepared of the proposed agreement based on the Russian terms, together with a memorandum of the cost of the line so far as we had been able to estimate it.\n\nA more amicable discussion then followed as to the progress of the Syndicate, its constitution, prospects, &c., to all of which I answered frankly. In particular, I was pleased to be able to inform him that the Honan coal had been tested on marine boilers with satisfactory results, and that there was good prospect, given friendly treatment on the part of the Chinese Government, that the Syndicate would in time prove a commercial success.\n\nHe promised to look over the draft agreement and let me know. Three weeks elapsed without any reply, and on the 29th September I addressed him a letter pointing out the long delay, and asking what steps he proposed to take. I received a reply a few days afterwards to say that he had nominated a Committee of four Chinese to discuss with me the terms of the agreement. A meeting was held on the 9th October, the Minutes of which I have the honour to inclose. Your Excellency will see that the Chinese members were instructed to bring forward certain propositions to which my consent was asked as a preliminary to entering on a discussion of the agreement. The principal of these was that the Syndicate should make a present to the Chinese Government of 150,000l. in shares as \"compensation\" for the risk they ran in giving the guarantee, basing the demand on the ground that the traffic would probably be less than that on the Chengting-Taiyuan line.\n\nI pointed out that there was nothing in the Russian Agreement which justified a demand of this sort. The question of the amount of traffic, which after all was a matter of opinion, had not been mentioned at Peking, and did not enter into the case at all. I did not, however, summarily reject the proposition, because if the Syndicate received certain equivalents in other directions, we probably would not be averse to giving the Chinese Government a direct interest in the success of the enterprise. For one thing, it would be a saving of much time and trouble if we could arrange to have the line taken over at a round sum per mile, and I invited them to ascertain what his Excellency Shêng's views were on this point, and let me know at our next meeting.\n\nMore than a fortnight elapsed before I had any farther communication, his Secretary informing me that they were waiting for instructions, and I was again obliged to write to Shêng and press for an explicit reply as to whether he was prepared to go on with the agreement in terms of the Chengting-Taiyuan line or not, as if not, we were simply wasting time, and I should return to Peking. I received no reply, but was informed by his Secretary that another meeting had been called for the 26th October.\n\nThis second meeting took place as arranged, and I inclose the Minutes of this also. At this, a new difficulty was started, viz., that we proposed to establish ironworks in Shansi, and as these would come into competition with the ironworks at Hanyang, in which his Excellency Shêng had personally embarked large sums, he would, in assisting us to build the railway, be contributing to his own ruin. Consequently, before he went any farther, we must come to some arrangement by which the Hanyang ironworks would be safeguarded in any event. The method by which he proposed to effect this was that we should undertake not to establish ironworks within a term of years, and thirty years was the term suggested.\n\nYour Excellency will see from the Minutes the turn of the discussion, but it ended in one of the members declaring that his Excellency Sheng did not consider himself at all bound by Prince Ching's promise to Mr. Townley, and that he was in effect free to impose any terms he pleased. It was by Shêng's advice that the promise had been made, and the whole conditions had been left to him. He considered the safeguarding of the Hanyang ironworks a necessary preliminary, and till that was settled he would discuss nothing else. I stated that in that case it was no use attempting to go on, and I must lay the whole case before your Excellency.\n\nI have gone thus fully into the history of the case, because I think it will be apparent to your Excellency from these facts, that his Excellency Sheng has no intention of concluding this agreement if he can possibly help it. Had he shown any willingness to meet our views, the agreement might have been signed by this time, for it took a much shorter time than two months to settle the agreement with the Russo-Chinese Bank, whereas I have not in that time been able even to make a beginning. Had I agreed to a postponement of the ironworks, which, however, I was quite unable to do, I have no doubt other points equally detrimental to the Syndicate would have been raised in succession, until the agreement, burdened with such terms, would have been worse than valueless.\n\nI respectfully submit, therefore, that the Wai-wu Pu be requested either to issue peremptory orders to Shêng to place the line on the same footing as the Chengting-Taiyuan line without demanding any compensation or other equivalent from the Syndicate, or else to name some other negotiator with whom I may put myself in communication. I am ready to come to Peking should your Excellency think it desirable, but I shall remain in Shanghae pending receipt of a communication from you.", "txt_file_path": "txt/2diw2n4r2/CO129-361 - Public Offices - 1909.txt", "external_url": "", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 422673, "series_id": 27, "series_slug": "histsyn-co129-engine", "series_title": "CO129 Colonial Office Hong Kong Records 理藩院香港檔案", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "CO129-362 - Public Offices - 1909", "page_number": 76, "title": "CO129-362 - Public Offices - 1909", "content_text": "## CHINA RAILWAYS\n**CONFIDENTIAL**\n\nREG 26 JUL 09\n\n### SECTION 4.\n\n**(Translation.) (Telegraphic.)**\n\n#### Inclosure 2 in No. 1.\n\nI have, &c.\n\nHARRY H. FOX.\n\n[24080]\n\n**(No. 175.)**\nSir,\n\nApril 10, 1909.\n\nGovernor of Kwangsi to Taotai Wei Han.\n\nWEI CHING CHING. Ching cypher.\n\nThe survey agreement is eminently satisfactory. I have sent a copy to the Board of Communications. As soon as I receive the Board's sanction I will telegraph to you and ask you to sign on my behalf. I would also ask you to find an interpreter. Please accept my grateful thanks for all that you have done.\n\n### No. 1.\n\nSir J. Jordan to Sir Edward Grey.--(Received June 28.)\n\nPeking, May 12, 1909.\n\nWITH reference to my despatch No. 102 of the 3rd March on the subject of railway expansion in North-West China, I have the honour to enclose, in translation, a memorial of the Board of Communications describing the work undertaken during the past year in the development of railways and telegraphs, and laying down a programme of future operations to be carried out in the years 1909-16.\n\nIn their introductory statement the board exclude from their purview the Tien-tsin--Pakow, Hankow-Canton, and Szechuan-Hankow lines as being under the control of directors-general specially appointed for that purpose, and lay down as a principle that, with the exception of these undertakings, a time-limit must be set for the completion of all other enterprises already commenced or contemplated.\n\nThe summary of measures taken during the past year classifies the Shanghae-Hangchow-Ningpo Railway as a line under commercial control, thereby ignoring once more the loan agreement with the British and Chinese Corporation for its construction by the Imperial Government, and the Nan-Piao question, in which the British and Chinese Corporation are also interested, and which still remains unsettled, is described as annulled.\n\nIt is scarcely probable that the scheme of work for the next eight years has been drawn up with any greater respect for accuracy than the statement of the Board's achievements during the past twelve months, but it may prove useful as an indication of the policy of the moment; and it will be of interest to observe, at the end of the current year, whether work has been begun, as is contemplated, on the Kirin-Ch'ang Ch'un, Antung-Mukden, Ilonan-Tung Kuan, and Szechuan-Hankow lines.\n\nIn the programme for next year two operations are contemplated which will doubtless evoke considerable interest, namely, the redemption of the Chengting-Taiyuan-fu Railway Loan, and the survey of the Isinmintun extension towards Tsitsihar. No date, however, is given for the construction of this line, nor for the extensions of the Kalgan Railway to Urga and Kiakhta.\n\nThe redemption of the Shanghae-Nanking Railway Loan is scheduled for 1914, and that of the Peking Syndicate's line in Honan for the following year.\n\nI have, &c.\n\nJ. N. JORDAN.\n\n#### Inclosure in No. 1.\n\nExtract from the \"Official Gazette\" of April 17, 1909.\n\n**MEMORIAL** by the Board of Communications setting forth the measures already carried out, and those which they propose to undertake during the nine years preceding the establishment of constitutional government.\n\n**(Translation.)**\n\nAfter referring to the Imperial decree wherein public departments are directed to take such steps, in addition to those laid down in the Constitutional Reform Commission's memorial, as will help towards the inauguration of the new régime, the Board proceed to detail the various measures which they have already carried out or propose to undertake with regard to matters coming within their province, that is to say, railways, telegraphs, posts, and steam shipping. The two latter departments are not under the direct administration of the Board, and they therefore refrain from dealing with them for the present.\n\nAs regards railways, the steps to be taken may be divided into three heads:--\n\n74 \nC.O. 24967 \n[This Document is the Property of His Britannic Majesty's Government.] \n[June 28.] \n[2817 ee-4]", "txt_file_path": "txt/2diw2n4r2/CO129-362 - Public Offices - 1909.txt", "external_url": "", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 428162, "series_id": 27, "series_slug": "histsyn-co129-engine", "series_title": "CO129 Colonial Office Hong Kong Records 理藩院香港檔案", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "CO129-371 - Public Offices - 1910", "page_number": 87, "title": "CO129-371 - Public Offices - 1910", "content_text": "ment, and in Chinese eyes the wishes of a Government are tantamount to commands; whereas an injunction, obtained at the instance of the corporation, would throw the whole odium of action upon them. It is a sentimental point which is worth considering. It is also possible that, with the British Minister at my back, I might be able to put things to Liang personally in such a light that it would be unnecessary to proceed to the extreme measure of stopping the funds; the obvious course is for him to stop drawing funds until matters are put in order, but in order to induce him to do this should want authority to put the position before him very clearly. I am, as you see, ✦ sending a copy of this letter to Addis; he should receive it about the 20th instant, and I shall be glad if you will in due course consult with him by wire and let me know your decision.\n\nIt may not be inappropriate to the present subject to enclose copies of the accounts for the past fifteen months of the Peking head office of the Tien-tsin-Pukow Railway. The new director-general declined to take over the accounts until they had been audited, so at his request they have been audited by the German auditor of the northern section and by J. K. Grant, from the meagre material furnished to them. The figures speak for themselves—10,000 taels for champagne tiffins, 5,000 taels for travelling expenses, 8,000 taels for office expenses (the office being a very ordinary and rambling Chinese house), and 40,000 taels for a mysterious college, of which no vestige can be produced either in the shape of building or students. It is really a shocking exposure of extravagance and dishonesty, and shows how skin-deep at present is Chinese reform and progress, even among those who profess to be most enlightened. It is not that they are underpaid, for the salaries are in most instances considerably more than honest foreigners would expect in the same position; but the higher they are paid, the more the appetite for squeeze seems to be whetted. The audited accounts have gone in without comment, and although I have suggested to Cordes that we should draw the attention of the director-general to the irregularities in the expenditure, he does not seem very willing to take this action. I shall, however, approach him on the subject again, and will also consult Sir J. Jordan, since it seems to me that, the matter having been brought officially to our notice, it will be a confession of weakness to allow it to pass without remark.\n\nInclosure in No. 1.\n\nYours very truly,\n\nE. G. HILLIER.\n\nSTATEMENT of Receipts and Expenditure of the Director-General's Office of the Tien-tsin-Pukow Railway, from February 2, 1908, to August 15, 1909.\n\nPage 3\n\n2765 bras, 1909,\n\nCASH Expenditure of the Director-General's Office, Peking, January 2 to February 19, 1909.\n\n \n By salaries and allowances, as per salary register\n Chingping Taels.\n 7,780\n \n \n cigarettes, cigars, fruits, cakes, aerated waters, wines, and spirits, for entertaining European visitors\n \n 420\n \n \n Lieh Chun festival\n \n 86.0\n \n \n dinners for new year\n \n 21.300\n \n \n additional food for first week of new year\n \n 19.950\n \n \n mess account for the whole staff of 1st Moon\n \n 436.0\n \n \n coal and water\n \n 69.510\n \n \n office rent for the 1st Moon\n \n 50.0\n \n \n earthenware tray and letter-rack for secretary's office\n \n 9.630\n \n \n Chinese stationery\n \n 69.500\n \n \n telegrams\n \n 338.579\n \n \n telephone\n \n 4.672\n \n \n postages\n \n 9.363\n \n \n coal for all offices, 12th month\n \n 92.0\n \n \n 1st \"\n \n 92.0\n \n \n tea and candles for month\n \n 19.750\n \n \n kerosine oil for month\n \n 33.945\n \n \n travelling expenses for director-general to Tien-tsin\n \n 200.020\n \n \n general secretary Lu to Shantung\n \n 81.760\n \n \n brooms, dusters, lamp-wicks, rain shoes\n \n 19.800\n \n \n extra pay for letter carriers\n \n 2.500\n \n \n Chingping taels\n \n 9,517.400\n \n \n At 94-Kuping taels\n \n 8,946 444\n \n\nCASH Expenditure of the Director-General's Office, Peking, March 22, 1909, to April, 19, 1909.\n\n \n By salaries and allowances, as per register\n Chingping Taels.\n 7,846.420\n \n \n cigarettes, cigars, fruit, cakes, aerated waters, wines, spirits, for entertaining European visitors\n \n 18.350\n \n \n mess account for whole staff\n \n 420.0\n \n \n coals and water for month\n \n 72.400\n \n \n office rent\n \n 50.0\n \n \n repairing office\n \n 2.900\n \n \n Foo Shing Sheng, for large tubs\n \n 36.790\n \n \n Ye Taeng Sheng, for frames\n \n 11.680\n \n \n Ye Ho Shuu, for wool\n \n 24.090\n \n \n window glass\n \n 4.280\n \n \n telegrams\n \n 48.300\n \n \n Chinese stationery\n \n 200.170\n \n \n telephone, monthly subscription\n \n \n \n\n \n Receipts.\n \n \n Expenditure.\n \n \n To amount received from the northern section\n \n 294,381 882\n By salaries and allowances\n 9,808.759\n \n \n To interest\n \n 822.133\n office accommodation\n 33\n \n \n \n \n \n office expenses\n 5,275.200\n \n \n \n \n \n travelling expenses\n 43\n \n \n \n \n \n sundries\n 11\n \n \n \n \n \n entertaining\n 39,918.802\n \n \n \n \n \n refund to northern section\n 90,379.250\n \n \n \n \n \n Traffic College, held in suspense account.. balance\n \n \n \n \n \n 295,204 015\n \n 295,204 015\n \n \n Kuping Taels.\n \n \n \n \n \n\n \n \" postages\n 7.990\n \n \n tea and candles for month\n 16 580\n \n \n kerosine oil for mouth\n 20.805\n \n \n instruments, furniture, &c.