This Document is the Property of His Britannic Majesty's Government.
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of the main road. The railway station is shortly to be moved from its present site to a point about two-thirds of a mile southwards. The ground has been prepared for building and the foundations already laid down, though I hardly think it possible that the new station can be completed before the coming winter. Further, there has been during the last three months extraordinary building activity on the land lying between Whole streets of small villas and shops are the present and proposed railway stations, being run up by the railway company, though it is difficult to see where the occupiers are to come from. At the present moment, with the exception of the garrison of two battalions, the railway employés, and the few shops that administer to their needs, the railway concession is unoccupied; in fact, it seems a significant comment on the settle- ment administration that the main Japanese colony in Mukden has, as shown on my map, established itself immediately outside the settlement limits.
On the other band, the new macadamized road, which is now in course of being built to the station of the Chinese Northern Railway, skirts the boundary of the extension which Mr. Tao seemed to think the Japanese Administration might be prepared to surrender, though a shorter and less expensive road might have been constructed by taking a line across this land.
I have seen reports recently in several local newspapers, both native and foreign, to the effect that the Japanese authorities had objected to this new road crossing the South Manchurian line. Mr. Tao assured me that there was no basis of fact for these rumours. He stated that, of course, it was true that the Chinese request to bring their railway line over or under the Japanese line up to the city wall had been refused, and he gave it as his opinion that the object of such refusal was to prevent any eastward extension of the Chinese system rather than the fear of competition between the existing lines, the ostensible reason advanced by the Japanese.
The map shows incidentally the area of the proposed international settlement, which, it will be noticed, was laid out so as to surround the original Russian settlement, and to take in all land between that settlement and the outer city wall, with the object naturally of blocking Japanese extension in any direction. Mr. Tao bas assured me that the whole of this land was bond fide acquired by the Manchurian Government from private owners before the Japanese had placed any boundary marks on the property, and that their occupation of this land was entirely without justification. I have also seen the original Russian plans, from which it is clear that they held no land to the north of the road. I have further ascertained, from personal investigation, that on the land marked as the original Chinese Eastern Railway Concession, boundary stones with the Russian marks are still in existence alongside the Japanese stakes, whereas there are no such stones on the extension.
I have, &c.
(Signed)
R. WILLIS.
AFFAIRS OF CHINA.
CONFIDENTIAL.
[43314]
No. 1.
2497
December 121.
SECTION 8, 21 JAN 09
Sir J. Jordan to Sir Edward Grey.--(Received December 12.)
(No. 466.) Sir,
Peking, October 21, 1908. I HAVE the honour to transmit to you herewith a copy of a despatch which I have received from the Acting British Consul-General at Chinan-fu, inclosing a copy with translation of the Kiao-chau Government Wharf and Godown Ordinance, by which the wharves and godowns within the free area delimited by the Ordinance of the 2nd December, 1905, will pass under the control of the Government from the 1st November next, and be administered by a Department called the Wharf Administration.
This action on the part of the Government is meeting with the strongest opposition on the part of merchants of all nationalities at Tsingtan, who see in it a measure which will deprive them of all redress in case of loss or damage to goods in the hands of the Wharf Administration even if caused by its employees, and the Chinese merchants, in their desire to avoid all contact with the Government in trade matters, engineered through their representatives in Shanghae a boycott against the steamers of the Hamburg-Amerika Line, which trade regularly between Shanghae and Tsingtau, their object being to force the steamer Company to stand between them and the Government Wharf Administration and undertake the usual responsibilities attaching to shipping Companies and carriers. The boycott, the value of which the Chinese fully understand, was rigidly maintained for a fortnight during which not a single package was shipped by the Company's steamers at Shanghae or Tsingtau, and was completely successful. The Company capitulated and has undertaken the responsibilities which the Government had declared its intention to escape.
It would appear as if the Kiao-chau Government in its desire to increase its revenues was following the example of the Japanese at Dairen (Dalny) where the shipping and storing of cargo have been in the hands of the South Manchurian Railway Company since the 1st October, 1907; but that Company accepts responsibility for loss or damage caused indisputably through loss or negligence on the part of the Company's employees while cargo is under its custody.
I have, &c. (Signed)
J. N. JORDAN.
(No. 16.) Sir,
Inclosure in No. 1.
Acting Consul-General Giles to Sir J. Jordan,
Chinan, October 8, 1908. I HAVE the honour to forward herewith copy and translation of the Kiao-chau Government Wharf and Godown Ordinance ("Kajen- und Lagerhausordnung "), together with the tariff of fees annexed thereto, which is to come into force on the 1st November. By the terms of this Ordinance all the wharves and godowns within the free area delimited by the Ordinance of the 2nd December, 1905, are to pass under the control of the Government, and to be worked by a Government Department termed the Wharf Administration ("Kajenverwaltung "). The avowed aim of this and other schemes which are on foot, is to raise sufficient revenue to enable the Kiao-chau Government ultimately to balance income and expenditure. It is to become entirely self-supporting for the future, and is to require no further grants from the Reichstag. It is unnecessary to recall the fact that, for some time past, there has been considerable impatience among certain sections of the population in Germany at the large and annually recurring appropriations for the German Colonies; and I am given to understand that the present Ordinance, among other schemes, is the result of urgent instructions from Berlin to raise revenue in some way or another.
It need hardly be said that a measure such as the present Ordinance, which brings under Government control two important departments of activity, hitherto entirely under
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