File No. 5315/298.
The British Ambassador to the Secretary of State.
Washington, June 14, 1909.
Dear Mr. Secretary: You will doubtless have already heard from your ambassador in London of the conversation that has passed between him and Sir Edward Grey regarding the proposed Hankow-Szechuen Railroad in China. I need therefore only observe that in July, and again in September, 1905, my predecessor at Washington inquired of the United States Government whether any American financiers desired to take part in that enterprise, and that your Government replied that the project had been announced publicly, but that no American financiers had intimated any wish to take part in it, and that thereupon my predecessor had, in October, 1905, verbally informed the United States Government that the British and French financial groups who were backing up the matter had under the circumstances assumed that American financiers had no wish to join and were proceeding upon that assumption. No objection was then or subsequently taken by the United States Government, and the United States embassy in London was informed that any suggestion or offer on the part of American financiers must be considered to have lapsed.
As His Majesty’s Government now gather from your ambassador in London that a wish to join in the enterprise has now been expressed by some American financiers, I am instructed to say to you that nothing is or could be further from the wish of His Majesty’s Government than to do anything which could be prejudicial to any rights or obligations existing between the United States and China. But so far as British capitalists are concerned, the action of the latter in going on alone appears to His Majesty’s Government to have been justified under the circumstances, and they could not have been expected, after what had passed, to have done otherwise.
His Majesty’s Government therefore earnestly hope that the United States will, having regard to these facts, think fit to instruct their [Page 161] minister at Peking not to place obstacles in the way of the issue of an imperial edict approving the agreement for the making of the railroad which has been already signed. That agreement has been the outcome of protracted and difficult negotiations; were it now to be prevented from taking effect a situation would arise which His Majesty’s Government could not view without serious apprehensions.
I am further instructed to convey to you the suggestion of His Majesty’s Government that it would be desirable that, in any further arrangements regarding a loan in which a recently formed group of American financiers might desire to take part, communications should be addressed to the British, French, and German banks concerned.
I am, etc.,