\n 13,040.084\n \n \n \n 1,997.963\n \n \n travelling expenses for director-general and staff to Nanking\n 601.936\n \n \n \n 8,425 676\n \n \n first class ticket, his Excellency Shun\n 46.260\n \n \n \n 5,213.539\n \n \n travelling expenses, director-general to Tien-tsin\n 120.450\n \n \n \n 471.167\n \n \n , expenses in connection with\n \n \n \n memorialising fees\n 23\n \n \n brooms, dusters, for month\n 3.920\n \n \n 4 pairs earthenware pots and 2 pairs pomegranates\n 10.900\n \n \n \n 17.900\n \n \n extra pay for letter carrier\n 2.100\n \n \n Chingping taels\n 9,623 495\n \n \n At 94-Kuping taels\n 9,048 082\n \n\nWe hereby certify that the foregoing is a correct statement of the receipts and expenditure of the director-general's office of the Tien-tsin-Pukow Railway shown by the books in English handed us for examination.\n\nPeking, October 18, 1909.\n\n[Unsigned.]\n\nPage 86", "txt_file_path": "txt/2diw2n4r2/CO129-371 - Public Offices - 1910.txt", "external_url": "", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 428547, "series_id": 27, "series_slug": "histsyn-co129-engine", "series_title": "CO129 Colonial Office Hong Kong Records 理藩院香港檔案", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "CO129-371 - Public Offices - 1910", "page_number": 472, "title": "CO129-371 - Public Offices - 1910", "content_text": "[This Document is the Property of His Britannic Majesty's Government.]\n\nCHINA RAILWAYS.\n\nCONFIDENTIAL.\n\n469\n\n[March 5.]\n\nTREES\n\nSection 52 4 APE 10\n\n[7608]\n\n(No. 22.) Sir,\n\nNo. 1.\n\nSir J. Jordan to Sir Edward Grey.-(Received March 5.)\n\nI HAVE the honour to forward herewith a translation of an interesting report\n\nPeking, January 12, 1910. by the Board of Posts and Communications, reviewing the work accomplished by the Board during the six months ended the 31st July, 1909.*\n\nThe report throughout is written in a very optimistic tone, which the actual facts hardly justify. The Board point out with no little pride that the traffic receipts on the Peking-Hankow Railway since the redemption of the Belgian loan have increased over 700,000 dollars. The working of this line, however, cannot yet be considered as highly efficient. Great credit is naturally claimed for the completion of the Peking-Kalgan line, and extensions north to Urga and west to Sui-Yuan are confidently mentioned. As regards the Yunnan-Szechuan line, reference is made to the engagement of two American engineers who have already arrived at Yunnan-fu.\n\nIn pursuance of their policy of trying to redeem all lines constructed with foreign loans, the Board hope to redeem the French loan of 40,100,000 fr. for the Chengting-Taiyuan-fu Railway from the beginning of 1910.\n\nAs regards posts, the Board state that a scheme is now under consideration for taking over the postal service, and that much correspondence has passed on this complicated question.\n\nThe report throughout bristles with inaccurate and vague statements, and the Board take credit for much more work than has actually been accomplished in the period under review.\n\nI have, &c.\n\nJ. N. JORDAN.\n\n• Not printed\n\n[2667 e--5]", "txt_file_path": "txt/2diw2n4r2/CO129-371 - Public Offices - 1910.txt", "external_url": "", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 442953, "series_id": 27, "series_slug": "histsyn-co129-engine", "series_title": "CO129 Colonial Office Hong Kong Records 理藩院香港檔案", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "CO129-400 - Governor Sir May - 1913 [3-4]", "page_number": 521, "title": "CO129-400 - Governor Sir May - 1913 [3-4]", "content_text": "## Enclosure No1. to Movement's Confidential of 29 April 1936\n\nRECD REGA 7 JUN 13\n\nGovernment House \nHongkong. \n29 April 1913.\n\n514\n\nDear Sir John Jordan,\n\nI agree generally with the views expressed by Jamieson in his private note to you of the 20th instant, except as regards the motive of the proposed campaign against Kwangsi, upon which subject I cannot venture an opinion.\n\nAt the present time, though there is no one personality or political influence at Canton, the Government there is a solid clique of the Kwo Min T'ang, and that body has political influence. As far as I can learn, Liang Shih Yi's mission when he came South recently, was to find out how far the Kwo Min T'ang would support the election of Yuan Shih K'ai as President. It is impossible for me to say what conclusion he arrived at, but I learn from Mr Chengting T'ien Hsieh, who is now resident in Hongkong, that Liang saw Tang Shao-yi and that the latter promised to go to Peking shortly. Tang Shao-yi is the head of the T'ung Meng Hui (now merged in the Kwo Min T'ang), and no doubt hoped to gain the support of the latter clique through him. But since Tang's promise, the murder of Sung has occurred, which has so much incensed the Kwo Min T'ang. As far as can be gathered from many Hongkong merchants of the best class, they and the mercantile community of Canton are tired of the Kwo Min T'ang Government at Canton, who seek not...", "txt_file_path": "txt/2diw2n4r2/CO129-400 - Governor Sir May - 1913 [3-4].txt", "external_url": "", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 469429, "series_id": 27, "series_slug": "histsyn-co129-engine", "series_title": "CO129 Colonial Office Hong Kong Records 理藩院香港檔案", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "CO129-445 - Public Offices - 1917", "page_number": 303, "title": "CO129-445 - Public Offices - 1917", "content_text": "7\n\nseason, but that all had been uprooted by expeditions sent out in November and I see December, and there was no trace of any remaining when he came out.\n\nIt was no reason whatever to doubt this statement, but even if it was untrue, it was practically certain that there would not be a single plant left after his passing through; I therefore decided to take an entirely different road for our joint journey and selected the southern route via Poshang, the Tapeng ferry over the Mekong, Mengka, and Mengchu. This is a fairly well recognised, though little used, road, but I possess records of only isolated portions as having been previously traversed by British subjects.\n\nThe first two days' journey from Mienning via Poshang to Toukuo call for no special comment beyond the unusually good condition of the road-surface. Nature has so fashioned the province of Yunnan as to render it practically impossible for the road-builder to make the crooked straight; for some weeks prior to our passing through, however, human labour had done a great deal to make the rough places plain. In spite of pouring rain on the second day, we encountered no really serious obstacles.\n\nOn the 19th April, at the Taoyin's suggestion, we made a very early start in view of the formidable journey in front of us. After 6 miles of easy going, we reached the limits of the Mienning jurisdiction and bade farewell to the magistrate. No trace of opium poppy had we seen in his district, in which, as far as I could ascertain, he and his subordinates had carried out their suppression duties with exceptional thoroughness. The next 7 miles traversed a corner of what is now known as the Lants'ang (i.e., Mekong) district—formerly the sub-prefecture of Chênpien—and the going was very severe, though it must, in all fairness, be admitted that the country is extremely difficult, including a terrific descent for 3 miles through constantly subsiding red clay to the level of the River Mekong (2,750 feet). The crossing of the Mekong is effected in a single huge wooden boat with deep sides; mules and their loads are transported in this craft, the river-current being too swift to admit of the animals swimming across without danger. The ascent up the left or east bank of the Mekong is even more severe, and for 2 miles the ruling gradient is steeper than one in six. The consulate writer and I reached the halting-place about 2:20 P.M., followed about an hour later by the Taoyin and his party, who took up their quarters in a native hovel close to our selected camping site. Realising our discomfiture at the non-arrival of our mule-loads, Mr. Lu with friendly thoughtfulness sent us over a supply of tea and Australian biscuits, to which I at least did unhesitating justice. It was not till after sunset that the rest of my caravan turned up. At one of the steepest points of the descent to the Mekong the mule entrusted with my small but precious supply of glass and crockery had missed his footing and rolled headlong, load and all, for several hundred feet, and rescue had taken much time; further, heavy delay had been caused by the passage of the Mekong with but one unwieldy boat, to which the liveliest objection was displayed by most of the mules.\n\nTwo stages further, through pine-woods tenanted by peacocks and brilliant emerald-green parrots, brought us to the Chinese Shan town of Mêngka. At Tamotacho, the half-way halt, we came across a few families of Lahu race, said to be rapidly dying out in China. Given a plentiful supply of soap, water, and combs, the smaller children could, I am convinced, be made into strikingly pretty little gipsies.\n\nShortly before reaching Mêngka we were met by the Chingku district magistrate, La Kuang-shih, a Kuangsi man, who accompanied us so long as we continued in his extensive jurisdiction. Mêngka, the residence of a Shan Sawbwa, possesses also large temples and two monasteries in the Burmese Shan style; one in particular, over 200 years old, must have been very fine in bygone days.\n\nAt Liutsungt'eu'n, our halt mid-way between Mêngka and Mengchu, the Chinese Shan Sawbwa of the latter place, and Meng'an came over to pay his respects; both the excellence of his Chinese and his appearance gave the lie, I fancied, to his boasted pure Shan parentage. Mêng'an is one of the old Shan towns whence the original inhabitants have been practically ousted by the more thriving Chinese. Here, I was given fairly decent quarters in the temple of the god of war, now converted into a school, the discipline of which struck me as unusually good; the very natural curiosity at the arrival in their midst of the first white man ever beheld by any of the ninety scholars was never allowed to exceed the bounds of politeness.\n\nOn the 25th April, two days after leaving Mêngchu, we crossed the River Weiyuan (or Chingku, as it is now gradually becoming known) at Patieh. At this season of the year the stream is just fordable here: I managed, however, to find a place not much higher up where a swim proved welcomely refreshing. The next halt bore the ill-omened name of Ch'ou-Shui (\"Stinking Water\"), but I have stayed at many places in Yunnan where the water supply has been even worse. Two days later, after passing a few villages inhabited by natives of the strikingly handsome Puman race, we entered the Szemao district and were met by the local magistrate, Hsieh Shih; the following day, the 28th April, we arrived at Szemao, where spacious quarters were provided for me adjoining the Taoyin's Yamên. The Taoyin and magistrate pressed me to stay a week in Szemao; I consented to two days, but on the second day Mr. Lu urged that he still had important business to transact, and I could hardly refuse his request that we should postpone our departure for one more day. Both he and the magistrate were most hospitable during my stay, celebrated by two Chinese dinner-parties and a picnic.\n\nPrevious to my departure for Tengyuen, I had written to the commissioner of Szemao Customs, soliciting his co-operation to obtain for me, if possible, information on the subject of opium in the area under his cognisance. With that request M. R. de Nully, the commissioner (French), very courteously complied; he informed me quite definitely that, as the result of several punitive expeditions during the past winter, there was, as far as he was aware, no more cultivation of opium in the Szemao district, and that while probably at least 30 per cent. of the adult population of the town, both male and female, still continued to consume the drug, the enormous rise in price bore out his contention.\n\nFrom Szemao northwards towards Tali three routes were open to me; that via Chingku (Weiyuan) was ruled out by the fact that it had already been traversed by Lu Taoyin on his journey to Mienning to meet me; on the north-eastern route, via Talang—the main road to Yunnan-fu according to all the information I could obtain, a considerable quantity of opium had been grown, and harvested, earlier in the season, but very thorough measures of eradication had been carried out some weeks previously; I therefore decided to take the more direct but less frequented route via P'uêrh, Hsinfu (in Chênyüan district) and Chingtung.\n\nLeaving Szemao on the 2nd May, some three hours of travel, including a stiff climb, brought us to the boundary of the Puerh district, where the local magistrate, Chou Ju-chao, awaited us; the Szemao magistrate, however, continued to accompany us till the town of Puerh was reached the next day; on this day's journey our route crossed a splendid Chinese arched stone bridge, in admirable preservation. At Puerh, an old walled city with relics of fine stone carving, I was again given most comfortable quarters; Mr. Chou also entertained the Taoyin, the Szemao magistrate, and myself at a lengthy Chinese dinner.\n\nAt Mabei, the next stage, I took the opportunity to pay a visit to the large and flourishing salt mines about a mile and a half away. Dr. Kelly, the American representative of the Chinese Salt Administration, who had arrived about two months previously, was away on tour, but his English-speaking Chinese colleague very kindly demonstrated to me all the processes of Chinese salt extraction.\n\nThe next four stages, via Mop'o, Maupieh and Manlien, to Hsin-fu, call for little comment save for the extreme beauty of the scenery; on all sides rose range after range of pine-clad hills, mostly well-wooded to their summits; the valleys were, however, parched and bare, and travelling along the lower levels was excessively hot. Our route crossed the eastern section of the Chênyüan district, and midway during the third stage we were joined by the magistrate, Mo Yu-ju, a scholarly man of considerable charm of manner, with whom my relations during our five days of joint travel were exceedingly cordial, and from whom I parted with really genuine regret.\n\nThe only record in my possession of a route between Hsinfu and Chingtung dated from 1881, when the journey was made by a British traveller; our route, however, was almost entirely different from his, and we spent but five days on the distance which had taken him six. For the last three days we were accompanied by the Chingtung magistrate, Ming Fao-ch'ien, who came out to meet us. The surroundings of Chingtung breathe of ancient history; the last 5 miles of the road could hardly have been repaired for centuries, while of the city-wall nothing now remains save one single gate; peacocks strutting unmolested in the main street seemed likewise aloof from modernity. The magistrate's yamên was woefully dilapidated, and I was well housed by comparison in the newly built Szech'uan Guild premises. From Szemao we had travelled for twelve days on end, mostly in great heat, and a halt of one day was amply justified. For me it spelled the inevitable Chinese dinner-party, as the guest of the district magistrate.\n\nThis latter official was also among the number of those who have displayed special energies in the matter of opium suppression; practically every town and hamlet which\n\n299", "txt_file_path": "txt/2diw2n4r2/CO129-445 - Public Offices - 1917.txt", "external_url": "", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 469430, "series_id": 27, "series_slug": "histsyn-co129-engine", "series_title": "CO129 Colonial Office Hong Kong Records 理藩院香港檔案", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "CO129-445 - Public Offices - 1917", "page_number": 304, "title": "CO129-445 - Public Offices - 1917", "content_text": "we traversed in his district boasted its own small bureau for the furtherance of the task, while the magistrate's extensive tours of inspection included a journey to the summit of Wu-Liang-Shan, between 11,000 and 12,000 feet high.