793
C. O.
[This Document is the Property of His Britannic Majesty's Government14965
[B]
AFFAIRS OF CHINA.
CONFIDENTIAL.
(36696]
No. 1.
[October 4.]
SECTION 2.
¡RECR
(REG! 25 OCT 09
(No. 338.) Sir,
Sir J. Jordan to Sir Edward Grey.-(Received October 4.)
Peking, September 17, 1909. IN my despatch No. 292 of the 19th ultimo I commented at length upon the rules and regulations obtaining in the territories of the South Manchurian Railway Company, and endeavoured to show that the Japanese claimed and exercised in the territories rights of jurisdiction which an adoption of the principles contained in the Sino-Russian agreement could not fail to curtail
I now have the honour to transmit to you copy of a despatch from the acting consul-general at Mukden containing the agreement which all persons who reside or rent buildings in the Japanese Railway settlements are supposed ipso facto to be bound to observe. Mr. Willis's comments on this document contain all that need be said on the matter, and I do not think that I require to say more than that I agree generally with his observations.
The impetus which has occurred in the last year or two in the export of beans from Manchuria threatens to revolutionise the whole foreign trade of that region, and the question of residence at the Treaty marts, which has hitherto been largely an academic one, may, as Mr. Willis points out, soon become of great practical importance.
It is for this reason that we are obliged to canvass the terms on which foreign residence is permissible in Russian and Japanese railway settlements.
Inclosure 1 in No. 1.
I have, &c.
J. N. JORDAN,
Acting Consul-General Willis to Sir J. Jordan.
(No. 42.) Sir,
Mukden, September 6, 1909. WITH reference to the despatch of His Majesty's vice-consul at Darien to you, No. 22 of the 4th instant, I have the honour to forward two additional copies of the agreement governing residents, &c., in the South Manchurian Railway Company's railway area, which formed an inclosure in Mr. Gordon's despatch.
This agreement appears to me to lay down more clearly than any other regulations of the South Manchurian Railway Company, which have hitherto been brought to my notice, the principles on which the subjects of the various treaty powers may be allowed to acquire land and reside in the railway territory, and as such seems to merit serious consideration.
In my despatch No. 27 of the 10th August last I expressed the opinion that there seemed no immediate probability that the subjects of western nations would claim to reside in the Japanese railway settlements in any numbers, but that the question might at any moment become one in which the great commercial Powers would find themselves directly interested.
The agent of Messrs. Samuel Macgregor and Co. informed me a day or two ago that his firm intended this autumn to purchase beans in considerable quantities at Changchun-they had already contracted for the delivery of 40,000 tons-and be added that the firm had leased a plot of land from the South Manchurian Railway Company situated in the railway area at that mart. The case of the man Birkett, which I have reported separately in my despatches, Nos. 38 and 41, of the 28th ultimo and the 4th instant respectively also shows that the matter has now passed beyond the stage of theoretical discussion.
Under the terms of the so-called agreement it will be noticed that the South
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