6
Shan States.
25. In travelling through the Shan States I found evidences of strong feeling against the authorities at Tengyuch, mainly caused by the energies of the taotai and salt commissioner in forcing native salt upon them. Two of the sawbwas are in) prison in Tengyuch for obstruction to their salt measures, and the taotai and Mr. Peng are evidently making a good financial return for themselves out of their patiotic salt campaign. There has been a great recrudescence of opium growing too in the Shan hills this year, and I travelled through miles of poppy crops in country
clean." which was lying fallow last year, and which has been reported
25. I will send copies of this letter to Tengyueh and Yunnan-fu, and I hope that it will help to clear the issues in all questions which are now outstanding in regard to the frontier.
Yours sincerely,
ARCHIBALD ROSE.
This Document is the Property of His Britannic Majesty's Government.]
AFFAIRS OF CHINA,
CONFIDENTIAL.
C
[26394]
No. 1.
224
CO
[July 7 24603 SECTION 2
27 P
Mr. C. S. Addis to Foreign Office.-(Received July 7.)
Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation, Dear Sir Francis,
31, Lombard Street, London, July 6, 1911. I ENCLOSE copy of a memorandum by Hillier and Cordes on the present situation at Peking, which will, I think, be of interest to you.
Yours truly,
C. S. ADDIS.
0
Enclosure in No. 1.
Memorandum by Messrs. Hillier and Cordes.
THE dominant personality in the Peking Government at the present moment is Sheng Kungpao. Circumstances in which the four international groups have played a leading part, have forced him into a position of power aud responsibility which he himself could have little foreseen; and the ability and courage with which he has risen to the occasion have earned for him the unreserved confidence and support of the Duke Tsai-Tsê.
These two men now form a combination representing the progressive policy of the country, into which Sheng brings an unrivalled business experience and a wide knowledge of foreign affairs, qualities naturally lacking in the Duke. The Duke, on the other hand, contributes all the weight of his Imperial birth, coupled with a reputation for personal integrity and a natural caution of character, which may be regarded as furnishing a wholesome counterpoise to any lack of these qualities in Sheng. In addition, the Duke may, in fact, be regarded as the President designate of the Cabinet in succession to Prince Ching, whose resignation, owing to old other
age and causes, is merely a question of months, and will probably be announced before the coming session of the National Assembly in September next.
This combination, as fortuitous as it is well timed, has been largely the outcome of the recent negotiations of the four international groups. Its foundation was laid in those for the currency loan, which the diplomacy of Sheng steered to a a successful issue between the rocks of Chinese suspicion and prejudice. These negotiations were drawing to the conclusion when the pressure of the four Powers concerned forced the Chinese Government to face the question of the Hukuang railways, a question so full of entanglements, so fraught with danger, to any official who might have the temerity to touch it, that every president of the Yuch'uan Pu previous to Sheng had successfully avoided doing so. It was not indeed without serious misgivings that Sheng addressed himself to the task of extricating his Government from the situation into which its helpless acquiescence in provincial demands had brought it, and which threatened its domestic peace and stability no less than its external credit; but he did so with a statesmanship and courage which have had their proper reward. With characteristic business directness he at once swept away the political fictions by which the question had become hide-bound and obscured, and he both claimed and obtained complete independence of action in coming to terms with the bankers.
The terms of the agreement arrived at removed every further pretext for delay on the part of the Chinese Government, and Sheng was then placed in a position to press his Government to assert its authority over the obstructive provincial factions. By the decrees which followed under the inspiration of Sheng, the Government is now publicly and irrevocably committed to a policy of railway construction, and the dam which had so long blocked progress has been finally broken down. Apart from the weighty character imparted to it by the language of the decrees, the new policy may indeed be regarded in the light of a pledge to the four countries who have been so closely associated with the circumstances of its inauguration; and here it may be
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