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and the Shansi people it will be much easier for you to arrive at a satisfactory arrangement with Ting Ta-jon-satisfactory, I mean, to all parties.
Now Ting Ta-jên told me with a good deal of feeling that the objection the officials had to the Syndicate was this: that they had made their agreement with another party, and they felt it was not right that the Concessions should have been passed on to any one else.
I have said nothing as to the justice or not of this opinion, but if you are aware that this is at the back of all the action of the officials you will be better able to deal with it.
The real opponents to the Syndicate and to everything foreign are the half- educated students. They are stirred up by their fellow-students in Japan, and they are carrying on an active propaganda against the Syndicate and against foreigners generally. The merchants and the farmers are at present fairly indifferent, but the agitation is beginning to tell.
An Association has been formed called the "Ko Ming Tang." Its professed object is reformation; its real object seems to be to substitute a Chinese for a Manchu dynasty. Some say that very shortly on an appointed day there will be an outbreak, and all the Manchus will be massacred. Others, I think with better reasons, say that five years will be given, and then, if satisfactory changes are not made, the massacre will take place. Many of the officials, it is said, have joined the Ko Ming Tang, and about 20,000 others.
Our Governor, En Shou, is a Manchu, and he is distinctly afraid. He is doing his best to satisfy the Shansi people by giving them such small posts as he is
able to.
The officials-that is, the highest men in the province-are in this real difficulty: on the one hand, they are afraid that the rights of the Syndicate will be supported by force; on the other hand, they are alarmed that the people will rise against the dynasty if the Syndicate commences work.
Up to the present the officials have kept order. The editors of the "Pei Hwa Pao" have been warned, and there is a quieter tone in the paper. The body of the student Li, who committed suicide in Japan, was quietly sent to his native place. No demonstrations were permitted bere. That the Syndicate has rights are frankly acknowledged, and the hope of Ting and others seems to be to purchase those rights. Your statement has, however, made a very favourable impression, and it is quite possible that in conversation with Ting Ta-jên most of the difficulties will disappear, but it still remains doubtful how far the students can be appeased or else controlled without a violent outbreak.
These are the facts as far as I know them. I mention them in confidence, but I do so in the hope that it may enable you to deal with Ting Ta-jên and the people of Shansi without the friction that is so fatal to the welfare and interests of all concerned.
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preserved, and are preserving, order. They have checked the inflammatory utterances of the Taiyuan-fu press, and they permitted the dead body of the Shansi student who committed suicide in Japan to be brought into this city.
An impression is abroad that the Shausi officials are at the bottom of the opposition to the Syndicate, and it is difficult to prove or disprove whether this be so or not, but the fact that they are keeping the students and people quiet is beyond dispute.
Will you kindly permit this to be added to what I have already written.
Believe me, &c. (Signed) ARTHUR SOWERBY,
I am, &c.
(Signed)
ARTHUR SOWERBY.
Dear Sir,
Inclosure 3 in No. 1.
Rev. A. Sowerby to Mr. G. Brown.
Taiyuan-fu, February 4, 1907. I MUST apologize for my seeming delay in answering your letter of the 26th January, but I have been away from home for a few days and only returned on Saturday, the 2nd instant. I felt your letter required a little time for consideration, but I do not remember that I said anything that should not be placed before the British Legation, or that should not be communicated to the Board of Directors of the Syndicate in London.
On the other hand, what I wrote was not for the public press, and I am sure I can trust to your courtesy and discretion not to publish what I have written, but only to use it for private and confidential communication.
I would like to add that, in using my letter, I would be greatly obliged if you will also state that up to the present time the Governor and other high officials have
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