CO129-344 - Public Offices & Foreign Office - 1907 — Page 479

477

21st I told him that I had seen Tong Tajen's successor

in the Revenue Council, Mr. Liang Tun Yen, (the Minis-

ter Designate to America) a few days previously, and

that Mr. Liang had professed total ignorance of the

proposal for placing the cruisers under the control

of the Customs.

The Grand Secretary deplored the existence of the

Revenue Council, and argued for his own part that he

had not unnaturally supposed that Tong Tajen would have

explained to Mr. Liang hov matters stood. He could

only suppose that the crisis in his career through

which Tong Tajen had recently passed had unnerved him,

and caused him to forget his responsibilities in this

question.

In a further conversation on May 28th His Excel-

lency criticized rather severely the part which Tong

Tajen had played. As a member of the Wai Wu Pu and

of the Revenue Council, his colleagues in the former

department had presumed that he would answer for the

adhesion of his coadjutor in the Shui Wu Ch'u, T'ieh

Liang, to any arrangements which had been determined

upon by the Wai Wu Pu.

It appeared, however, that

T'ieh