!
2
Minister in Peking, instructions have been sent by the Japanese Government to the railway company to render every possible assistance to the Customs in the execution of their duties, so that no doubt there will be less ground for complaint in the future.
It is also no fault of the Customs that exemption certificates are not taken out at Dairen, as they are at Newchwang, to cover duty-paid goods sent by railway to the treaty marts in the interior. The use of such certificates is not compulsory, and; owing to the refusal of the Chinese authorities to recognise their validity once the goods they cover have passed out of foreign hands, it is evident that the merchants at Dairen do not find it worth their while to take them out.
There can be no question, however, of the special nature of the facilities accorded at Dairen by the railway company. The most valuable of these, leaving aside the very favourable railway tariff, are the special through rates from Shanghai to the On these special rates interior offered to shippers by the railway company's steamers.
I have commented at some length in previous reports. Other facilities offered are umple wharfage and godown accommodation in close proximity to the railway, prompt dispatch of goods, and free pilotage for steamers.
The object, of course, of the railway in granting these special facilities at Dairen has been to attract trade to the port, and the company no doubt deserve considerable credit for the enterprise which they have shown in endeavouring to achieve their purpose. Unfortunately, however, both for Newchwang and foreign trade generally, any gain made by Dairen as a distributing centre for imports must be mainly at the expense of this port, which has hitherto almost monopolised the trade. Consequently to attain their end the company have found it necessary, while doing all they can to encourage trade at Dairen, to adopt the very opposite policy at Newchwang. Thus the specific tariff of the railway is admittedly intended to divert trade from this port to Dairen; no special through rates from Shanghai to the interior are offered við Newchwang; the goods station is still kept at a distance of 4 miles from the business quarter of the town; and neither wharfage nor godown accommodation is provided by the railway. Cars again are not always easy to get at Newchwang, and it has been only by a lengthy and expensive boycott of the railway that Chinese merchants have succeeded in obtaining the removal of the worst of the many petty annoyances to which they found themselves subjected by the company.
Yet, in spite of the superior facilities available at Dairen, it must be admitted that the efforts of the railway to divert the import trade of Manchuria to that port have not as yet been crowned with success, for the Chinese merchants, who have practically the whole of the trade, excepting that with Japan, in their hands, still refuse to abandon Newchwang in favour of Dairen. Nevertheless, the step-motherly treatment of this port by the railway, by hindering the expansion of local trade, has unquestionably been detrimental to the commercial interests of every other nation than Japan, and especially so to those of Great Britain, the whole of whose import trade, excepting that in material for the use of the railway, finds its way into Manchuria via Newchwang. The only country, in fact, that has benefited as yet by the policy adopted by the railway company has been, as might be expected, Japan herself, for the Japanese, having kept the management of their trade to a great extent in their own hands, have heen in a position to make every use of the special facilities offered at Dairen to promote their own commercial interests to the very great advantage of their export trade to Manchuria.
I have, &c.
F. E. WILKINSON,
[This Document is the Property of His Britannic Majesty's Government.]
C O
34281
AFFAIRS OF CHINA,
Bref 8 NOV 10
CONFIDENTIAL.
[October 4.]
SECTION 1.
[35162]
No. 1.
Sir Edward Grey to Mr. Max Müller.
(No. 130.) (Telegraphic.) R.
Foreign Office, October 4, 1910. MY despatch No. 313 of the 25th August: Liao River Conservancy. Board of Trade consider action of Board of Finance in taking sum required from local customs revenue open to considerable objection, and that if principle be admitted the security of the Chinese loans will be seriously impaired.
Board suggest that, in approving present scheme, you should place on record objections of His Majesty's Government to the principle of meeting expenditure of this character out of the local receipts of the Imperial Maritime Customs, and express hope that such a principle will not again be acted upon.
You can act accordingly.
[2958 d-1]
301