File No. 5315/43–44.
Chargé Fletcher to the Secretary of State.
Peking, January 17, 1908.
Sir: I have the honor to confirm my telegram of the 15th instant and to inclose herewith the text of the Tientsin-Pukow Eailway agreement, which formed the subject of the telegram.
The agreement was signed on Monday last, the 13th instant, by Mr. Liang Tun-yen, representing the Chinese Government, and Mr. Bland, for the Chinese Central Railways, Limited, a British corporation, and Mr. Cordes, for the Deutsch-Asiatische Bank.
The road runs from Tientsin to Pukow, opposite Nanking, on the Yangtze. I have not had time to make a detailed study of the agreement, but the placing of the entire ownership and control of the road in the hands of the Chinese Government marks an important departure from the lines followed by the preceding railway agreements. This provision was made necessary by the outcry [Page 201] against foreign control of Chinese railways, and, in view of the awakened national spirit, will likely be copied into all future railway agreements.
Article XX refers to the preliminary agreement for the construction of the Tientsin-Chingkiang Railway, ratified May 24, 1899 (Rockhill’s Treaties, etc., 1894–1904, p. 355), and constitutes a payment of £200,000 ($1,000,000) for China’s release from the obligations of that agreement.
I have, etc.,