893.74/353: Telegram
The Minister in China (Schurman) to the Secretary of State
[Received 8:45 a.m.]
259. On February 2 Schwerin submitted to the Minister of Communications agreement 3,20 enclosed with the Department’s despatch no. 222, September 7, 1922,21 with the preamble and article 2 omitted and substituting therefor the following introduction:
“With reference to the agreement dated 8th January, 1921, and the supplementary articles thereto dated 19th September, 1921, between [Page 810] the Government of the Republic of China acting through the Ministry of Communications and the Federal Telegraph Company, an American corporation, as the company is now ready to proceed with the construction of the stations provided for under the joint undertaking, and as there are certain provisions of the said agreement which are not sufficiently determined and clear, and which [it] is now necessary to have definitely determined and understood, the following provisions shall be included in and form a part of the agreement and supplementary articles, to wit:”
The remaining changes provided for in agreement 3 were retained in their entirety.
This document has been the subject of intense discussion during the last few days and on July 13th the Minister of Communications signed and sealed it officially in unqualified approval of its terms and handed it to Schwerin.
I have caused an official certificate of the genuineness of the signature and seal and due powers of Y. L. Woo, Minister of Communications, to be affixed to the document under the seal of the Legation.
In the absence of Minister Schurman I as counsellor of the Legation express the opinion that this document secures the Federal enterprise in China in the full enjoyment of its vested rights in and under the contracts of January 8th and September 19th, 1921 and agreement 3.
Schwerin requests that the contents of this telegram be telegraphed immediately to Elwood, Secretary of the Radio Corporation, Singer Building, New York City, and Federal Company, San Francisco. Contents are not to be made public until August 7th. London informed.
- For text of Schwerin’s letter of Feb. 2, containing agreement 3, see List of Contracts of American Nationals with the Chinese Government, annex viii, p. 12.↩
- Foreign Relations, 1922, vol. i, p. 856.↩