Their Excellencies ang Wen-shao, Viceroy of the Peiyang, and Chang Chih: tung, Viceroy of the Hukuang provinces, received the following Imperial int structions from his Majesty the Emperor Kuang Hsti:—"The Princes and high officials belonging to the Ministry of War ialised last December recommend ing of the building of the Peki Hankow Kailway toa Cantonese syndicate headed by the expectant Taotai, Hsii Ying-chiang (this was wired to us from Peking and published in these columns at the time). We therefore ordered the said Taotai to return at once to Canton and collect the required preliminary sum of Tls. 10,000,000 as a guarantee of hone sides. According to a memorial from the said Ministry of War we now learn that the said Taotai has since telegraphed from Canton to the effect that he had succeeded in raising seven million taels already and that he would bring up this sum to Peking in person by the middle of June next, ete. In the meanwhile two other Cantonese syndicates, namely, one headed by a certain notable named Fang Pei-shih, and one headed by the expectant prefect Liu Ho and a certain Lu Ching-lin, have also successively petitioned to the Ministry of War, declaring that they had each raised the sunt of ten million taels and now prayed for the privilege of tendering for the building of the said railway, and also prayi should appoint high offd the building of the Peking-Hankow Railway (called in official documents the Lu-Han Railway," or Lukow Bridge-Hankow Railway) is one of sup the welfare of the Em collected and handed over £9 the officials to construct the road the chances for success would be nil. It, therefore, only remains for the commercial classes to build the line under the general supervision of the government in order to facilitate the completion of this important enterprise. The line in question passes through the jurisdiction of the ros Wang Wen-Shao and Chang Chih-tung, and they are therefore hereby commanded to make it their duty to see the enterprise brought to successful completion and to ce-operate with the said Taotai Hsit Ying-chiang and the others above named in this matter. This would be best done by dividing the construction into three portions, each syndicate to take over the building of one portion. The said Viceroys are to sev that no obstacles be placed in the way of these syndicates and are further ordered to take every care in generally supervising the status of the said syndicates and see that no foreigners hold shares in these companies." With Feference to the hove important. decree we learn that copies of the Edict have also been distributed to the various Viceruys and Governors of the Empire in order that the whole country may know that the Emperor is determined to build railways in his Empire, The Hsi Tsotai named above is a younger brother of Hsii Yin K'uei, Director-General of the Imperial Granaries at North Tungchou and Peking,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.