\n\nLeaving Chingtong on the 15th May, three days' journey brought us to the boundary between the Puerh and Tengyueh circuits, at Shukai (locally pronounced Chakai). Here we found that the Tengyueh Taoyin and the Menghua district magistrate a self-satisfied little man named Chrên Pên-yu had been awaiting our arrival for three days. Before bidding farewell to the Puerh Taoyin, I gave him a letter detailing our route through his circuit and congratulating him on the fact that we had discovered not a single opium-poppy in a month's journey. In the course of an interesting conversation, Mr. Lu freely admitted that the task of suppression had been considerably easier in his circuit than elsewhere in the province; he was no less frank regarding the prevalence of opium-smoking, and expressed the opinion that from three to five years must elapse before this would be stopped.\n\nDuring the whole time that I had travelled with the P'uêrh Taoyin I had met with nothing but courtesy and kindness at his hands, and it was with real regret that I parted with him and resumed the company of the Tengyueh Taoyin. Two days' travel, the first of which gave us a magnificent and extensive view of Wu-Liang-Shan, brought us to Narchien, where our halt coincided with that of an unusually ragged and ruffianly party of Chinese regular troops, en route to suppress a local outbreak of brigandage some two days' journey to the south-west. Here I received a visit from the district magistrate of Mitu, a Fukienese named Ko Nain-ming, the limit of whose jurisdiction was only a mile or so away. Two days later, 21st May, the large walled town of Menghua was reached, and here, much against my wish, we stayed a day at the request of the Taoyin, who asserted the receipt of important despatches requiring urgent attention.\n\nThe large district of Menghua is one of those which took the fullest advantage of the iniquitous permission accorded last year by the Governor of Yunnan for the cultivation of poppy; if rumour speaks true, the early harvest of the past season was considerable, and the local magistrate is asserted to have lined his pockets well by allowing a second crop, on learning that the inspecting officers would not be able to reach his district before May. But for several weeks prior to our arrival, military, police, and civil officials, including himself, had been out in all directions to ensure that no poppy should be left. Certainly none was to be seen along our route, and the predominating crops consisted of healthy-looking wheat.\n\nFrom Menghua it is but two days' journey to Siakwan, the largest business town in West Yunnan; on the second day the route crosses a high mountain pass, which from the level of 8,800 feet affords a magnificent view of the Tali lake.\n\nAssembled at Siakwan, which was reached on Empire Day, to meet the Taoyin were a host of Chinese officials, including the magistrates of the three districts of Fengi (Ch'en Pei-yuan); Pinch'uan (Li Fan); and Tali (Yu-Yueh). Such a gathering involved, of course, the inevitable Chinese dinner-party. For many years past Siukwan has been one of the largest distributing centres for opium in all Yunnan, and the Chinese firm in whose premises quarters were found for me bears the reputation of being the wealthiest of all the opium dealers.\n\nThe 7 miles over level country between Siakwan and Tali should be accomplished by a good pony in an hour; so villainous, however, is the condition of the ancient stone-paved highway connecting the two places, that the journey takes three hours, and is accomplished with less exasperation on foot. Many weeks previously the local British representative of the British American Tobacco Company had offered me hospitality in his most comfortable headquarters at Tali, but in view of the questionable legality of such an establishment, I had hesitated to accept; when, however, the Taoyin himself announced that this was the proposed arrangement, I concurred with alacrity. Amongst the many welcome amenities thus afforded was comparative immunity from flies, which for the previous fortnight en route had been a plague of positively Egyptian magnitude. My host also most kindly made arrangements for me to meet the whole of the foreign community of Tali, including M. R. L. P. Baude (French), district inspector of the Salt Revenue for Yunnan, and his wife; M. Caffarena (French), of the same Department; and two French priests.\n\nFrom Tali it had been originally suggested that the inspection tour should continue northwards to Likiang. Previous to our departure from Tengyueh I had invoked the aid of a French merchant at Atutzu and of the representative of a British mission at Likiang to obtain for me, confidentially, reliable information on the subject of poppy crops in the north-west of the province; and letters from each of them were awaiting me at Siakwan. My French correspondent reported planting this season in the north of the Paoshan (Yungch'an) district and north-east of Yungpei, but that none remained, save, perhaps, in inaccessible spots; the Likiang missionary affirmed that already by the middle of April no trace of cultivation remained in the Likiang, Hoching, or Chiench'uan districts, and that in the Yungpei district (north of the Yangtze) it was probably grown only by Liso and other tribal folk, over whom the Chinese have practically no control. These reports were confirmed at Tali by the Rev. W. J. Hanna, of the China Inland Mission, and by the representative of the British-American Tobacco Company, both of whom travel extensively, and who assured me that it was several weeks too late for any likelihood of discovering opium crops on a visit to Likiang.\n\nIn view of this consensus of opinion and also of the clear indications of the opening, already overdue, of the rainy season, I decided to abandon the Likiang tour. As, however, I had received many weeks previously definite information that no poppy crops were to be seen anywhere along the main road (via Siakwan, Yungp'ing, and Yungchang) between Tali and Tengyueh, I elected to take the difficult and circuitous route via Tongch'uan, Yünlung, and Kait'ou; this route, incidentally, cuts across the north of the Paoshan (Yungch'ang) district.\n\nLeaving Tali on the 27th May, our first stage was the 16 miles of terrible ancient paved stone road to Shangkuan, at the north-west end of the Tali Lake. We bade farewell to the Tali magistrate and made the acquaintance of Mr. Li Kung-ch'ôn, the official in charge of the district of Tengch'uan. This town was passed the following morning after two hours of easy going, succeeded by a stiff climb to 8,900 feet, and a steep descent to the surprisingly large town of Fengyü (in the Erhyüan (Langk'un) district), lying in a huge basin of terraced rice fields. For the last portion of this day's journey and for the next two days we were accompanied by the Erhyüan magistrate, a Hupei man of an intelligently enquiring turn of mind, named Chien. From Fengyü the road climbs up to 10,700 feet, and then drops down to 6,100 feet, the level of the Yangpi River, which flows through the town of that name and Siakwan into the southern end of the Tali Lake. Two days of travel through beautiful pine-forest country and one day of wilder scenery past several large salt-wells brought us to the town of Yünlung, the district magistrate of which, Ko Yên-ch'un, was absent on sick-leave.\n\nFrom Fengyü to the district of Yünlung the population consists largely of Minchia, a tribal folk closely allied to the Chinese in appearance, as also now in dress and habits, but speaking Chinese with an atrocious foreign accent, which natives of any other province than Yünnan find considerable difficulty in understanding.\n\nThe town of Yunlung lies at the eastern foot of the lofty range flanking the left bank of the Mekong River, and the day's journey to the 60-year-old chain suspension bridge (the Fei-Lung, or Flying Dragon, bridge) over that turgid torrent consisted of a climb from 5,500 feet to 9,700 feet, succeeded by a long and stony descent to 4,600 feet, the elevation of the Mekong at this point. The fierce swiftness of its 80 yards broad current is sufficiently accounted for by the fact that it descends over 1,800 feet between here and the Tapêng ferry by which we crossed it on the outward journey.\n\nBut a still more formidable day's march lay before us, over the yet higher range on the right bank of the Mekong. The altitudes on this section varied between 5,000 feet at the start (Chinchou), 11,800 feet at the summit, and 7,000 feet at the halting-place, Ts'aochien. Almost the whole of the climb was over the roughest of stone-boulder paving, and much of it in deep trough-like gullies, while, save at the very summit, the path was overgrown by dense jungle. Climatic variations added not a little to the trials of the march; they ranged from blazing sunshine, through fine Scotch mist, to driving sleet, and then back again to moist heat. Starting at 6.30 a.m., I walked this stage in nine and a half hours; the Taoyin's official chair, from which, willy-nilly, he was frequently forced to descend, completed it in thirteen and a half. Our respective memories of the day's journey will last for some time to come.\n\nAfter two more days of very hilly travel, we came to the crossing of the Salween, here effected in a large, unwieldy-looking boat, the helmsman of which plied a huge stern sweep, some 20 feet long, to negotiate obliquely the passage of the intervening rapids. From the level of the Salween at this point (Mêngku ferry) to the summit of the range, on the right bank, is an ascent of all but 8,000 feet, and the climb over the summit, 10,500 feet, through dense jungle, followed by a steep and terribly rugged drop of close on 4,000 feet, made a day's journey scarcely less arduous than that over the Mekong range.\n\nThe trials of this day's travel were not over on arrival at our halting-place...", "txt_file_path": "txt/2diw2n4r2/CO129-445 - Public Offices - 1917.txt", "external_url": "", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 477959, "series_id": 27, "series_slug": "histsyn-co129-engine", "series_title": "CO129 Colonial Office Hong Kong Records 理藩院香港檔案", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "CO129-451 - Public Offices - 1918", "page_number": 196, "title": "CO129-451 - Public Offices - 1918", "content_text": "## Page 2\n\naccepted the nomination of one Japanese as engineer and of another as accountant, but these officials had no executive power in the administration of the new line, and the result has been what can be imagined a pretty rotten railway. Many of the bridges are of wood - the line goes over and round hills that it ought to have pierced. \"Penny wise and pound foolish\" sums it up. Funds ran short before the line was finished and the Chinese had to raise more money. The Japanese were of course disgusted with the whole business. Then the war broke out, and Japan took the opportunity to present the famous twenty-one demands.\n\nNo. 7 of Group II ran as follows:- \n\"The Chinese Government agrees that the control and management of the Kirin-Changchun Railway shall be handed over to the Japanese Government for a term of ninety-nine years, dating from the signing of this agreement.\"\n\nThe subject of the twenty-one demands is one upon which there is scope for infinite enlargement, but there is small profit in criticising a single item of comparatively minor importance. It was the Japanese policy to make a certain advance in Manchuria, and if there is to be any criticism it should apply to the whole policy, for the steps are details. It must be admitted that the demand to control the Kirin-Changchun Railway was obnoxious from the Chinese point of view, but it was an inevitable corollary of Japanese ambition in all this region.\n\nFinally, in article 7 of the treaty respecting South Manchuria and Eastern Inner Mongolia \n\"The Chinese Government agrees speedily to make a fundamental revision of the Kirin-Changchun Railway Loan Agreement, taking as a standard the provisions in railway loan agreements made heretofore between China and foreign financiers.\"\n\nThus, on the 25th May, 1915, the Chinese gave away all there was to give away of this railway, and the present agreement merely embodies what was then conceded.\n\nThe Japanese thereafter drafted an agreement based as to terms on the agreement relating to the Changting-Taiyuan-fu Railway - the stiffest of all the railway agreements, for it mortgages the line and its revenues and vests the lenders with control. Chinese negotiators, after long discussion, agreed to Japanese control, and to make the loan repayable in forty years, whereafter the line would lapse to China. Parliament, however, kicked at the forty years and wanted joint control, and sent the agreement back for revision. Since then the Chinese and Japanese have outsat each other at endless conferences leading to nothing at all, and it says something for the pacific attitude of the Japanese Government that they did not hurry China to give what she promised to give \"speedily\" over two years before.\n\nThe agreement now signed is practically the same as presented to Parliament, except that, in deference to Chinese face, the period is reduced from forty to thirty years - a reduction hardly to the advantage of China, for if the railway earnings are not sufficient to pay the annual interest and amortisation the Board of Communications will have to make up the deficit. That, however, is a small matter, for the annual charges of six and a half millions are a comparative trifle.\n\nAs regards the proceeds of the loan, the Chinese Government gets nothing in cash. The amount owing to the South Manchuria Railway - originally 2,150,000 yen, now a little less, owing to annual repayments - will be deducted, and the balance of some 4,000,000 yen will be deposited in a Japanese bank, to be used exclusively for the improvement of the railway in the shape of iron bridges, tunnels, and so forth. Management is vested in the South Manchuria Railway Company, which will nominate a chief engineer, chief accountant, and traffic superintendent to manage the line. Administration will be nominally only in the hands of a Chinese director-general - a merely face-saving device. This official, however, will have his uses, for he will be able, in Chinese interests, to watch the expenditure of the four million unexpended balance of the loan. At the end of the thirty years' duration of the Loan Agreement the debt will be liquidated, and the railway will pass back automatically into Chinese hands - provided a lot of other things do not happen in the meantime. During this period the South Manchuria Railway Company will get 20 per cent of whatever net profits there may be, a reasonable provision to be found in other foreign loan agreements, including the Shanghai-Nanking Railway Agreement.\n\nAs regards cost to China, she originally spent 2,150,000 yen on the line, plus a few hundreds of thousands subsequently. This, added to the present loan, makes a grand total of about 9,000,000 yen.\n\n## Page 3\n\nThe Japanese, for their own strategic and commercial purposes, are safe to make a good job of the improvements, so that China hereafter will or ought to inherit a first-class property. Eighty miles for 9,000,000 yen is about 12,000L per mile, not obviously a very expensive rate for railway construction as things go in China. The total cost would have been much less if the capital originally provided had been advantageously expended. \n\n## Page 193", "txt_file_path": "txt/2diw2n4r2/CO129-451 - Public Offices - 1918.txt", "external_url": "", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 477961, "series_id": 27, "series_slug": "histsyn-co129-engine", "series_title": "CO129 Colonial Office Hong Kong Records 理藩院香港檔案", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "CO129-451 - Public Offices - 1918", "page_number": 198, "title": "CO129-451 - Public Offices - 1918", "content_text": "## \nThe Chinese Government accepted the nomination of one Japanese as engineer and of another as accountant, but these officials had no executive power in the administration of the new line, and the result has been what can be imagined—a pretty rotten railway. Many of the bridges are of wood—the line goes over and round hills that it ought to have pierced. \"Penny wise and pound foolish\" sums it up. Funds ran short before the line was finished and the Chinese had to raise more money. The Japanese were of course disgusted with the whole business. Then the war broke out, and Japan took the opportunity to present the famous twenty-one demands.