1270
RUSSIA AND MANCHURIA.
Daily Pres
77.
1018 April.)< It is satisfactory ther from REUTER's ssage to-day the the United States Government, at any is concerning itself with Russia's performance of her engagements in Manchuria. No news has yet, by the way, come to hand that Russia has completed the withdrawal of her troops from the provinces of Mukden and Kirin, and perhaps it is this absence of informa tion that has caused the intentions of the U.S. Governmcat to be made known in Washington with regard to the insertion of the clause in the proposed treaty between China and America by which Mukden and Takusban are to be declared open to foreign trade. It certainly will test the soundress of Russia's promise to maintain the open door in Manchuria, for Mukden has become an important military depot, as well as a station on the Manch arian railway system. Takushan is a port on the Bay of Corea, but is to its value 28 a commercial centre we know very little. The British Government has again and again declared its policy to be to maintain an open door in Manchuria, but we have so far seen nothing to support the declaration. It was the United Sales which secured that the indemnity dus to the Powers from China should be payable in cash, in order to prevent Russia making any friendly arrangement with the Chinese Government to secure territor) in discharge of the debt, ard it is again the United States Government which specifically asks for certain Manchuriau trade centres to be opened to foreign irade in order to test the value of Russian assurances on the subject of the open door in that territory which is how under her control. The result of this ellort will be awaited with interest.
:
THE HONGKONG WEEKLY PRESS AND
[April 20, 1903.
Shengking, Hei-lung-kiang and Kirin. | RAILWAY PROJECTS IN CHINA. Further, the Convention would provide that all goods, not mentioned in the existing tariff, whether imported into the Chinese Empire from Siberia or exported to Bussian territories by laud from the Chinese Empire, shall be entirely free from duty; and a further paragraph provides that Russia and China will unite in establishing Customs Houses at all the important points in Manchuria for the collection of duties. Finally, China is asked to concede five million square li of land in Mukden, Harbin, Kalgan and other places as residential areas for Russian subjects. It is naively added that the conditions con- tained in the Convention are to be considered as special rights conceded to Russia, which other Powers shall not be able to claim under the most-favoured-nation clause of their treaties, We camot say whether the document is what it. claims to be, an authentic copy of the Russian Minister's proposals, but it unquestionably represents the ambitions of the Muscovite in Manchuria. At the same time it cannot by any ingenuity be reconciled with the declaration of cou sent contained in the Convention of 1902 to restore to the Chinese Government the right to exercise governmental and adminis- trative powers as they were before the occupation by the Russian troops." The restoration, if it ever happens, is evidently intended to be temporary, and what Russia has failed to get by force she will probably in the end acquire by diplomacy.
T
BRITISH CONSOLS.
(Daily Press, 10th April.)
So far REUTER has omitted to furnish us with any news respecting the automatic reduction of interest on Consols from two and three quarters per cent, per annum to (Daily Press, 16th April)
two and a half per cent. which according to Though no official information has yet the National Debt (Conversion) Act of been received that Russia has performed to 1888 was due to take effect from the 5th the satisfaction of the Chinese Government inst. As the total amount of Consols stands lar treaty obligation to withdraw her troop at £592,410,228 the reduction of interest from the Provinces of Mukden and Kirin by a quarter per cent., unsatisfactory by the 8th of the present month, there is though it may be to holders, meaus a saving no lack of information, apart from the of nearly a million and a half pounds Moscow't legram published in the Times sterling annually for the Government in and summarised by RLUTER, that the obliga meeting debt charges. It is interesting to tion has been or is being discharged-in recall the fact that when the Three Per the usual manger. Certain Russian
Ceut. Consols were converted to Two-and- Ministers at St. Petersburg we are told Three-Quarters Per Cent. Consolidated strenuously oppose "the eracuition, Stock, the holders who dissente from the though on what grounds the telegram is conversion r presented less than a million silent. We referred a short tim nga sterling out of a total of some 166 millious. rumour which had obtained currency The new Stock was issued on condition that Peking to the effect that the Russian the rate of interest should be maintained Minister had submitted to the Wai Wu Puat 21 per cent. per annum for fourteen the draft of a new Convention in regard to matters relating to Manchuria. What purports to be the text of this document has since been published, and its contents go far to confirm the description of the agreemeut as providing for joint adminis ration of the province. In this precious agreement Russia asks for the right to tax all guus, rifles, minunition and other war materials that may be imported by the land routes in Russian territory, the amount of the tax 10 be fixed by consultation between Russian and Chinese officials. In the second para- graph-Russia points out the undesirability of China procuring the material for railway construction from abroad, and suggests the establishment of large iron works at Kuigan
for its nii
|
years, ending with April 5th, 1903, and afterwards at the rate of 21 per cent. One would have supposed that some information as to how this reduction of interest_had affected the money market would have been deemed by REUTER's Agency of sufficient importance to transmit. If there is any tres selling of Consols by holders who are dissatisfied with such a low rate of interest as 23 per cent., Consols may be expected to fall below 90.
