861.77/1583: Telegram
The Acting Secretary of State to the Ambassador in Great Britain (Davis)
694. Your 979, June 22, 9 p.m. For your information, telegram regarding Chinese Eastern received from Tokyo as follows:
[Here follows telegram no. 314, June 23, from the Chargé in Japan, printed supra.]
The Department has been informally advised by the British Embassy of a report from Eliot substantially the same as given above. It was not indicated, however, that in the near future conditions might be more favorable for a consideration by the Japanese Cabinet of using the consortium for financing the Chinese Eastern Railway.
[Page 699]The suggestion was made to the British Embassy during an informal conversation that it might be practical to go ahead and consolidate the Technical Board and Inter-Allied Committee as a new committee of international character upon which China, France, Great Britain, Japan, Russia, and the United States would be represented. This committee would be similar to a committee in bankruptcy. It would be given authority to perform all the duties which would be necessary for carrying out the trust except that it could not borrow funds for the Chinese Eastern without authorization by the Governments concerned, such authorization to be based on a report regarding the financial condition of the railroad which should be asked of the Commission as soon as possible. The report would be accompanied by the recommendations of the Commission as to what means should be used to finance the railroad.
The railroad administration, in the opinion of our Government, should be placed upon a business footing as far as possible, excluding the military and political features which were inherent in the setting up of Allied control as an incident in the sending of a military expedition into Siberia.
You are instructed to informally present these views to the British Government and learn whether or not it agrees with them. If it does, you are to propose that the United States and Great Britain send instructions to their respective Embassies in Japan to work together in urging the Japanese Foreign Office to accept the above proposal.
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