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explanation covering some of the essential features of the situation the Ambassador said:
"I have noted with regret certain comments relating thereto in some of the daily papers-comments which, I think, are manifestly based on incomplete information or on a misconception of actual conditions existing in that remote part of the world.
"In the first place the question of Chinese sovereignty in Manchuria is in no way involved in the steps taken by the railroad authorities toward the organization of a municipal administration in the Russian settlements at Harbin and Chailar. These settlements have sprung up within recent years around the central stations, machine shops, and other establishments of the Railroad Company at these points on the strip of land bordering on the tracks which had been leased to the Company in 1895 for a term of years by the Chinese Government, the lease containing a special proviso conceding to the Company the absolute and exclusive right of administration of the lands leased. Such a stipulation is in itself by no means abnormal, considering that under existing Treaties foreigners in China and foreign settlements in the so-called open ports enjoy the privilege of extra-territoriality, and are, therefore, not subject to Chinese jurisdiction or administration. Nor could this stipulation, freely conceded by the Chinese Government, be considered as constituting an infringement of Chinese sovereignty in Manchuria.
"What the plan advised by the railroad authorities for the organization of municipal administrations at Harbin and Chailar consisted in and what particular features of this plan have given rise to protests I am unable to say, as I have no information whatever on the subject. It stands to reason, however, that these settlements, which have nestled around the stations and establishments of the railroad and, particularly in the case of Harbin, have quite a large population, are in absolute need of some kind of regularly constituted municipal administration, and the plan devised by the railroad authorities was obviously intended to supply this need and thereby to benefit the whole community, including the Chinese and the few foreigners who have settled on the lands leased to the Company. Any disagreement in regard to this plan would appear to be of no more than local importance, and to be capable of friendly adjustment without raising any international question. In short, nothing could be further removed from the aims of Russia's policy in the Far East than any desire whatsoever of questioning, let alone impairing, the sovereign rights of China in Manchuria, her sole aim being the maintenance of the status quo as well as of her rights under existing Treaties and the cultivation of the most friendly relations with China no less than with Japan.
"Incidentally, I would say that I have noticed a published statement inferentially implying that the American Consul at Harbin had been required to get an exequatur from the Russian authorities. This information can only be based on some misunderstanding. I do not see how any such thing could have happened. Moreover, as a matter of fact, Russia maintains herself a Consul-General at Harbin, which would be a manifest absurdity if she made any such contention as implied in the statement above referred to.”
Washington, April 5, 1908.
Inclosure 2 in No. 1.
Extract from the "New York Tribune" of April 7, 1908.
GRANTING the correctness of the representation of Russia that her desires regarding the local administration of the railroad zone of Harbin are not intended to be inimical to Chinese sovereignty, Secretary Root explained to-day that the situation with reference to that city was one involving many complications. He added that, while this was true, there was no great obstacle in the way of an ultimate satisfactory adjustment, and that he thought rather too much gravity had been attached to the negotiations.
Before the Russo-Japanese war Harbin was laid out as a great commercial centre. The war disarranged all these plans and left a municipal chaos. The private corporation which owns the Chinese Eastern Railway, and incidentally the greater portion of the area of Harbin, is admittedly under the complete domination of the Russian Government, and is seeking, just as any other landed proprietor would naturally do, to maintain absolute control of that property and the uses to which it shall be put. It is explained, however, that this fact does not in any way impair the sovereignty of China over this territory. At the same time, American State Department officials will not commit this Government to approval in any form of the stringent police and licensed decrees recently issued by the Russian Governor-General of the railroad, which on their face regulate to the minutest degree every phase of business and industry within that zone.
To this situation is added the insistence of the foreign element in Harbin to have a voice in the municipal regulations of the foreign quarter of the city, a governmental function which is exercised in the foreign quarter of all Oriental cities. There are other elements which enter into the problem, which, according to the Secretary, is simply a question of making an adjustment which will harmonize any conflicting suggestions and demands.
Consul-General Skinner is recognized by China, this recognition being in the form of an exequatur. He is on the same official footing exactly, it is explained, as the Russian Consul-General at Harbin. The questions seem to be the manner in which the business of the Consuls shall originate and be conducted, as well as on whom decisions shall be binding.
Washington, April 6, 1908.
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