Papers relating to the foreign relations of the United States, 1929, Volume II

893.74/875

The Secretary of State to the Minister in China (MacMurray)

Washington, September 25, 1929.

No. 1353

Sir: Referring to previous correspondence regarding the contract concluded between the Ministry of Communications and the Federal Telegraph Company of California on January 8, 1921,⁹⁷ for the erection and operation of radio stations in China and regarding developments subsequent thereto, particularly the succession of the Federal Telegraph Company of Delaware in 1923 to the rights of the Federal Telegraph Company of California under the contract above mentioned,⁹⁸ the Department informs you that a representative of the Federal Telegraph Company of Delaware has submitted to the Department a certificate embodying a resolution passed by the stockholders of the Company on June 11, 1929, wherein it was requested that the Secretary of State formulate and present to the Chinese Government a demand on behalf of the Company that the Chinese Government carry into effect the obligations imposed upon it by the contract of January 8, 1921, as amended and supplemented and assigned to the Federal Telegraph Company of Delaware. A copy of the certificate is enclosed⁹⁹ with the present instruction. You will observe that the resolution states that, if the Chinese Government fails to comply with this demand, the contract as amended and supplemented shall be considered by the Federal Telegraph Company of Delaware to have been breached and the Government of China shall be regarded as in default thereunder.

The Department has undertaken that it will present this demand to the Chinese Government on behalf of the Federal Telegraph Company of Delaware and encloses herewith the draft of a note which the Department proposes that you address to the Minister for Foreign Affairs of the Chinese Government in this connection. If, however, from your more intimate contact with the present situation, you consider that this draft should be altered in any respect, or if you have comments to offer in regard to the suggested procedure, the Department desires that you submit your recommendations by telegraph.

I am [etc.]

For the Secretary of State:

Nelson Trusler Johnson

[Enclosure]

Draft Note From the American Minister (MacMurray) to the Chinese Minister for Foreign Affairs (C. T. Wang)¹

Excellency: I have the honor to inform your Excellency that I am in receipt of instructions from my Government to recall the fact that under date of January 8, 1921, the Ministry of Communications of the Chinese Government concluded with an American firm, the Federal Telegraph Company of California, a contract for the erection and operation of certain radio stations in China. My Government believes that the appropriate authorities of the Chinese Government are familiar with the terms of this contract, as well as with certain articles supplementary thereto agreed upon on September 19, 1921,² and with the text of a letter, dated February 2, 1923, from the Federal Telegraph Company of California, addressed to the Chinese Minister of Communications, and approved by the Minister on July 13, 1923,³ which provided, inter alia, that all of the rights and obligations under the contract of January 8, 1921, and the supplementary articles of September 19, 1921, should be transferred to the Federal Telegraph Company of Delaware.

This contract and the agreements arising from it imposed certain obligations on the American and Chinese signatories. The Federal Telegraph Company of Delaware, as the American party in interest, has now made representations to the American Government to the effect that, although the Federal Telegraph Company of Delaware has made every effort to carry out its part of the undertaking, and although it has at all times been prepared to proceed therewith, it is unable to do so because of the fact that the Chinese Government has never fulfilled certain essential obligations devolving upon it, among which are the delivery to the Company of its stipulated bonds, the providing of land on which the radio stations may be erected, and the issuing of the permits necessary to enable the Company to import the materials called for in the undertaking.

The Federal Telegraph Company of Delaware, in view of the difficulties it has encountered, has requested my government to bring these various circumstances to the attention of the appropriate authorities of the Chinese Government, and to inform them of the desire of the Company to proceed forthwith with the carrying out of the joint enterprise, at the same time presenting a formal request to the Chinese Government that it take those steps enumerated above, as well as carry out the other obligations assumed by it under the agreement.

I have the honor, therefore, in compliance with the instructions I have received, to bring these facts to the attention of your Excellency and to request that I be informed of the intentions of the Chinese Government in the premises, in order that I may report the same to my Government.

97. For text of the contract, see List of Contracts of American Nationals With the Chinese Government, etc., annex VIII (Washington, Government Printing Office, 1925), p. 3.
98. See letter of November 5, 1923, from the Secretary of State to the President of the Federal Telegraph Co. of Delaware, Foreign Relations, 1923, vol. i, p. 821.
99. Not printed.
1. This note was dated and dispatched on October 31, 1929, without any change in text (893.74/880).
2. List of Contracts of American Nationals With the Chinese Government, etc., annex viii, p. 7.
3. ibid., pp. 12 and 13; see also telegram No. 259, July 14, 1923, from the Minister in China, Foreign Relations, 1923, vol. i, p. 809.