}
April 13, 1908.]
Mr! NEAVE, in replying, said such commend. ations were pleasing to hear, and he thanked Captain Hermeling for them. He hoped the Dock Company would always retain its present position (applause).
This concluded the proceedings.
ANTUNG.
[FROM OUR CORRESPONDENT.]
AN EPITOME OF THE JAPA
IN MANCHURIA.
ESE ADVANCE
CHINA OVERLAND TRADE REFORT.
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Since the military administration was with. drawn in October 1906 Japanese affairs at An- tung have been in charge of Mr. Okabe, the Consul, and Chinese interests represented by Taotai Chien. Genearl Kojima, who, as head of the Timber Bureau, is invested with one of the most important interests in Manchuria, has been from the beginning the third factor in the situation. The Japanese officials are able and vigorous partisans, strong men; the Taotai has been rather an amiable jelly-fish.
The cop- sequence is that, while Japanese interests have been championed in a manner possibly even ex- ceeding instructions from headquarters, Chinese opposition has in no way reflected the firmnes of the central authorities at Mukden. In neither public nor private questions have Chinese rights been upheld.
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In July 1907 an American Consular represan- lative was stationed at Antang and in September following a British Vic e-Consul was appointed to that port. General lirritation was the first result of outside inteligent criticism, The Japanese Consul stated that, as a military officer, his methods would be neither those of the business mau uor of the diplomat, but those of the soldier. His performance was fully up to his word, and the Timber Bureau adopted the ame attitude. But whether or not the aggressiveness of Japan's policy at Antung, 88 displayed by her representatives there was in aoy Way due to the long-continued absence of intelligent foreign observation and criticism, certain it is that, during the past six months a more moderate attitude has heen' marked. Two even's have taken place within the past six weeks to corroborate this opinion of improving conditions: I he Japanese Consul General has been replaced by Mr. Sokenobe, lately! Consul at Vladivostok, and Taotai Chien has been withdrawn to make room for Taotai Chi, a member of the Mukden government where he has been in charge of the Bureau of Mines. The new Taotai who reflects the decision and firmness of the Man- churian central government, bas inaugurated his offle with several measures intended to correct some of the lesser local evils which have become well established during his successor's incumbency. Tha
presence of an energetic foreign Customs Commissioner and the British
and American Consuls seems to have had at once the effect : couraging China to firmer Action, and of restraining Japan from further aggressiveness.
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Mukden, March, 23rd. Og my return from a recent trip in Japan and Korea, I stopped in Antung. The place provides a most interesting example of Japanese colonization in Manchuris as most people pro- bably know, it is situated at the head of steam navigation on the Yalu, 30 miles from its mouth at that point where the narrow gauge Japanese railroad from Mukden becko s to the broad gauge Japanese line across the way at Wija. It is a city of about 40,000 inhabitants at his highest register in the summer, when the Shantang timber coolies have migrated for the season,
and with its railroad, shipping, and lumber interests, it is the principal trading center of south-eastern Manchuria. Sprawled out by the frozen river under its wall of bills, the city semi-hibernates in winter while the ice is in the Yalu. It is seldom invaded from the north, for even iu warm weather no man lightly undertakes those two days of jolting over the two foot gauge from Mukdeu, couseqnently, except for penetration through northern Korea, Antung seems to have escaped the notice its commercial and present political importance give it. After a long and wearisome day wind- ing through the barren brown hills of Korea, which cover the country like Titanic Chinese graves, when the train fially rounds the last carve and straightens out acro-s the alluvial flats that border the Yalu, it is with a breath of relief that one seas through the rattling car windows the mountains of China, high and blue and far away acress the river. Arrived at Auturg, you are in a Japanega town,-queer, and laid out in a kind of Wild West way, but nevertheless Japanese,-let down bodily into China. The Chinese are there, many thousands of them, but coming in from Wiju you don't seem them; Japanese But the big questions remain unsolved, and people, Japanese houses, and a Li patian they cry aloud for solution. Chief among them, Japanese train against the sky line puffing as a matter of general political interest, is the away to be lost in Manchuria. But on the Yla Timber question, which is, however, a books, Autung is a Chinese city. Moreover it subject so large as to warrant separate treat- is an open port, opened originally by China as a m-nt. Vore importaut as significant of place of international residence and trade in Japanese tactics in Manchuria is the Land 1903. About 26 thousand Chinese, counting question. After the military withdrawal the the floating 8mmer immigration, and less than Japanese occupied, and now hold, as sattle- five thousand Japanese constitute its population, ment and railway land 11,500 mow (1.966 but the territory occupied, or rather possessed, acres) in addition to 1.666 acres more acquired by the 5,1 00 Japanese exceeds by many thousand by private partijs with official assistance, all of acres the real estate of their Chinese fellow which area was the property of various native citizens. The chief commercial activity of landowners. These estates, by the specific the place is in the export of lamber evidence of dispossessed Chinese, seem to have from the upper Yalu and its tributary, the ben confiscated, Thi title deeds are Hun, but raw silk is being exported in ever still unregistered. The agreements to sell increasing quantity, chiefly to Chefoo. There were, in a majority of instances forced, are 1,800 Japanese houses along streets laid out often by thrests of execution from the regularly upon a large prospective plan, the trembling peasantry, who silently weeping most imposing teing the permanent stone and -one written protest states,-signed cement edifices occupied by the Japanese Conaway their patrimony. Many so-called sulate-General, the Mitsui Bassan Kaisha, the contracts of sale were signed by women Hospital, and the Yalu timber Bureau. Other or by servants in the absence of male members large new brick structures are half completed for schools and offices. As it is the third largest shipping port in Manchuria, an Imperial Customs Commissioner is stationed at Antung, and the city is also the seat the "Intendency of the Eastern Marohes," one of the four chief divisions of Manchuria, the Taotai in charge holding office as "Intendent" accredited to the Viceroyalty at Mukden. The other chief functionaries are the Japanese Consul-General, the British and American Vice-Consuls, and General Kojima, head of the Timber Bureau. While Japanese enterprise at Antung has equalled that at Makdeo, Chinese administra- tive and material improvement in the former port has legged far behind that at the Capital. Unquestionably, but for foreign interference, a large part of this region would have been added long since to the Japanese domain.