\n\nNo. 7 of Group II ran as follows:- \n\"The Chinese Government agrees that the control and management of the Kirin-Changchun Railway shall be handed over to the Japanese Government for a term of ninety-nine years, dating from the signing of this agreement.\"\n\nThe subject of the twenty-one demands is one upon which there is scope for infinite enlargement, but there is small profit in criticising a single item of comparatively minor importance. It was the Japanese policy to make a certain advance in Manchuria, and if there is to be any criticism it should apply to the whole policy, for the steps are details. It must be admitted that the demand to control the Kirin-Changchun Railway was obnoxious from the Chinese point of view, but it was an inevitable corollary of Japanese ambition in all this region.\n\nFinally, in article 7 of the treaty respecting South Manchuria and Eastern Inner Mongolia — \n\"The Chinese Government agrees speedily to make a fundamental revision of the Kirin-Changchun Railway Loan Agreement, taking as a standard the provisions in railway loan agreements made heretofore between China and foreign financiers.\"\n\nThus, on the 25th May, 1915, the Chinese gave away all there was to give away of this railway, and the present agreement merely embodies what was then conceded.\n\nThe Japanese thereafter drafted an agreement based as to terms on the agreement relating to the Changting-Taiyuan-fu Railway, the stiffest of all the railway agreements, for it mortgages the line and its revenues and vests the lenders with control. Chinese negotiators, after long discussion, agreed to Japanese control, and to make the loan repayable in forty years, whereafter the line would lapse to China. Parliament, however, kicked at the forty years and wanted joint control, and sent the agreement back for revision. Since then the Chinese and Japanese have outsat each other at endless conferences leading to nothing at all, and it says something for the pacific attitude of the Japanese Government that they did not hurry China to give what she promised to give \"speedily\" over two years before.\n\nThe agreement now signed is practically the same as presented to Parliament, except that, in deference to Chinese face, the period is reduced from forty to thirty years—a reduction hardly to the advantage of China, for if the railway earnings are not sufficient to pay the annual interest and amortisation the Board of Communications will have to make up the deficit. That, however, is a small matter, for the annual charges of six and a half millions are a comparative trifle.\n\nAs regards the proceeds of the loan, the Chinese Government gets nothing in cash. The amount owing to the South Manchuria Railway—originally 2,150,000 yen, now a little less, owing to annual repayments—will be deducted, and the balance of some 4,000,000 yen will be deposited in a Japanese bank, to be used exclusively for the improvement of the railway in the shape of iron bridges, tunnels, and so forth. Management is vested in the South Manchuria Railway Company, which will nominate a chief engineer, chief accountant, and traffic superintendent to manage the line. Administration will be nominally only in the hands of a Chinese director-general—a merely face-saving device. This official, however, will have his uses, for he will be able, in Chinese interests, to watch the expenditure of the four million unexpended balance of the loan. At the end of the thirty years' duration of the Loan Agreement the debt will be liquidated, and the railway will pass back automatically into Chinese hands—provided a lot of other things do not happen in the meantime. During this period the South Manchuria Railway Company will get 20 per cent. of whatever net profits there may be, a reasonable provision to be found in other foreign loan agreements, including the Shanghai-Nanking Railway Agreement.\n\nAs regards cost to China, she originally spent 2,150,000 yen on the line, plus a few hundreds of thousands subsequently. This, added to the present loan, makes a grand total of about 9,000,000 yen.\n\nThe Japanese, for their own strategic and commercial purposes, are safe to make a good job of the improvements, so that China hereafter will—or ought to—inherit a first-class property. Eighty miles for 9,000,000 yen is about 12,000 per mile, not a very expensive rate for railway construction as things go in China. Obviously the total cost would have been much less if the capital originally provided had been advantageously expended.\n\n## Page 3\n## Page 14 \n## Page 2 \n## Page 195", "txt_file_path": "txt/2diw2n4r2/CO129-451 - Public Offices - 1918.txt", "external_url": "", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 477963, "series_id": 27, "series_slug": "histsyn-co129-engine", "series_title": "CO129 Colonial Office Hong Kong Records 理藩院香港檔案", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "CO129-451 - Public Offices - 1918", "page_number": 200, "title": "CO129-451 - Public Offices - 1918", "content_text": "## \naccepted the nomination of one Japanese as engineer and of another as accountant, but these officials had no executive power in the administration of the new line, and the result has been what can be imagined—a pretty, rotten railway. Many of the bridges are of wood—the line goes over and round hills that it ought to have pierced. \"Penny wise and pound foolish\" sums it up.\n\nFunds ran short before the line was finished and the Chinese had to raise more money. The Japanese were of course disgusted with the whole business. Then the war broke out, and Japan took the opportunity to present the famous twenty-one demands.\n\nNo. 7 of Group II ran as follows:—\n\n\"The Chinese Government agrees that the control and management of the Kirin-Changchun Railway shall be handed over to the Japanese Government for a term of ninety-nine years, dating from the signing of this agreement.”\n\nThe subject of the twenty-one demands is one upon which there is scope for infinite enlargement, but there is small profit in criticising a single item of comparatively minor importance. It was the Japanese policy to make a certain advance in Manchuria, and if there is to be any criticism it should apply to the whole policy, for the steps are details. It must be admitted that the demand to control the Kirin-Changchun Railway was obnoxious from the Chinese point of view, but it was an inevitable corollary of Japanese ambition in all this region.\n\nFinally, in article 7 of the treaty respecting South Manchuria and Eastern Inner Mongolia:\n\n\"The Chinese Government agrees speedily to make a fundamental revision of the Kirin-Changchun Railway Loan Agreement, taking as a standard the provisions in railway loan agreements made heretofore between China and foreign financiers.' \n\nEJ\n\nThus, on the 25th May, 1915, the Chinese gave away all there was to give away of this railway, and the present agreement merely embodies what was then conceded.\n\nThe Japanese thereafter drafted an agreement based on the terms of the agreement relating to the Changting-Taiyuan-fu Railway—the stiffest of all the railway agreements, for it mortgages the line and its revenues and vests the lenders with control. Chinese negotiators, after long discussion, agreed to Japanese control, and to make the loan repayable in forty years, whereafter the line would lapse to China. Parliament, however, kicked at the forty years and wanted joint control, and sent the agreement back for revision. Since then the Chinese and Japanese have outsat each other at endless conferences leading to nothing at all, and it says something for the pacific attitude of the Japanese Government that they did not hurry China to give what she promised to give \"speedily\" over two years before.\n\nThe agreement now signed is practically the same as presented to Parliament, except that, in deference to Chinese face, the period is reduced from forty to thirty years—a reduction hardly to the advantage of China, for if the railway earnings are not sufficient to pay the annual interest and amortisation the Board of Communications will have to make up the deficit. That, however, is a small matter, for the annual charges of six and a half millions are a comparative trifle.\n\nAs regards the proceeds of the loan, the Chinese Government gets nothing in cash. The amount owing to the South Manchuria Railway—originally 2,150,000 yen, now a little less, owing to annual repayments—will be deducted, and the balance of some 4,000,000 yen will be deposited in a Japanese bank, to be used exclusively for the improvement of the railway in the shape of iron bridges, tunnels, and so forth. Management is vested in the South Manchuria Railway Company, which will nominate a chief engineer, chief accountant, and traffic superintendent to manage the line. Administration will be nominally only in the hands of a Chinese director-general—a merely face-saving device. This official, however, will have his uses, for he will be able, in Chinese interests, to watch the expenditure of the four million unexpended balance of the loan. At the end of the thirty years' duration of the Loan Agreement the debt will be liquidated, and the railway will pass back automatically into Chinese hands—provided a lot of other things do not happen in the meantime. During this period the South Manchuria Railway Company will get 20 per cent. of whatever net profits there may be, a reasonable provision to be found in other foreign loan agreements, including the Shanghai-Nanking Railway Agreement.\n\nAs regards cost to China, she originally spent 2,150,000 yen on the line, plus a few hundreds of thousands subsequently. This, added to the present loan, makes a grand total of about 9,000,000 yen.\n\nThe Japanese, for their own strategic and commercial purposes, are safe to make a good job of the improvements, so that China hereafter will—or ought to—in...herit a first-class property. Eighty miles for 9,000,000 yen is about 12,000*l*. per mile, not a very expensive rate for railway construction as things go in China. Obviously the total cost would have been much less if the capital originally provided had been advantageously expended.\n\n## \n197", "txt_file_path": "txt/2diw2n4r2/CO129-451 - Public Offices - 1918.txt", "external_url": "", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 487234, "series_id": 27, "series_slug": "histsyn-co129-engine", "series_title": "CO129 Colonial Office Hong Kong Records 理藩院香港檔案", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "CO129-467 - Governor Sir Stubbs & Acting Governor Claud Severn - 1921 [1-5]", "page_number": 208, "title": "CO129-467 - Governor Sir Stubbs & Acting Governor Claud Severn - 1921 [1-5]", "content_text": "# \n207 \n\nİdevelopment of the Canton Hospital in harmony with the great traditions \nof its past eighty-five years of medical missionary service in China.\n\nIV. \n\"That this conference endorses the program formulated by the recent Board of Directors of the Canton Medical Missionary Union (Canton Hospital) for the sending of a deputation of members of the Hospital staff to visit the home countries above indicated as well as assisting in the securing of means for the creation of new buildings with modern equipment which are so urgently needed for the prosecution of the hospital's work.\n\n## Resolutions adopted by the Board of Directors of the Canton Medical Missionary Union (Canton Hospital), May 10, 1920\n\nI \n\"That the Canton Christian College Board of Trustees be asked to assume the responsibility in co-operation with the Missions for:\n\"(a) The reconstruction, staffing and maintenance of the Canton hospital, and \n\"(b) For the establishment of a school of medicine which shall be an integral part of the Canton Christian University.\n\nII. \"The reconstruction of the hospital is the immediate need, and funds for this purpose should be secured within a year.\n\n## \n14 \nThere is little need to refer to the present critical condition of the Canton Hospital which is no doubt already fully known to you, its antiquated buildings, its lack of equipment, its inadequate staff and still more serious need for funds to maintain its work and achieve the purpose for which it exists as a medical missionary institution.\n\nIt is earnestly hoped not only by the members of this delegation and the constituency which they represent, but also by medical missionaries all over China (witness resolutions of Peking conference, February 1920), that the Canton Christian College and the other Missionary Societies aforementioned will assume the responsibility which they are now asked to undertake, providing for the reorganization, reconstruction, maintenance and development of this hospital in order that it may continue without interruption its long record of useful medical missionary service to China.\n\nThere is good reason to believe that the Chinese friends of the Hospital in all parts of the Republic (vide testimonials from His Excellency Hsu Shih-Chang, President of the Chinese Republic who recently contributed one thousand dollars toward the new buildings fund, Dr. Chengting Wong, representative of China at the Peace Conference in Paris, the Military and Civil Governors of the Kwongtung Province, Dr. Tu Lien Teh, Director of the North Manchurian Plague Prevention Service, Dr. C. Voonping Yui, President of the National Medical Association of China, the Chinese Chambers of Commerce of Canton and Hong Kong and many others), will do their share in assisting to carry to a successful issue the plans which the Missionary Societies are now asked to initiate.\n\n## 2.", "txt_file_path": "txt/2diw2n4r2/CO129-467 - Governor Sir Stubbs & Acting Governor Claud Severn - 1921 [1-5].txt", "external_url": "", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 488998, "series_id": 27, "series_slug": "histsyn-co129-engine", "series_title": "CO129 Colonial Office Hong Kong Records 理藩院香港檔案", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "CO129-470 - Public Offices - 1921", "page_number": 146, "title": "CO129-470 - Public Offices - 1921", "content_text": "20\n\n**Gibb, Livingston and Co.** (W. Forbes and Co., 110, Cannon Street, London, E.C.4.) Shanghai.\n\nG. Grayrigge and Co. 9, Ningpo Road, Shanghai.\n\n**II. and W. Green (Limited)** (18, Chiswell Street, London, E.C.) 20, Kiukiang Road, Shanghai.\n\nM. W. Greig and Co. Foochow\n\n**Hall and Holtz (Limited)**. Shanghai, Tien-tsin, Hankow, Kuling.\n\nWalter Hardy and Co. 1, Rue Dillon, Tien-tsin.\n\nRalph Harper and Co. Tien-tsin.\n\n**Harrisons, King and Irwin (Limited)**. (Mincing Lane House, London, E.C.3.) Shanghai, Hankow, Foochow\n\nHarvie, Cooke and Co. (Harvie Brothers and Co., 104, Bloom Street, Manchester.) 3, Foochow Road, Shanghai.\n\nHatch and Carter and Co. Tien-tsin,\n\nF. C. Heffer and Co. 2, Kiukiang Road, Shanghai.\n\nHenk Kee Company. Swatow.\n\nHogg and Karanjia (Limited). Canton.\n\n**Cecil Holliday and Co. (Limited)**. (Sale and Co., 21, Old Broad Street, London, E.C.2.) Shanghai.\n\n**Hong Kong Mercantile Company (Limited)**. Hong Kong.\n\nJohn D. Hutchinson and Co. (Power, Power and Co., 5, Mark Lane, London, E.C.3.) Hong Kong and Shanghai.\n\n**Ilbert and Co. (Limited)**. (J. Batt and Co. (Limited), 39, Old Broad Street, London, E.C.2.) Shanghai.\n\nInniss and Riddle. 13a, Canton Road, Shanghai.\n\nS. A. Iqbalahmed. 56, Kiangse Road, Shanghai.\n\n**William Jacks and Co.** (5, East India Avenue, London, E.C.) 10, Kiukiang Road, Shanghai.\n\n**Jardine, Matheson and Co. (Limited)**. (3, Lombard Street, London, E.C.3.) All ports.\n\nR. M. Joseph. 7, Nanking Road, Shanghai.\n\nKalschund and Co. Kaihsien Road, Hankow.\n\nE. Kale. 11, Foochow Road, Shanghai.\n\n**Lane, Crawford and Co. (Limited)**. (Crawford, Stott and Co., Bassishaw House, Basinghall Street, London, E.C.2) Shanghai.\n\nFrederick Large and Co. Shanghai.\n\nLavers and Clark. 3, Kiukiang Road, Shanghai.\nSimon Levy and Co. 4, Jinkee Road, Shanghai.\n\nF. V. S. Lim and Co. Swatow.\n\n**William Little and Co.** (Dalgliesh and Co., 8, Gt. Winchester Street, London, E.C.2.) Shanghai.\n\n**Mackenzie and Co. (Limited)**. (J. Stenhouse, 4, Lloyds Avenue, London, E.C.3.) Tien-tsin.