File No. 5315/687.
American Ambassy,
London, January 5,
1910.
No. 1129.]
[Inclosure.]
The Minister for Foreign
Affairs to Ambassador Reid.
Foreign Office,
London, January 8,
1910.
No. 47103/09.
Your Excellency: I have the honor to
acknowledge the receipt of your excellency’s memorandum dated the
29th ultimo, stating that it had been represented to the United
States Government that the French Government would withdraw their
objection to the signature of the Hukuang loan agreements provided
that the French group received engineering rights on an additional
100 kilometers of the Ch’eng-tu extension, and expressing the
willingness of your Government, if the report was well founded, to
share equally with His Majesty’s Government in making such sacrifice
of engineering rights provided certain conditions were
fulfilled.
I have the honor to state in reply that no information to the effect
that the French Government would be satisfied if their group
received engineering rights on an additional 100 kilometers of the
extension has so far reached His Majesty’s Government.
My latest information, which is contained in a note from the French
embassy dated the 8th ultimo, is to the effect that the French group
are unable to accept a share of the Szechuen line inferior to that
allotted to the other groups or to agree to any reduction of the
line given them by the Anglo-Franco-German arrangement of May 14
last.
I expressed my regret at the decision of the French Government to
allow the slight and comparatively unimportant difference between
the share allotted to the American and German groups and that
allotted to the Anglo-French group to interfere with the settlement
of the whole question, and I added that I observed with surprise
that the Hankow-Canton line should be mentioned on an apparently
equal footing with the Hankow-Szechuen line, as if the two lines
formed part of one undertaking. I said that in the circumstances it
would appear that the only solution of the question now remaining
was the division of the Szechuen line into four equal parts among
the four groups, with the internationalization of the bonds, as
desired by the United States Government, and that I was prepared,
subject to the concurrence of the French Government, to put this
proposal before the United States and German Governments.
I have, etc.,
(For the Secretary of State:)
F. A. Campbell.
