[This Document is the Property of His Britannic Majesty's Government.j
C.O.
2
Peking under the charge of a foreign Commissioner for the preparation of Chinese candidates for the Customs service. He told me some time ago that his Excellency Tong Shoo-yi had expressed a wish that it should train 100 pupils, but that he had himself advised making a start with about twenty.
Inclosure in No. 1.
I have, &c.
(Signed)
J. N. JORDAN,
Customs Circular dated February 8, 1907.
SERVICE expansion has made, and is making, so many calls on staff that it seems absolutely necessary to carry out former and repeated suggestions. More use must be made of Chinese employés, both indoor (by way of requiring them to take a larger share in the work generally confided to non-Chinese assistants) and out-door (by assigning to them such parts of tide-waiters' and examiners' duty as their qualifica- tions can be made to fit them for). You must see that this is attended to.
Peking, February 8, 1907.
AFFAIRS OF CHINA,
>
CONFIDENTIAL.
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(No. 224.) Sir,
No. 1.
δεσπό
[May 271622
19 JUN 07
266
Sir F. Lascelles to Sir Edward Grey.~(Received May 27.)
Berlin, May 20, 1907. THE gradual changes which are taking place in the Far East and in the position of European nations in those regions seem to be arousing the interest of German residents out there, and causing them to turn their attention more especially to the consideration of Germany's interests. In the May number of the Prussian Year-Books, Dr. Menge, a German resident in Tôkiô, contributes an interesting article discussing the advisability of Germany's retaining her protectorate over Kiaotchou.
After describing the circumstances of the acquisition of this territory, Dr. Menge notes the altered conditions which have come over China since that acquisition. China has awakened to a sense of nationality and to the necessity of introducing reforms on her own account and modernizing herself generally if she wishes to maintain her existence in the world. The result is that she is opening her doors much more freely than formerly to foreign trade, and an activity in import and export trade is going on of which it is necessary that Germany should secure her share. But in order to insure a perfectly free and open commercial connection, there must be nothing in the political relations of the two countries that cau impair their mutual confidence and good understanding.
With these premises, the writer asks whether Kiaotchou is of such value to Germany as to counterbalance the excellent moral effect upon the Chinese Govern- ment which would be gained by giving it up. And the answer in his view is a decided negative. Kiaotchou's commercial value is small in comparison with that of Tien-tsin to German trade, insignificant compared to that of Shanghae, and yet the Empire expends a sum of about 12,000,000 marks annually upon the territory. The trading conditions have, indeed, improved, but not in proportion to the expenditure incurred; and so far the only result achieved is the construction of an architecturally It has no such beautiful and sanitarily perfect German city in the Far East. prospects as Hong Kong or Shanghae, having no hinterland of importance, and not being in a central or advantageous position as regards trade routes. development must be extremely slow at best, and, even that it should be slow, Germany must first have found some means of allaying Chinese mistrust and suspicions, which are the primary reason of the failure of German enterprise hitherto in the Far East.
Thus its
Dr. Menge therefore considers that this suspicion would be entirely removed if Germany would consent to give up her protectorate over Kiaotchou, thereby showing that she has no political concerns in the Far East. There would then be no hindrance to the improvement of German commercial relations with China, nor would she have given up a military position, as Kiaotchou has no military value to her. She would suffer no loss of prestige, as she would give up the territory of her own free-will, in order to improve her position in the Far East; while Kiaotchou itself would become an international open port under Chinese sovereignty, in which the German traders already established there would continue to make freer use of their position already acquired.
I have, &c. (Signed) FRANK C. LASCELLES.
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