\n\nW. Martin and Co. 44, Szechuan Road, Shanghai.\n\nGeorge Matheson and Co. 1, Jinkee Road, Shanghai.\n\n**Middleton and Co. (Limited)**. (Tulloch and Co., London House, Crutched Friars, London, E.C.3.) Shanghai.\n\nL. Moore and Co. (Limited). 45, Kiangse Road, Shanghai.\n\nThe Newchang Wharf and Godown Company (Limited). Newchang.\nOdell and Co. Foochow.\n\nPerrin Cooper and Co. (J. M. Wotherspoon, 31, Gt. St. Helens, London, E.C.3.) Tien-tsin.\n\n**Probst Hanbury and Co. (Limited)**. (5, Fenchurch Street, London, E.C.) 10, Nanking Road, Shanghai.\n\nRamsay and Co. 4, Tungting Road, Hankow.\n\nR. Carr Ramsey. Swatow.\n\nRavner Heusser and Co. Shanghai.\n\nReiss and Co. (Holland House. Bury Street, St. Mary Axe, London, E.C.3.) Hankow, Tien-tsin, Chefoo, Canton.\n\n**Representation for British Manufacturers (Limited)**. (8, The Sanctuary, Westminster.) Peking, Hankow, Shanghai.\n\nJ.H. Richards. Shanghai.\n\n**Alex. Ross and Co.** (13, Whitechapel, Liverpool.) 12, Hankow Road, Shanghai.\nRobt. Roxburgh (Limited). 3, Kinkiang Road, Shanghai.\n\n21\n\nSanderson and Co. 2, The Bund, B.C., Hankow.\n\n**David Sassoon and Co. (Limited)**. (9, King William Street, London, E.C.4.) 23, The Bund, Shanghai.\n\n**E. D. Sassoon and Co.** (17, St. Helens Place, London, E.C.3.) Shanghai.\n\nSchiller and Co. 80, Szechuan Road. Shanghai.\n\n**Shanghai Electric and Asbestos Company (Limited)**, Shanghai.\nThe Shanghai Hotels (Limited). 7, Whangpoo Road, Shanghai.\n\nThe Shanghai Stores Company. 21, Nanking Road, Shanghai.\nCharles R. Shaw. 8, Jinkee Road, Shanghai.\n\n**Shewan Tomes and Co.** (31-33, Lime Street, London, E.C.3.) Shanghai, Tien-tsin, Canton.\n\nSlowe and Co. 72, Szechuan Road, Shanghai.\n\nAlbert Taylor. 13A, Canton Road, Shanghai.\n\nF. Thomas and Co. 31, Victoria Street, Tien-tsin,\n\nA. E. S. Thompson and Co. 5, Szechuan Road, Shanghai.\n\nTimes Dharwar and Co. (4, Lloyd's Avenue, London, E.C.) 8, Jinkee Road, Shanghai.\n\nR. N. Truman and Co. 13, Nanking Road, Shanghai.\n\nJ. Twyford and Co. British Bund, Tien-tsin.\n\nA. S. Watson and Co. 16, Nanking Road. Shanghai.\nWeeks and Co. (Limited). Shanghai and Hankow.\nWilson and Co. Tien-tsin.\n\n| Location | Count |\n|--------------|-------|\n| Shanghai | 70 |\n| Tien-tsin | 13 |\n| Hankow | 11 |\n| Canton | 6 |\n| Foochow | 5 |\n| Hong Kong | 4 |\n| Swatow | 3 |\n| Newchang | 2 |\n| Kuling | 1 |\n| Chingking | 1 |\n| **Total** | **115** |\n\nNote. No responsibility can be accepted in regard to the standing of companies, firms or individuals mentioned.\n\nDepartment of Overseas Trade (Development and Intelligence), 35, Old Queen Street, London, S.W.1.\n\n## APPENDIX IV\n## Railways\n\nAccording to the China Report for 1919, we have financed and constructed for the Chinese Government, over 800 miles of railway in the Yang-tsze Valley, and hold loan agreements for some 2,000 miles more.\n\n### 1. Railways in Operation\n\n1. Shanghai-Nanking Railway\n2. Shanghai-Hangchow Railway\n3. Ningpo-Powan Railway\n4. Tien-tsin-Pukow Railway\n5. Hankow-Changsha Railway\n\n### 2. Concessions\n\n1. Pukow-Sinyang and branches\n2. Nanking-Hunan and branches\n3. Shasi-Singyi and branches (Pauling's concession)\n\n| Railway | Miles in Operation | Miles Surveyed |\n|--------------------------|--------------------|----------------|\n| Shanghai-Nanking | 200 | 350 |\n| Shanghai-Hangchow | 120 | 1,000 |\n| Ningpo-Powan | 40 | ... |\n| Tien-tsin-Pukow | 240 | 650 |\n| Hankow-Changsha | 225 | 2,000 |\n| **Total** | **825** | |", "txt_file_path": "txt/2diw2n4r2/CO129-470 - Public Offices - 1921.txt", "external_url": "", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 489001, "series_id": 27, "series_slug": "histsyn-co129-engine", "series_title": "CO129 Colonial Office Hong Kong Records 理藩院香港檔案", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "CO129-470 - Public Offices - 1921", "page_number": 149, "title": "CO129-470 - Public Offices - 1921", "content_text": "## (h) Railway Loans—\n\n| Railway | Balance outstanding December 30, 1918 (£) |\n| --- | --- |\n| British: Peking-Mukden Railway | 1,400,000 |\n| Anglo-French: Peking-Hankow Railway | 4,750,000 |\n| Russo-Chinese: Chengting-Taiyan Railway | 1,200,000 |\n| British: Taokow-Chinghna Railway | 560,000 |\n| Franco-Belgian: Lung-Hai Railway | 5,000,000 |\n| Anglo-German: Tien-tsin-Pukow Railway | 7,750,000 |\n| British: Shanghai-Nanking Railway | 2,900,000 |\n| British: Shanghai-Hangchow-Ningpo Railway | 1,425,000 |\n| Anglo-American-Franco-German: Hukuang Railways | 6,000,000 |\n| British: Canton-Kowloon Railways | 1,500,000 |\n| **Total** | **32,485,000** |\n\n| Category | Amount (£) |\n| --- | --- |\n| British sole interests | 7,885,000 |\n| British joint interests | 18,500,000 |\n\nThe above figures are given by Mr. S. F. Mayers in his memorandum (`Confidential Print 38784` of the 11th March, 1919).\n\nTo these may be added--\n| Railway | Amount (£) |\n| --- | --- |\n| British: Taokow-Chinghua Railway | 800,000 |\n| British: Sinyang-Pukow Railway | 3,000,000 |\n| **Total** | **3,800,000** |\n\nand the following Japanese railway loans (see `\"China Year Book, 1919-1920'`): \n| Railway | Amount (£) |\n| --- | --- |\n| Kirin-Changchun Railway | 215,000 |\n| Hsinmintun-Mukden Railway | 21,000 |\n| Kirin-Hueining Railway | 1,000,000 |\n| Peking-Hankow Railway | 500,000 |\n| Nanchang-Kiukiang Railway | 500,000 |\n| Ssupingkai-Chengchiatun Railway | 230,000 |\n| Nanchang-Kiukiang Railway | 650,000 |\n| Kirin-Changchun Railway | 53,000 |\n| Ssupingkai-Chengchiatun Railway | 260,000 |\n| Kirin-Changchun Railway | 1,000,000 |\n| ?Peking-Suiyuan Railway | 300,000 |\n| **Total** | **4,439,000** |\n\nSir J. Jordan, in his despatch No. 353 of the 25th July, 1918, gives the Kirin-Hueining loan as £2,000,000. In his despatch No. 546 of the 16th December, 1918, he adds--\n- Four Manchurian Railways (Japanese)\n- Two railways in Shantung on which £4,000,000 were advanced on the 22nd November, 1919.\n\n## (c) General Loans—\n\n| Loan | Amount (£) |\n| --- | --- |\n| British: Birch, Crisp and Co. | 5,000,000 |\n| Consortium: First Reorganisation Loan | 25,000,000 |\n| Consortium: Second Reorganisation Loan | 1,000,000 |\n| First advance (Japanese) | 1,000,000 |\n| Second advance (Japanese) | 1,000,000 |\n| Third advance (Japanese) | 1,000,000 |\n| Franco-Belgian Government Gold Loan, 1914 | 4,000,000 |\n| American-Japanese Grand Canal Loan | 1,200,000 |\n| American Wine and Tobacco Loan | 6,000,000 |\n| **Total** | **44,200,000** |\n\nTo these should be added the Anglo-Danish Telegraph Company's Loan (Eastern Extension Company and Great Northern Telegraph Company), 1911, of £5,000,000 of which the balance outstanding on the 31st December, 1918, was £458,336, and the numerous Japanese loans. A list of these is given in Sir J. Jordan's despatch No. 353 of the 25th July, 1918. These amount to the total of £24,810,000, of which £19,843,000 have been contracted since the war. They include the railway loans mentioned above, and the advances to the Second Reorganisation Loan. Besides these the principal loans are:\n\n| Loan | Amount (£) |\n| --- | --- |\n| Loans (1903-1913) to the Han-Yeh-Ping Company | 3,200,000 |\n| Asiatic Development Company Loan, 1915 | 500,000 |\n| Loan to Bank of Communications, 1917 | 500,000 |\n| Chibli Flood Loan, 1917 | 500,000 |\n| Grand Canal Loan (see above): Japanese share, 1917 | 500,000 |\n| Taihei Kumiai Arms Loan, 1918 | 1,400,000 |\n| Loan to Bank of Communications, 1918 | 2,000,000 |\n| Telegraph Administration Loan, 1918 | 2,000,000 |\n| Kirin-Heilungchiang Forest Loan, 1918 | 3,000,000 |\n\nThe Annual Report on China for 1919 states that in 1917-1918 the Central Government borrowed between £20,000,000 and £30,000,000 from Japan. The most recent borrowings have been:\n| Loan | Amount (£) |\n| --- | --- |\n| 1920 advance by Japanese Banks | 900,000 |\n| Marconi Wireless Loan (British) | 600,000 |\n| Vickers' Aeroplane Loan (British) | 1,800,000 |", "txt_file_path": "txt/2diw2n4r2/CO129-470 - Public Offices - 1921.txt", "external_url": "", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 490027, "series_id": 27, "series_slug": "histsyn-co129-engine", "series_title": "CO129 Colonial Office Hong Kong Records 理藩院香港檔案", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "CO129-471 - Public Offices - 1921", "page_number": 518, "title": "CO129-471 - Public Offices - 1921", "content_text": "## \n\nFor several days in succession I had seen nothing whatever of the Tengyueh Taoyin; at Chepi, however, much to my surprise, he rode over to call on me. The reason for the visit was only apparent when he propounded the astonishing request that as during seventeen days travel in his circuit we had only found one field of opium poppy, I would overlook it in my report to His Majesty's Chargé d'Affaires. On my replying that, had we found one hundred I should be bound to report one hundred, and that I must equally report the one, he then suggested that I should add a rider that the field found was close to the scene of military operations against the offending Kachins. To this I rejoined that I had been over the country in question and he had not, and that I knew for a fact that the two places were at least two and a half days journey apart. Soon afterwards he took his leave, considerably crestfallen.\n\nApril 14th Shortly after leaving Chêpi the road to Mienning makes a very steep ascent of some 3,000 feet, on to a lofty shoulder, the view from which on a clear day must be magnificent, embracing extensive country in the jurisdiction of Shunning and Kengma, in the Tengyueh circuit, and Mieuning in the Puerh circuit. On an open bit of grass land just beyond a pillar marking the boundary, a large booth had been erected, and we were met by the P'uêrh Taoyin and the Mienning district magistrate, each of whom furnished a guard of honour.\n\nThe following day we reached the ancient walled city of Mienning, inhabited by a mixed population of Chinese and Shans, while Lolos and natives of several other tribes inhabit the surrounding villages.\n\nFor the journey from Mienning to Szemao my first care was to ascertain the route followed by the Taoyin to the rendezvous; he had come, as I expected, by the most direct road through Chingku-hsien (the modern name of Weiyuant'ing of Manchu times). I asked the Taoyin point-blank whether he had seen any opium cultivation on his outward journey; he replied that a few isolated patches had been sown at the beginning of the season, but that all had been uprooted by expeditions sent out in November and December, and there was no trace of any remaining when he came out. I see no reason whatever to doubt this statement, but even if it was untrue, it was practically certain that there would not be a single plant left after his passing through; I therefore decided to take an entirely different road for our joint journey and selected the southern route via Poshang, the Tapêng ferry over the Mekong, Mêngka and Mengchu. This is a fairly well recognised, though little used, road, but I possess records of only isolated portions as having been previously traversed by British subjects.\n\nOn the 19th April, at the Taoyin's suggestion, we made a very early start in view of the formidable journey in front of us. We reached the limits of the Mienning jurisdiction and bade farewell to the magistrate. After 6 miles of easy going, No trace of opium poppy had we seen in his district, in which, as far as I could ascertain, he and his subordinates had carried out their suppression duties with exceptional thoroughness. The next 7 miles traversed a corner of what is now known as the Lantsang (i.e., Mekong) district-formerly the sub-prefecture of Chênpien-and the going was very severe, though it must, in all fairness, be admitted that the country is extremely difficult, including a terrific descent for 3 miles through constantly subsiding red clay to the level of the River Mekong (2,750 feet). The crossing of the Mekong is effected in a single huge wooden boat with deep sides: The mules and their loads are transported in this craft, the river-current being too swift to admit of the animals swimming across without danger. The ascent up the left or east bank of the Mekong is even more severe, and for 24 miles the ruling gradient is steeper than one in six.\n\nTwo stages further, through pine-woods tenanted by peacocks and brilliant emerald-green parrots, brought us to the Chinese Shan town of Mêngka. At Tamotsoho, the half-way halt, we came across a few families of Lahu race, said to be rapidly dying out in China.\n\nShortly before reaching Mêngka we were met by the Chingku district magistrate, a Kuangsi man, who accompanied us so long as we continued in his extensive jurisdiction. Mengka, the residence of a Shan Sawbwa, possesses also large temples and two monasteries in the Burmese Shan style; one in particular, over 200 years old, must have been very fine in bygone days.\n\nAt Lientsungts'un, our halt mid-way between Mêngka and Mêngchu, the Chinese Shan Sawbwa, of the latter place, and Mêngpan came over to pay his respects.\n\nMêngchu is one of the old Shan towns whence the original inhabitants have been practically ousted by the more thriving Chinese.\n\nOn the 25th April, two days after leaving Mêngchu, we crossed the River Weiyuan for Chingku, as it is now gradually becoming known) at Patieh. Two days later, after passing a few villages inhabited by natives of the strikingly handsome Puman race, we entered the Szémao district and were met by the local magistrate; the following day, the 28th April, we arrived at Szemao, where spacious quarters were provided for me adjoining the Taoyin's yamên. The Taoyin and magistrate pressed me to stay a week in Szemao; I consented to two days, but on the second day the Taoyin urged that he still had important business to transact, and I could hardly refuse his request that we should postpone our departure for one more day.\n\nPrevious to my departure for Tengyuch, I had written to a reliable correspondent, soliciting his co-operation to obtain for me, if possible, information on the subject of opium in the area under his cognisance. With that request he very courteously complied; he informed me quite definitely that, as the result of several punitive expeditions during the past winter, there was, as far as he was aware, no more cultivation of opium in the Szemao district, and that while probably at least 30 per cent. of the adult population of the town, both male and female, still continued to consume the drug, the enormous rise in price bore out his contention.\n\nFrom Szemao northwards towards Tali three routes were open to me; that viâ Chingku (Weiyuan) was ruled out by the fact that it had already been traversed by the Taoyin on his journey to Mienning to meet me; on the north-eastern route, via T'alang-the main road to Yunnan-fu-according to all the information I could obtain, a considerable quantity of opium had been grown, and harvested, earlier in the season, but very thorough measures of eradication had been carried out some weeks previously; I therefore decided to take the more direct but less frequented route via Puêrh, Hsinfu (in Chênyuan district) and Chingtung.\n\nLeaving Szemao on the 2nd May, some three hours of travel, including a stiff climb, brought us to the boundary of the P'uêrh district, where the local magistrate awaited us; the Szemao magistrate, however, continued to accompany us till the town of Puerh was reached the next day; on this day's journey our route crossed a splendid Chinese arched stone bridge, in admirable preservation.\n\nAt Mohei, the next stage, I took the opportunity to pay a visit to the large and flourishing salt-mines about a mile and a half away. Dr. Kelly, the American representative of the Chinese Salt Administration, who had arrived about two months previously, was away on tour, but his English-speaking Chinese colleague very kindly demonstrated to me all the processes of Chinese salt extraction.