[This Document is the Property of His Britannic Majesty's Government]
AFFAIRS OF CHINA.
CONFIDENTIAL.
[27704]
No. 1.
0.
428
32381
4 SEP 08
[August 10.]
SECTION 2.
(No. 278.) Sir,
Sir J. Jordan to Sir Edward Grey.-(Received August 10.)
Peking, June 23, 1908.
I HAVE the honour to transmit to you herewith copy of a despatch from His Majesty's Vice-Consul at Antung, reporting on the military establishments of the Japanese guards along the Antung-Fenghuangcheng section of the Antung-Mukden Railway.
(No. 14.) Sir,
Inclosure in No. 1.
I have, &c.
(Signed) J. N. JORDAN.
Vice-Consul Russell to Sir J. Jordan.
Antung, June 3, 1908. I HAVE the honour to report as follows regarding the Japanese railway guards on the Antung-Fenghuangcheng section of the Antung-Mukden Railway:
In accordance with the terms of the Supplementary Agreement additional to Article 3 of the Treaty of Portsmouth, the Japanese reserved the right to maintain railway guards to protect their railway lines in Manchuria up to a limit of fifteen guards per kilometre.
The distance between Antung and Fenghuangcheng is 38.5 English miles, while that between Antung and Mukden is 188.7 English miles.
Reckoning 8 kilom. as equal to 5 English miles, the limit of the number of guards for the whole line would be about 4,500.
The guards on the Antung-Fenghuangcheng section are concentrated at these two places, and do not exceed 300 at the former and 200 at the latter place, so that the numbers come within the prescribed limit.
The guards at both places are billeted sporadically in Chinese houses, which have been occupied in most cases continuously since the war.
The Japanese are now engaged in constructing permanent barracks at a point 2 miles below Antung, between creeks Numbers 6 and 7.
The barrack buildings are capable of quartering several hundreds of troops. They are substantially built of good red brick and roofed with superior Japanese tiles.
There are a series of buildings representing men's quarters, officers' quarters, stables, and all the establishment of well-equipped, up-to-date modern barracks, with an extensive enclosure for parade and drill grounds.
It is proposed when these barracks are completed to quarter the railway guards in them, and the Chinese houses in which the guards are at present billeted will presumably then be returned to their owners in tardy fulfilment of Article 4 of the Supplementary Agreement to the Treaty between China and Japan relating to Manchuria of 1905.
The construction at this period of these permanent and costly barracks would lead one to conclude that the Japanese do not contemplate the fulfilment in the near future of the conditions under which they have undertaken to withdraw their guards from Manchuria, as stated in the last clause of Article 2 of the Agreement last referred to, which reads:
"When order has been perfectly established in Manchuria, and the Chinese authorities have become able to fully protect the life and property of foreigners in Manchuria, the Japanese Government in common with the Russian Government will withdraw the railway guards."
[1905 k-2]
I have, &c.
(Signed)
W. P. M. RUSSELL.