893.77/1843: Telegram
The Secretary of State to the Minister in China (Crane)
259. Your 285, October 2, 11 a.m.
You will take means in your discretion to convey orally to the Ministry of Communications that Department is conversant with the letters and telegrams foreshadowing an attempt to cancel the Siems-Carey Railway Contract, and with the circumstances of the oral intimation to this effect given the Company’s representative at Peking. After careful consideration of the contract and the operations thereunder the Department is convinced no cause for cancellation exists. It could not, therefore, consider the Chinese Government warranted under present circumstances in any action looking to this end, and feels certain that an attempt to cancel under the circumstances would inevitably react disastrously on Chinese credit and prestige in American financial circles.
Inform Department of the result of your conversation with Chinese Government and communicate this telegram and your reply to Evans.