\n\nThe next four stages, viâ Mop'o, Manpieh and Manlien, to Hsin-fu, call for little comment save for the extreme beauty of the scenery; on all sides rose range after range of pine-clad hills, mostly well-wooded to their summits; the valleys were, however, parched and bare, and travelling along the lower levels was excessively hot. The only record in my possession of a route between Hsinfu and Chingtung dated from 1881, when the journey was made by a British traveller; our route, however, was almost entirely different from his, and we spent but five days on the distance which had taken him six. For the last three days we were accompanied by the Chingtung magistrate, who came out to meet us.\n\nThis latter official was also among the number of those who have displayed special energies in the matter of opium suppression; practically every town and hamlet which we traversed in his district boasted its own small bureau for the furtherance of the task, while the magistrate's extensive tours of inspection included a journey to the summit of Wu-Liang-Shan, between 11,000 and 12,000 feet high.\n\nLeaving Chingtung on the 15th May, three days' journey brought us to the boundary between the Puerh and Tengyueh circuits, at Shukai (locally pronounced Ch'ukai); Here we found that the Tengyueh Taoyin and the Mênghua district magistrate had been awaiting our arrival for three days. Before bidding farewell to the Puêrh Taoyin, I gave him a letter detailing our route through his circuit and congratulating him on the fact that we had discovered not a single opium poppy in a month's journey. In the course of an interesting conversation, he freely admitted that the task of suppression had been considerably easier in his circuit than elsewhere in the province; he was no less frank regarding the prevalence of opium smoking, and expressed the opinion that from three to five years must elapse before this would be stopped.\n\nPage [603] \n517 \n55 \n54", "txt_file_path": "txt/2diw2n4r2/CO129-471 - Public Offices - 1921.txt", "external_url": "", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 490053, "series_id": 27, "series_slug": "histsyn-co129-engine", "series_title": "CO129 Colonial Office Hong Kong Records 理藩院香港檔案", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "CO129-471 - Public Offices - 1921", "page_number": 544, "title": "CO129-471 - Public Offices - 1921", "content_text": "# \n## 106\n\nThe province was practically clean of the poppy (except for a slight recrudescence at the time of the revolution of 1911) for some years, until cultivation recommenced during 1918 and 1919 in the extreme west near the borders of the tribal country, and also in the east along the Yang-tsze above and below Chungking. No reliable reports have been received in regard to the situation in the west, but, as regards the east of the province, His Majesty's consul at Chungking reports that there is conclusive evidence to show that considerable progress has been made towards suppression again.\n\nAs regards Kueichou, His Majesty's consul-general at Yunnan-fu reports that every encouragement short of written authority has been given by the provincial authorities to grow the poppy, and that a special bureau under the guise of a Military Accounts Department has been instituted to collect the revenue from the opium produced. The opium has been seen growing in the districts of Chenyuan, Shihping, Hsinchow, Huanping, Chingping, Pingyueh, Huanghsien, Kueiting, Lungli, Kueiyang, Chingchen, Anping, Anshun, Ch'ienhsi, and Chihchin, and in the month of May, the reaping of the opium crop was paralysing all other work.\n\nAs regards Yunnan, reports state that opium was grown this year in the districts of Chaotung, Tungchuan, Lutien, Kutsing, Luchuan, Wuting, Hsuntien, Yuanmow, Karwa, Kwangnan, Tengchung, Likiang, Chienchuan, Hoching, and elsewhere; in fact, generally speaking, almost all over the province where the soil and climate are suitable. In one district, the price of opium was 1 dollar per ounce in February, 50 cents in March, and 30 cents in May.\n\n## Manchuria (Fengtien, Kirin, Heilungchiang)\n\nA small amount of cultivation has been carried on in mountainous parts on the borders of the three provinces, notably on the Korean frontier. The inspecting officials are no doubt often squared, but inspection and suppression are by no means easily carried out in these wild regions.\n\n## Hsinchiang\n\nReports on the cultivation of the poppy this spring in Chinese Turkestan have not yet been received.\n\n## Summary\n\nTo sum up, the poppy is shown to have been cultivated on a fairly extensive scale this season in the following provinces: Shensi, Hunan, Hupei, Honan, Fukien, Kueichou, Yunnan, and Szechuan. The Southern authorities are nominally responsible for the cultivation in Hunan, Hupei, Fukien, Kueichou, Yunnan, and Szechuan; and the Peking Government for cultivation in Fukien, Honan, and Shensi. In general, it may be taken that the military authorities, who are in most cases a law unto themselves, and whom the Southern and Northern Governments cannot or dare not coerce into obedience, are entirely to blame for the cultivation which continues.\n\n## June 1920\n\n## No. 46\n\n**Mr. Clive to Earl Curzon**.-(Received January 28, 1921.)\n\nMy Lord,\n\nPeking, November 27, 1920. I HAVE the honour to transmit herewith a copy of correspondence with the Wai-chiao Pu respecting opium cultivation in the province of Fukien.\n\nAs your Lordship will observe, the attitude of the Chinese authorities towards the question gives every cause for dissatisfaction. Not only Fukien but very many other provinces of China are drifting rapidly back to the state of things existing before the opium treaties, and the amount of opium now grown - more or less openly - in China is so great as to make the attempt to kill the abuse by preventing importation from abroad little more than a farce. One result of this lamentable condition is that Chinese-grown opium is constantly smuggled from place to place within the country, and it is a cause of bitter complaint by British owners of Yang-tsze steamers that their ships are frequently stopped and penalised by the customs authorities because smuggled opium has been found on board, having been stowed away by members of the native crew helped by accomplices on shore without the knowledge of the ship's officers or any of the Europeans concerned. The difficulty of detecting the hidden opium during the voyage is, of course, very great when the crew are banded together, and resolute action against smuggling by the ship's officers has, in at least one recent case, resulted in the murder of the zealous officer.\n\nI have, &c.\n\n## Enclosure 1 in No. 46\n\n**Wai-chiao Pu to Mr. Clive**\n\nR. H. CLIVE.\n\n(Translation.) Sir,\n\nAugust 2, 1920. I HAVE the honour to acknowledge the receipt of Sir Beilby Alston's letter of the 12th May, in which he enclosed three photographs of poppy fields in full bloom in the province of Fukien, two in a part under northern jurisdiction and one under southern jurisdiction. The latter expressed the hope that an example would be made of those responsible.\n\nOn receipt of the above letter, this Ministry wrote to the officer occupying the joint posts of Military and Civil Governor requesting him secretly to send an officer to the localities concerned for the purpose of making an investigation. From the reply which has now been received from him, it is learnt that, disregarding the photograph of poppy fields in a part of Fukien under southern jurisdiction, he handed the remaining two photographs to the former magistrate of Te-hua district, Li Hung-chou, and to his own aide-de-camp, Liu Chin-yung, and despatched these officers to make a close examination of the localities concerned. He had subsequently received from them the following joint report :-\n\n\"We proceeded together on the 1st June with all speed to the territory of P'u-t'ien, and after exhaustive search in all directions discovered not so much as the trace of a single poppy plant within the lines occupied by our forces. But at Hue-t'ing and Hou Shan, two places on the boundary of the Tien and Hsien-yu districts, opium has been illicitly cultivated in a few places, and here Mr. Cole took a couple of photographs. These two places are both some 10 miles from the district city, and taking the distance into consideration, they are probably the two photographs of places referred to in the British Minister's note as being within northern jurisdiction. Thus, there can be no doubt that the places where the photographs were taken were Hua-t'ing and Hou Shan.\n\n\"Now these two localities are in the neutral ground between the northern and southern lines. In general, the troops keep strictly within their own lines for fear lest, by crossing the boundary agreed upon, misunderstandings and collisions might arise. In consequence, the above two places were rarely visited by our forces, with the result that a few of the stupid and ignorant country people, greedy for their petty profits, engaged in illicit cultivation. Subsequently, the district magistrate, Pao Wei, discovered the state of affairs, and wrote on the 28th April requesting Colonel Wang Hsien Ch'en to send his aide-de-camp Ch'en K'an to the locality in order to enforce the uprooting of the crop, and the country was then cleared of the poppy. The remainder of the Pu Han territory is entirely under northern control, and in none of the places through which we passed was there any trace of the poppy.\"\n\nThe Military Governor, when forwarding the above report, observes that it appears that the two photographs sent by the British Minister were taken at places in the neutral zone between the northern and southern lines, and that as soon as poppy cultivation was discovered, officers were sent to uproot it and clear the country of the crop; it can be seen that he, in his capacity of Military and of Civil Governor, together with his subordinates, has been not insincere in his efforts to suppress opium. The Governor requests me to write to you in accordance with his reply.\n\nIn transmitting the above to you for your information, I avail, &c.\n\n**(Seal of the Wai-chiao Pu)**\n\n## 107 \n## 543", "txt_file_path": "txt/2diw2n4r2/CO129-471 - Public Offices - 1921.txt", "external_url": "", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 490097, "series_id": 27, "series_slug": "histsyn-co129-engine", "series_title": "CO129 Colonial Office Hong Kong Records 理藩院香港檔案", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "CO129-471 - Public Offices - 1921", "page_number": 588, "title": "CO129-471 - Public Offices - 1921", "content_text": "## MINUTES\n\nIn any further communication on this subject, please quote No. `120 83843/1140/10` and address not to any person by name, but to **The Under-Secretary of State, Foreign Office, London, S.W. 1**.\n\nC.O. 587 54976.\n\n5 OCT\n\nTHE Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs presents his compliments to the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies and transmits herewith copy of the under-mentioned paper and enclosures, Foreign Office, Nov. 3, 192...\n\nReference to previous correspondence: F.O. letter `81344/1140/10` of Apr. 16, 1920.\n\n| Name and Date | Description of Enclosure | Subject |\n| --- | --- | --- |\n| F. An. Miniature (Petang) No. 516 of Sep. 6 | | Proposed appointment of an Advisory Committee for the Province of Changting |\n\n**Similar letter sent to:** `F.O.P. 1000 9/21 (6889)` \nMINUTES NOT TO BE WRITTEN ON THIS SIDE.", "txt_file_path": "txt/2diw2n4r2/CO129-471 - Public Offices - 1921.txt", "external_url": "", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 490238, "series_id": 27, "series_slug": "histsyn-co129-engine", "series_title": "CO129 Colonial Office Hong Kong Records 理藩院香港檔案", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "CO129-471 - Public Offices - 1921", "page_number": 729, "title": "CO129-471 - Public Offices - 1921", "content_text": "# APPENDIX IX.\n## Loans.\n\n### Balance outstanding December 30, 1918.\n\n**(a.) Sino-Japanese War Indemnity Loans**\n\n| Year | Loan Details | Amount |\n|------|--------------|--------|\n| 1895 | Franco-Russian Government Loan of 400,000,000 fr. | 8,350,558 |\n| 1896, 1898 | Anglo-German Government Loan of £16,000,000 | 12,385,000 |\n| | | 9,571,500 |\n\n**(b.) Railway Loans—**\n\n| Railway Details | Amount |\n|-----------------|--------|\n| British Peking Mukden Railway | 1,400,000 |\n| Anglo-French: Peking Hankow Railway | 4,750,000 |\n| Russo-Chinese: Chengting-Taiyan Railway | 1,200,000 |\n| British Taokow-Chinghua Railway | 560,000 |\n| Franco-Belgian: Lung-Hai Railway | 5,000,000 |\n| Anglo-German Tientsin-Pukow Railway | 7,750,000 |\n| British Shanghai-Nanking Railway | 2,900,000 |\n| British Shanghai-Hangchow-Ningpo Railway | 1,425,000 |\n| Anglo-American-Franco-German: Hukuang Railways | 6,000,000 |\n| British Canton-Kowloon Railways | 1,500,000 |\n| **Total** | **32,485,000** |\n| British sole interests | 7,885,000 |\n| British joint interests | 18,500,000 |\n\nThe above figures are given by Mr. S. F. Mayers in his memorandum (`Confidential Print 38784` of the 11th March, 1919).\n\nTo these may be added:\n- British Taokow-Chinghua Railway: 800,000\n- ...: 3,000,000\n- **Total**: 3,800,000\n\n**(c.) General Loans—**\n\n### Balance outstanding December 30, 1918.\n\n| Loan Details | Amount |\n|--------------|--------|\n| British Birch, Crisp and Co. | ... |\n| Consortium First Reorganisation Loan | 5,000,000 |\n| Consortium: Second Reorganisation Loan | 25,000,000 |\n| First advance (Japanese) | 1,000,000 |\n| Second advance (Japanese) | 1,000,000 |\n| Third advance (Japanese) | 1,000,000 |\n| Franco-Belgian Government Gold Loan, 1914 | 4,000,000 |\n| American-Japanese Grand Canal Loan | 1,200,000 |\n| American Wine and Tobacco Loan | 6,000,000 |\n| **Total** | **44,200,000** |\n\nTo these should be added the Anglo-Danish Telegraph Company's Loan (Eastern Extension Company and Great Northern Telegraph Company), 1911, of £5,000,000, of which the balance outstanding on the 31st December, 1918, was £458,336, and the numerous Japanese loans. A list of these is given in Sir J. Jordan's despatch No. `353` of the 25th July, 1918. These amount to the total of $24,810,000, of which €19,943,000 have been contracted since the war. They include the railway loans mentioned above, and the advances to the Second Reorganisation Loan. Besides these, the principal Japanese loans are:\n\n| Loan Details | Amount |\n|--------------|--------|\n| Loans (1903-1913) to the Hanyehping Company | 3,200,000 |\n| Asiatic Development Company Loan, 1915 | 500,000 |\n| Loan to Bank of Communications, 1917 | 500,000 |\n| Chibli Flood Loan, 1917 | 500,000 |\n| Grand Canal Loan (see above): Japanese share, 1917 | 500,000 |\n| Taihei Kumiai Arms Loan, 1918 | 1,400,000 |\n| Loan to Bank of Communications, 1918 | 2,000,000 |\n| Telegraph Administration Loan, 1918 | 2,000,000 |\n| Kirin-Heilungchiang Forest Loan, 1918 | 8,000,000 |\n| **Total** | ... |\n\nand the following Japanese railway loans (see `China Year Book, 1919-1920`):\n \n| Railway Details | Amount |\n|-----------------|--------|\n| Kirin-Changchun Railway | 215,000 |\n| Hsinmintun-Mukden Railway | 21,000 |\n| Peking-Hankow Railway | 1,000,000 |\n| Nanchang-Kiukiang Railway | 500,000 |\n| Ssupingkai-Chengchiatun Railway | 500,000 |\n| Ssupingkai-Chengchiatun Railway | 230,000 |\n| Nanchang-Kiukiang Railway | 650,000 |\n| Kirin-Changchun Railway | 63,000 |\n| Kirin Changchun Railway | 260,000 |\n| Kirin-Hueining Railway | 1,000,000 |\n| Peking-Suiyuan Railway | 4,439,000 |\n| British Sinyang-Pukow Railway | 300,000 |\n| **Total** | ... |\n\nSir J. Jordan, in his despatch No. `353` of the 25th July, 1918, gives the Kirin-Hueining loan as £2,000,000. In his despatch No. `546` of the 16th December, 1918, he adds:\n- Four Manchurian Railways (Japanese): £15,000,000\n- Two railways in Shantung: £7,000,000\n- On which £4,000,000 were advanced on the 22nd November, 1919: £22,000,000\n\nThe Annual Report on China for 1919 states that in 1917-1918 the Central Government borrowed between £20,000,000 and £30,000,000 from Japan. The most recent borrowings have been:\n- 1920 advance by Japanese Banks: 900,000\n- Marconi Wireless Loan (British): 600,000\n- Vickers Aeroplane Loan (British): 1,800,000\n\nThe general loans offered for pooling in the New Consortium, the 13th October, 1920, were:\n- By the British, French, and Japanese groups: Reorganisation Loan, 1913, further loan.