|
|
|
・ (Daily Press, 13th April.) The answer given by the Under Secretary of State to Sir CHARLES DILKE's question with regard to British railway concessions in China (reported in our last issue) was hardly as full and explicit as could have been desired. It was satisfactory only so far us it served to dissipate the belief that not a mile of any of the 2,800 British miles that figured in Sir CLAUDE MACDONALD'S despatch of November, 1898, detailing the concessions granted to Britishers, had yet been laid with the exception of the North China railway. Such a statement we find paraded even in the Contemporary Review by a gentleman who poses as an authority on the subject in England. We refer to Mr. DEMETRIUS BOULGEE. To be sure, the progress made has been slow, as is only to be expected when the political troubles in China since the concessions were obtained are borne in mind and especially when their effect in financial circles aboard is considered. ure authoritatively toll that besides the Peking-Newchwang line, with its extension to Tungchow (about 600 miles) which is open to traffic, the bracch from Chung-low-80 to Simmingting is approach- ing completion; the Peking Syndicate's line from taku to the Hunan coalfields is in course of construction, and their line from Pukou on the Yangtze opposite Nanking, which will connect with the Peking-Hankow line, is under negotiation. Surveys have beea inade for the lines from Soochow to Hangchow and Ningo, and from -Canton to Kowloon. The British and Chinese Cor- ́ ́ poration have concluded a fresh agreement for t'e construction of the line from Sh tnghai to Nanking, but with regard to the other lines no action, so far as the Government are. aware, is desired by the concessionaires.
Now we
It will be at once observed that there are some notable omissions from the list of - Lord CRANBORNE compared with that pre- pared by Sir CLAUDE MACDONALD in 1898. With regard to the Hankow-Canton line, the Under Secretary of State for Foreig Affairs said the British and Chinese Corporation are no longer interested in it. More will, or at least ought, to be hear about this concession if it be true that the American Synlicate known as tho WASHBOURNE-CAREY group, which acquired the rights in this fine, have dispose 1 of 6) per cent. of the concession to Belgiau financiers. As Mr. BOULGER has properly remarkel in drawing the attention of the British public to this report, the American Syndicate can part with its shares, but it cannot override the political exigencies and safeguards which dictated the support given by diplomacy to all the railway con- cessions in 1890. Sir CLAUDE MACDONALD vigorously supported the American cession for the Canton-Haukow railway. and counted it as a British victory. H3 included half of it among British lines. The sale of the shares to a syndicate of another nationality should invite a str. ng diploma'ic protest.
con-
There is, besides the notable omission of the Tientsin-Chinkiang railway, a concessión which England shared with Germany, and- the still more important line of about 700 miles through Yuuun. In the opinion of Lord CURZON it would be "midsummer madness" to talk of such a project as the Burinah-Yunnan line in the present state- of Central Asian affairs, and the indications are not at present hopeful for the com-
A Peking despatch states that owing to a recent j..at memorial presented by Viceroys Chang Chil-tung and Yuan Shikai strongly recom mending the immediate issue of au Imperial elief abolishing for over the old style of its minutácture. Then, owing to the in-examinations fer the Chujen (Master of Arts) and Chinshih (Doctor) degres, and authorising creasing number of Russ-Chinese companies engaged in the exploitation of mines in in future and confer higher literary degrees, a the Peking University to o aduct examinations Manchuria, Russia would like permission party of Conservative Censors have begun mencement of the work. Nor are we likely sending in memorials to the Throne denouncing to see progress for some time with the the two Viceroys and their scheme.
Anglo-German concession. Before the
to establish a Mining Bureau at Harbin to deal with all matters relating to mining in