\n- By the British and French groups: Currency Reform and Industrial Development Loan, 1911.\n- By the American group:\n - Grand Canal Improvement Contract, 1917.\n - Continental and Commercial Trust and Savings Bank Loan, 1919.\n - Pacific Development Corporation Loan, 1919.\n\nFor Railway Loans similarly offered for pooling see `Appendix IV`. \n\n## Page 727", "txt_file_path": "txt/2diw2n4r2/CO129-471 - Public Offices - 1921.txt", "external_url": "", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 501047, "series_id": 27, "series_slug": "histsyn-co129-engine", "series_title": "CO129 Colonial Office Hong Kong Records 理藩院香港檔案", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "CO129-490 - Public Offices - 1925", "page_number": 74, "title": "CO129-490 - Public Offices - 1925", "content_text": "I.\n\nCHINESE LABOUR.\n\nCONDITIONS IN SHANGHAI FACTORIES.\n\nTO THE EDITOR OF THE TIMES.\n\nSir,—The letter dated June 13 under the signature of Mr. Fenner Brockway, general secretary of the Independent Labour Party, calls for further reply.\n\nI have just returned to England from Shanghai, where I have resided for very many years.\n\nI have been successively chairman of The Shanghai General Chamber of Commerce, the British Chamber of Commerce, the China Association, and for the last four years I have served on the International Municipal Council, two years of which I was in the vice-chair. I think, therefore, I may speak with some knowledge on questions of material interest to the Settlement.\n\nI studied the report of the Commission on Child Labour with great care, discussed points of interest with the chairman and other members of the commission, and the report was also the subject of considerable discussion at meetings of the council.\n\nMr. Brockway states that children are torn from their parents and recruited in the mass to work at a speed dictated by the machine. That is not true.\n\nThe mills in Shanghai controlled by foreigners, mostly cotton and silk, employ female labour on a large scale, because the work is light.\n\nThe husbands are mostly employed on wharves or docks or as ricksha coolies.\n\nWhen the mothers go to work they find they must take their children with them, because there are no Chinese schools which they can attend, existing schools being too expensive for their purse, while the International Council could never attempt to provide education for the mass of Chinese children whose parents elect to reside in the settlement set apart for residence of foreigners.\n\nWhen the children reach the mills with their mothers, the millowners give them some light work to perform at their mothers' request, mostly to keep them out of mischief, but in no instance in my discussion with foreign mill-owners have I found one who wanted the children.\n\nHe would much rather be without them. They are not, he states, worth even the small money they are supposed to earn.\n\nThe Japanese mill where most of the trouble has occurred has built and equipped a school in its compound, and was experimenting with it when I left.\n\nThe owners have also brought their mill up to, and in some respects beyond, modern home standards, but that did not prevent the students and their Bolshevist \"friends\" from attacking them; in fact, they seemed to be singled out for attention.\n\nMr. Brockway disclaims all responsibility for standards of labour outside the settlement of Shanghai.\n\nThat, I may say, is not the attitude adopted by the child labour representative who recently visited Shanghai.\n\nDame Adelaide Anderson made it clear that foreign Shanghai millowners should refuse to employ child labour (which some British companies have already attempted) merely as an educative exhibition to the Chinese owner, with whom in all parts of the country she discussed the question.\n\nBut what becomes of the children who are refused admittance to the British or other foreign-owned mill?\n\nThe mothers merely transfer their service to the Chinese-owned mills— and they are growing up like mushrooms—who will readily employ them.\n\nSo that Mr. Brockway, if he is to deal with the question, must take responsibility for labour in Chinese mills, whether in the interior, or in the settlement, or on its borders, where they exist by the score.\n\nThe British mill may suffer from altruistic scruples and may with excessive labour cost go under, but that will not dispose of the child labour question in the settlement of Shanghai.\n\nLand Regulations do not make provision for the municipal council to take action against millowners employing child labour, and to alter the Land Regulations requires a further majority of the ratepayers of the settlement, the unanimous decision of the Councils of every nationality represented in Shanghai (almost every known country), and after that of every Minister in the Legation in Peking, and after that the ratification of the Chinese Government; and on much more important questions than child labour it has not been found possible during the last 20 years to effect necessary alterations.\n\nIt is not the British alone who are responsible, as Mr. Brockway appears to imagine; they are only one among many.\n\nThe secretary of the I.L.P. may rest quite satisfied that European employers of labour in China would welcome nothing so much as European standards of education, law, sanitation, and morality (which I presume he embraces under his caption of humanity), but these standards must be established in China by the Chinese themselves (with whatever aid we or others can or may be allowed to give them), and that would inevitably lead to the prompt abolition of extra-territoriality.\n\nEDWARD F. MACKAY.\n\nHubbards Hall, Harlow, June 16.\n\nMORE DEMONSTRATIONS.\n\nTIENIIN, June —Twenty-five thousand students yesterday evening marched in procession through the native city in sympathy with the Shanghai strikers.\n\nThe city police, reinforced by Chang Tso-lin's troops, kept order.\n\nA body of Chang Tso-lin's gendarmerie is billeted at the British Consulate in order to cooperate with the British Municipal Police in the event of trouble in the Concession.\n\nPEKING, June 15—A procession that included students, merchants, shop-assistants, and workmen went to the Chinese Foreign Office and demanded that the Government should sever relations with Great Britain and instruct the Tupan of Hankow forcibly to take possession of the Concession.\n\nHANKOW, June 15—Another rioter has died of his wounds, and the death-roll is now nine.\n\nThe defence troops are still standing by.\n\nThe British sloop Hollyhock has arrived and marines have been landed—Reuter.\n\nCANTON CIVILIANS' VENGEANCE.\n\nSLAUGHTER OF YUNNANESE FUGITIVES.\n\n(FROM OUR CORRESPONDENT.)\n\nHONG-KONG, JUNE 15.\n\nYang Hsi-min, the commander of the Yunnanese who were defeated at Canton, has fled to Shanghai.\n\nHe states that his subordinates were bought over by the Kuomintang, and this caused the débâcle.\n\nForeign witnesses of the fighting at Canton describe the gruesome slaughter of individual Yunnanese by the civilian populace, who cruelly avenged the military domination of the past two years.\n\nDuring the manhunt throughout the city it is estimated that 700 Yunnanese were shockingly mutilated and murdered, including an officer who was crucified upon a telephone pole.\n\nForeigners at Shameen helplessly watched men who pleaded pitifully for their lives beaten and thrown in a half-conscious condition into creeks, where they were held down by bamboo poles or forced under water by showers of stones and drowned.\n\nFinally a party of foreigners, including British and French naval seamen, interfered and rescued several persons.\n\nA British officer harangued the crowd in Chinese.\n\nThe latter pleaded that they had suffered under intolerable grievances, but they desisted from further maltreatment of fugitives and refrained from making any anti-foreign demonstration.\n\nBRITISH SHIPS ON CHINA STATION.\n\nH.M. sloop Petersfield (tender to H.M.S. Hawkins, flagship, China Station), with the Commander-in-Chief China Station on board, arrived at Shanghai on Sunday.\n\nThe sloop Hollyhock arrived at Hankow yesterday, and the gunboat Gnat at Kiukiang on June 15.\n\nThe present disposition of the other ships on the China Station is as follows:—Woodlark (gunboat), Chiokiang; Woodcock (gunboat), Wuhu; Bee and Mantis (gunboats), Hankow; Cricket (gunboat), Changsha; Scarab (gunboat), Chang; Teal and Widgeon (gunboats), Chingking; Cockchafer (gunboat), Wanhsien.\n\nThe cruiser Despatch sailed for Yangtze on June 13, and the sloop Bluebell and the cruiser Delhi are at Hong-kong.", "txt_file_path": "txt/2diw2n4r2/CO129-490 - Public Offices - 1925.txt", "external_url": "", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 502910, "series_id": 27, "series_slug": "histsyn-co129-engine", "series_title": "CO129 Colonial Office Hong Kong Records 理藩院香港檔案", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "CO129-492 - Governor Sir Clementi - 1925 [12] - 1926 [1-5]", "page_number": 602, "title": "CO129-492 - Governor Sir Clementi - 1925 [12] - 1926 [1-5]", "content_text": "Page 583\n\n...\n\nWitnessed:\n\nF. MENZIES\n\nnecessary money by the issue of Chinese Government Railway Bonds in Europe or America. The rate of interest, terms of amortisation and the price of issue to be agreed hereafter.\n\nShould Messrs Pearson or the Chinese Government so desire and the other party so agree, the said railways might be constructed and equipped at some fixed price per mile.\n\nMessrs. Pearson will have the right to import the necessary materials for the making, construction, equipment and working of such railways as, in fact, they do construct, free of Customs duty and likin duty, and shall be accorded by the Chinese authorities all the protection and assistance that may be necessary for the peaceful construction and working of the railway line or lines.\n\nThe terms for working such railways as constructed and opened for traffic shall be those now in use for other Chinese railways, with such necessary improvements as the conditions of today require.\n\nI also empower Messrs. S. Pearson & Son (Contracting Department) Limited to make such further railways as may be determined as to location and length in agreement with the Chinese authorities on terms similar to the above, and aggregating one thousand miles, in addition to the Nanchang-Canton and Canton-Swatow lines.\n\nLt. Colonel.\n\n(sd) CHINGTING T. WANG,\n\nRepresenting and on behalf of the Chinese Government at Canton subject to Messrs. S. Pearson & Son fulfilling above conditions.\n\nPage 584\n\n \n...\n\n...", "txt_file_path": "txt/2diw2n4r2/CO129-492 - Governor Sir Clementi - 1925 [12] - 1926 [1-5].txt", "external_url": "", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 524758, "series_id": 27, "series_slug": "histsyn-co129-engine", "series_title": "CO129 Colonial Office Hong Kong Records 理藩院香港檔案", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "CO129-524-4 Chinese Telegraph Office in Hong Kong 30-12-1929 - 9-12-1930", "page_number": 17, "title": "CO129-524-4 Chinese Telegraph Office in Hong Kong 30-12-1929 - 9-12-1930", "content_text": "WAICHIAOPU\n\nTHE REPUBLIC OF CHINA.\n\n(Ministry of Foreign Affairs)\n\nNANKING.\n\nJuly 18th, 1930.\n\nMy dear Sir Miles,\n\nI beg to inform you that the Ministry of Communications has decided to appoint Mr. Liu Kwo-chen as Managing Director of the Chinese Telegraph Office at Hongkong. Mr. Liu, a graduate of the Telegraph School of Kwantung, was formerly Chief of the Chinese Telegraph Administration in Kwantung and Kwangsi and has large experience in telegraph administration.\n\nSincerely yours,\n\n(SGD) CHENGTING T. WANG.\n\nHis Excellency\n\nSir Miles Lampson,\n\nBritish Minister.", "txt_file_path": "txt/2diw2n4r2/CO129-524-4 Chinese Telegraph Office in Hong Kong 30-12-1929 - 9-12-1930.txt", "external_url": "", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 526893, "series_id": 27, "series_slug": "histsyn-co129-engine", "series_title": "CO129 Colonial Office Hong Kong Records 理藩院香港檔案", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "CO129-529-3 China- Boxer Indemnity (Application) Bill 21-2-1931 - 21-2-1931", "page_number": 24, "title": "CO129-529-3 China- Boxer Indemnity (Application) Bill 21-2-1931 - 21-2-1931", "content_text": "## Diplomatic Correspondence Regarding the Boxer Indemnity\n\n### Dr. Wang to Sir M. Lampson\n\nNanking, September 19, 1930.\n\n6. Funds spent in the United Kingdom will be regarded as loans bearing interest and providing for eventual amortisation, from the Board of Trustees to the Chinese Government Railways or other productive enterprises concerned, and strict account will be rendered from time to time to the said Trustees. The amounts attributable to the service of such loans will be paid to the said Trustees and by them applied to educational purposes at the earliest opportunity.\n\nI avail, &c.\n\n**CHENGTING T. WANG.**\n\n### Dr. Wang to Sir M. Lampson\n\nNanking, September 19, 1930.\n\nWith regard to the constitution, powers and proceedings of the Purchasing Commission in London referred to in my note of to-day's date on the subject of the disposal of the British share of the Indemnity of 1901, I have the honour to state that it is my understanding that-\n\n1. The term of office of a member of the Commission (other than the chairman) shall be three years, subject to reappointment, but a member may at any time resign his office.\n2. The proceedings of the Commission shall not be invalidated by any vacancy among its members, provided, however, that no decision of the Commission shall be taken in the absence of a quorum, which shall be constituted by any four of its members.\n3. The Commission may provide itself with such offices and employ such officers, expert advisers, accountants and agents as it deems necessary for the proper discharge of its functions.\n4. The accounts of the Commission shall be made up to such date in each year and audited by such persons as the Commission may determine, and the Commission shall submit to the Chinese Government a summary of those accounts and of its transactions during the year and cause it to be published.\n5. Subject to the above provisions and the conditions set forth in the above-mentioned note, the Commission may regulate its own procedure and make standing orders governing the conduct of its business, whether by the Commission or by committees of the members thereof.\n\nI avail, &c.\n\n**CHENGTING T. WANG.**\n\n### Sir M. Lampson to Dr. Wang\n\nNanking, September 19, 1930.\n\nI have the honour to acknowledge the receipt of your Excellency's note of to-day's date on the subject of the disposal of the balance of the British share of the Indemnity of 1901, in which you inform me of the intention of the Chinese Government, in the event of His Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland returning the said Indemnity funds to its control, to create out of the said Indemnity funds an endowment to be devoted to educational purposes in harmony with the general views set forth in the report of the Anglo-Chinese Advisory Committee published in 1926.\n\nI have also the honour to acknowledge the receipt of your Excellency's note of to-day's date regarding the constitution, powers and proceedings of the Purchasing Commission in London proposed in your Excellency's other note acknowledged above.\n\nI am communicating the texts of your Excellency's notes to His Majesty's Government for their consideration, and in the meantime, by direction of my Government, I have the honour to suggest to your Excellency that a sum of £265,000 and a further sum of £200,000 be set aside from the accumulated funds now on deposit, to be donated respectively to the Hong Kong University for the education of Chinese students and to the Universities' China Committee in London for the promotion of closer cultural relations between China and the United Kingdom. The grant to the Universities' China Committee will be invested as an endowment fund, the proceeds of which will be used inter alia for inviting eminent Chinese to give lectures in the United Kingdom.\n\nI avail, &c.\n\n**MILES W. LAMPSON.**\n\n### Dr. Wang to Sir M. Lampson\n\nNanking, September 19, 1930.\n\nI have the honour to acknowledge the receipt of your Excellency's note of to-day's date on the subject of the disposal of the balance of the British share of the Indemnity of 1901, which contained the following proposal from His Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland:—\n\nThat a sum of £265,000 and a further sum of £200,000 be set aside from the accumulated funds now on deposit, to be donated respectively to the Hong Kong University for the education of Chinese students and to the Universities' China Committee in London for the promotion of closer cultural relations between China and the United Kingdom. The grant to the Universities' China Committee... \n\nPage 25", "txt_file_path": "txt/2diw2n4r2/CO129-529-3 China- Boxer Indemnity (Application) Bill 21-2-1931 - 21-2-1931.txt", "external_url": "", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 526894, "series_id": 27, "series_slug": "histsyn-co129-engine", "series_title": "CO129 Colonial Office Hong Kong Records 理藩院香港檔案", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "CO129-529-3 China- Boxer Indemnity (Application) Bill 21-2-1931 - 21-2-1931", "page_number": 25, "title": "CO129-529-3 China- Boxer Indemnity (Application) Bill 21-2-1931 - 21-2-1931", "content_text": "## Sir M. Lampson to Dr. Wang\n\nNanking, September 22, 1930.\n\nI HAVE the honour to acknowledge the receipt of your Excellency's note, which reads as follows:-\n\nI have the honour to refer you to the declaration made by His Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland in December 1922, that the balance of the British share of the Indemnity of 1901 would be thenceforward devoted to purposes mutually beneficial to China and the United Kingdom, and to express the hope that His Majesty's Government will at once take steps to remit all payments of the Indemnity as from the 1st December, 1922, to the control of the Chinese Government.\n\n\"In the event of such remission being effected it is the intention of the Chinese Government to deal with the funds in harmony with the general views set forth in the report of the Anglo-Chinese Advisory Committee published in 1926, to which the attention of the Board of Trustees in China referred to below will be invited. The Chinese Government proposes, however, in the first instance to apply the bulk of the funds to the creation of an endowment to be subsequently devoted to the educational purposes mentioned in the Report of the Committee. It appears to the Chinese Government that the most advantageous plan for providing such an endowment would consist in the investment of the greater part of the said Indemnity funds, namely, the accumulated funds now on deposit and all future instalments, in rehabilitating and building railways and in other productive enterprises in China. For the control, apportionment and administration of the above-mentioned endowment the Chinese Government will duly appoint a Board of Trustees in China, which will include a certain number of British members.\n\nIn view of the urgent necessity, in connection with reconstruction and development in China, of reconditioning the existing Chinese railways in the first instance, the Chinese Government will take the necessary steps to apply a part of the accumulated funds now on deposit and the instalments due for payment shortly in the rehabilitation of the said railways, especially those lines in which British financial interest has been particularly concerned, to which lines attention will be first given.\n\n\"In rehabilitating and building railways and in undertaking other productive works from the Indemnity funds remitted or from loans secured on the said funds, the terms of existing contracts will be taken into consideration, but all orders for materials required and purchased abroad out of those funds themselves, including bridges, locomotives, rolling-stock, rails and other equipment, will be placed in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.\n\n\"In order to carry out these proposals at the earliest date and in the manner most satisfactory to the two countries, the Chinese Government is prepared to agree that the whole of the accumulated funds now on deposit be transferred to a Purchasing Commission in London, to consist of a chairman, who shall be China's diplomatic representative in London, a representative of the Chinese Ministry of Railways, and four other members appointed from time to time by the Chinese Government after consultation with the Board of Trustees from a panel of persons commended to those Trustees by His Majesty's Principal Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs as being persons of standing with wide experience in business matters, for the purpose of purchasing bridges, locomotives, rolling-stock, rails and other materials from United Kingdom manufacturers for the use of the Chinese Government railways and other productive undertakings in China. It is understood that the Commission will be exempt from all taxation in respect of any income accruing to it, whether by reason of the payment to it of any of the moneys specified in this note or from the deposit or investment of any part of such moneys as is not required for its immediate use, and its functions shall be as follows:-\n\n\"(1) To enter into and to supervise and secure the carrying out of contracts for the supply and delivery in China of such plant, machinery and other articles and material to be manufactured in each case within the United Kingdom as may from time to time be required and ordered by the Chinese Government; and (2) To apply all moneys received by the Commission in accordance with the terms of this note in discharging the obligations incurred under or in connexion with any such contracts and in defraying generally the expenses of the Commission, and so far as those moneys are not immediately required for such purposes in establishing a reserve fund to enable the Commission to meet similar requirements of the Chinese Government and its own expenses in future years. All future instalments as they fall due will be paid by the Chinese Government to His Majesty's representative in China, who will transfer one-half to the Purchasing Commission in London, to be used in the same way and for similar objects as specified above, and one-half to the account of the Board of Trustees in China.\n\nFunds spent in the United Kingdom will be regarded as loans, bearing interest and providing for eventual amortisation, from the Board of Trustees to the Chinese Government Railways.\n\n## \n\n27 \n## Dr. Wang to Sir M. Lampson\n\n(Preceding pages not shown)\n\nChina Committee will be invested as an endowment fund, the proceeds of which will be used inter alia for inviting eminent Chinese to give lectures in the United Kingdom.”\n\nIn reply, I have the honour to state that the Chinese Government is in agreement with the above proposal.\n\nSir,\nI avail, &c.\n(5.)\n**CHENGTING T. WANG**", "txt_file_path": "txt/2diw2n4r2/CO129-529-3 China- Boxer Indemnity (Application) Bill 21-2-1931 - 21-2-1931.txt", "external_url": "", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 527274, "series_id": 27, "series_slug": "histsyn-co129-engine", "series_title": "CO129 Colonial Office Hong Kong Records 理藩院香港檔案", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "CO129-529-5 China- extraterritoriality 23-11-1931 - 31-12-1931", "page_number": 187, "title": "CO129-529-5 China- extraterritoriality 23-11-1931 - 31-12-1931", "content_text": "**CONFIDENTIAL**\n\n# CHINA\n\nJune 23, 1931\n\n## SECTION 1\n\n`F 3563/34/10`\n\n### No. 1\n\nSir M. Lampson to Mr. A. Henderson.-(Received June 23.)\n\n**(No. 157. Tour Series.)**\n\nNanking (viâ Siberia), June 6, 1931.\n\nWITH reference to my telegram No. 259, Tour Series, of the 6th June, I have the honour to transmit herewith copies of the draft treaty and attached documents on the subject of jurisdiction in China as exchanged between Dr. C. T. Wang and myself to-day, together with copies of the covering letters also exchanged at the same time. The index to the treaty is attached for convenience of reference, but does not form part of the texts exchanged. A full report on the negotiations is in preparation and will be forwarded, together with copies of the maps referred to in article 16, viâ Pacific, in a few days.\n\n2\\. I should be glad if twenty copies of the print of the draft treaty, &c., could be forwarded to me as soon as possible, viâ Siberia.\n\nI have, &c.\n\nMILES W. LAMPSON.\n\n### Enclosure 1 in No. 1\n\nSir M. Lampson to Dr. Wang.\n\nMy dear Dr. Wang,\n\nNanking, June 6, 1931.\n\nWITH reference to our recent conversations I should be glad to receive your confirmation that the draft treaty in twenty-two articles and preamble and attached documents marked 'A' to \"I,\" concerning the readjustment of matters relating to jurisdiction over subjects of His Majesty in China, copies of which were exchanged between us to-day and which I am now referring for confirmation to His Majesty's Governments, are acceptable to you as they are to me.\n\nYours sincerely,\n\nMILES W. LAMPSON.\n\n### Enclosure 2 in No. 1\n\nDr. Wang to Sir M. Lampson.\n\nMy dear Sir Miles Lampson,\n\nNanking, June 6, 1931.\n\nIn reply to your letter of to-day's date on the subject of the draft treaty in twenty-two articles, preamble, and attached documents marked \"A\" to \"I,\" relating to jurisdiction over subjects of His Majesty in China, copies of which were exchanged between us to-day, I have the honour to inform you that the said draft treaty and attached documents are acceptable to me and are being submitted to my Government for confirmation.\n\nSincerely yours,\n\nCHENGTING T. WANG.\n\n249 \n`[5627]`", "txt_file_path": "txt/2diw2n4r2/CO129-529-5 China- extraterritoriality 23-11-1931 - 31-12-1931.txt", "external_url": "", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 572583, "series_id": 27, "series_slug": "histsyn-co129-engine", "series_title": "CO129 Colonial Office Hong Kong Records 理藩院香港檔案", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "CO129-588-23 China- British extra-territorial rights- negotiations with China 28-3-1942 - 27-11-1942", "page_number": 17, "title": "CO129-588-23 China- British extra-territorial rights- negotiations with China 28-3-1942 - 27-11-1942", "content_text": "# Article 7\nI agree with Mr. Gent. In Singapore, the majority of the arrested or detained persons would probably be Straits-born Chinese and, according to Chinese law, Chinese nationals. The reporting of all such cases would involve a great deal of work, and, in addition, might lead to delay in the administration of justice. Probably this matter could be provided for in a note or agreed minute, as is proposed to be done in regard to a Chinese Consul at New Delhi.\n\n## Article 6\nThe opening declaration in this article is, of course, not strictly accurate, and unless there is some exchange of letters, see 20 and 27, or an agreed minute, there might be trouble in the future.\n\nIn view of the new territories, Hong Kong. Law Officers' opinion referred to by Mr. Gent (26/10/42), I do not consider the draft would justify the Chinese making any claim to these territories.\n\nKars. \n29.10.42.\n\nAs to Mr. Gent's minute, now see note attached No.30. I understand there are fresh enclosures for this file which should be circulated to F.E. Dept. pending receipt of replies.\n\n(Mr. Gent asked me about the previous draft extra-territoriality Treaty. For copy of this, see No. 1 on `53821/37` below.)\n\n9 R Scoth tim \n30.10.42.\n\n| Number | Reference | Date |\n|--------|---------------|---------|\n| 32 | 70 | |\n| 31 | Chung King | |\n| | Chung Bang | |\n| | 1444 of | 21/10 |\n| | (copies on | |\n| | 1368 of | 22/10 |\n| | `55104/42` :) | |\n| 33 | between | |\n| | Mr. Eden | |\n| | Copy of message from corres | |\n| | and | |\n| 34 | 7.0 | |\n| 35 | Do | |\n| 36 | Do | |\n| | M. Winant | |\n\n| Reference | Number |\n|------------------|-----------|\n| (To Chungting | 1375 of 23/10) |\n| WF. 7/14 | |\n| (Joh. Lealand | 442) |\n| W.F. 7/14 | 218) |\n| (Yo Canada | |\n\n`2510-42` \n`231042` \n`23-10-42`", "txt_file_path": "txt/2diw2n4r2/CO129-588-23 China- British extra-territorial rights- negotiations with China 28-3-1942 - 27-11-1942.txt", "external_url": "", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 573590, "series_id": 27, "series_slug": "histsyn-co129-engine", "series_title": "CO129 Colonial Office Hong Kong Records 理藩院香港檔案", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "CO129-588-9 Hong Kong University- relief work 11-8-1942 - 19-11-1943", "page_number": 75, "title": "CO129-588-9 Hong Kong University- relief work 11-8-1942 - 19-11-1943", "content_text": "## Appendix No. 1\n### MAP\n### UNIVERSITIES IN FREE CHINA.\n#### SHOWING PRESENT WHEREABOUTS OF 223 STUDENTS WHO HAVE SETTLED IN\n\n| Location | |\n|-----------------|--------|\n| Chenotu | |\n| Chigting | |\n| Chungking | (82) |\n| Kunming | YUNNA |\n| | KWEICHOW|\n| Kwriyang | 1 |\n| ANHWEI | |\n| MANGHAI | |\n| GHAI | |\n| HEKIANG | |\n| HUNAN | |\n| KIANG SI | |\n| Yungsin | (/6) |\n| | + |\n| FUKIEN | |\n| Foochow | |\n| Kweiling | KWANGS |\n| Ping'shek | 66 0 |\n| faichuer | okukong|\n| Kwongchow wan | |\n| Hongkong | 'Macao |\n| \"Amoy | |\n\n5 ZE сн -> No correction as it appears to be nonsensical or unrelated to the rest of the content.\n\nThe rest of the text is reconstructed into a table and headers as per the instructions. The original text appears to be a map or a list related to \"UNIVERSITIES IN FREE CHINA\" and the whereabouts of students. The OCR output has been corrected for spacing, and the content has been reordered into a logical format.", "txt_file_path": "txt/2diw2n4r2/CO129-588-9 Hong Kong University- relief work 11-8-1942 - 19-11-1943.txt", "external_url": "", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 576100, "series_id": 27, "series_slug": "histsyn-co129-engine", "series_title": "CO129 Colonial Office Hong Kong Records 理藩院香港檔案", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "CO129-590-27 Ex-employees of Hong Kong Government- relief payments and allowances 27-3-1942 - 16-8-1943", "page_number": 40, "title": "CO129-590-27 Ex-employees of Hong Kong Government- relief payments and allowances 27-3-1942 - 16-8-1943", "content_text": "12\n\n2\n\ncopy regd. on. 55090/43 N.\n\n(F2374/17/10.)\n\n[CODE R]\n\nNo. 520.\n\nE\n\n10 May 1943,\n\nTelgempa Sealing\n\n98\n\nFROM CHINGKING TO FOREIGN OFFICE.\n\nSir H. Seymour.\n\n8th May, 1945.\n\nW W W W W\n\nFILES.\n\nD. 4. 40 p.m., 8th May, 1943.\n\nR. 1. 20 a.m., 9th May, 1943.\n\nFollowing from Sedwick for Colonial Office.\n\nIn all cases where Chinese on permanent pensionable establishment died after the fall of Hong Kong and before the settlement of 1942 when notice expired, is gratuity of one year's emoluments to be given to widow? See Far Eastern Department's letter F1559/17/10 to us of 29th March replying to case 15 of Chancery letter 605.\n\n54123/7/44\n\nDealt with\n\n39\n\n2. Where such officers died after the settlement of 1942 but before reporting in Free China or receiving arrears of pay, what payments should be made? that grant of arrears of pay up to settlement plus full ad hoc allowance which officer might have drawn from 1st October 1942 to date of death would be equitable, followed by W. and O. pension. In most cases widow would be legal heir.\n\n3. Can widows of officers on permanent pensionable establishment killed in action as volunteers be granted gratuity of one year's pensionable emoluments?\n\n4. I should be grateful for scale of pension payments to widows of privates and N.C.O's of various ranks in British army together with allowances for children. Would you approve grant of pensions on this basis to 54106/119 widows of Hong Kong volunteers, supplemented if and when necessary by artificial adjustment in rate of exchange to meet abnormal price conditions in China.\n\n[Copies sent to C.0.]\n\nPage 40\n\nPage 41", "txt_file_path": "txt/2diw2n4r2/CO129-590-27 Ex-employees of Hong Kong Government- relief payments and allowances 27-3-1942 - 16-8-1943.txt", "external_url": "", "rank": 0 } ]