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paid an annual rental from 13 to 40 yen, and for 4') yen, and for buildings on the railway land, land which the Japanese purchased at from 7 to formerly owned but now leased by their Chinese tenants, the Japanese have demanded a yearly rental of from 40 to 50 yen per chien in cases where the purchase price paid by them did not exceed from 14 to 20 yen. (Of course all ttis was "bearsay" evidence.-Ed.] All of these cases are in the so-called Japanese railway settlement", a township whose boundaries literally run along the crests of the bills behind the city where the defining timber moa ments be seen against the sky. But even in the Chinesa city itself mady
buildings, the largest and most desirable, aro still occupied by Japanese police, gendarmerie, and railway guards, held by the Japanese in spite of express provision for their return contained in the Kemars Convention of 1915, and reaffirmed in the supplementary aggreement concluded between the Viceroy and the Japanese Consul General at Mukden in 1907. Over and against these crying abuses all that can be said by way of palliation is, that since the coming of the foreign Consuls and the changes in personnel above mentioned, no new sots of invasion have been committed, and a tract of land on the river north of the native town, which has been for a long time held by the Japanese military authorities without any bene. fit to themselves and with considerable incon venience to the Chinese, was finally restored to the Intendent last September,
of the family; and are, of course, by any law, quite invalid. Df a fair return for the land had been made, much criticism might have been disarmed, but it is matter of record that land, the market value of which varied between 300 and 400 taels ($240 to $320) per tein (1 acre) was taken arbitrarily at from $21 to $42. ́ A great deal of hardship has thus been wrought in throwing out whole famili s, who know nothing but agricultural means to a livelihood, without other means of support. I was informed that a few of these evicted tenants had been allowed to come back as lessees upon the land once owned by them, paying to the Japanese 2/5ths of their agricultural returns, the "25" in some cases, estimated by the Japanese, actually exceeding the total amount of production on those particular boldings. Calculated in Japanese currency, the Chinese lessees have in instances
Closely connected with the matter of the railway settlement is the question of a railway bridge across the Yalu from New Wijn to Antung which is now being laid before the Tokyo Government by the American and British Embassies. The plan of the railway adminis- tration ffice, connected with the Residency- General of Korea, was to ran a substantial and continuous structure from the Korean side to a point in the southern section of the Japanese settlement. Inasmuch as this situation on the Manchurian side is down stream and wall to the south of the Chinese city the erection of a bridge without a draw will effectually out off the Chinese from any use of the port for ship- ping except through the Japanese settlement. Fortunat-ly strong representations have been made at Tokyo hy both the British and Americau Ambassadors on advices from their respective Consuls at Antung, and it now seems reasonable to hope that, when the bridge is built, it will be of a character to admit equality of opportunity to foreign and Chinese interests.
meet
In the matter of the Customs, the long delay of the Chinese in enforcing import duties on the Russo-Chinese frontier has never been ad- vanced by the Japanese as an objection against the existence of a Custon House at Antang as it has been to the continuation of that at Dalny, The chief reason for this apparently dobile attitude is that, on account of the comparative isolation of this region, Japanese goods entering through the port have not been forced to duty-free Russian imports from the north. The Imperial Customs Commissioner, established at Antang in March 1 07, has been quite unable to place the service upon a sound basis. For exariple vessels anchoring on the Korean side of the river with cargo for Autung, claim exemption by reason of anchorage jurisdic. tion, from the regular tonnage dues. Fur- thermore, smuggling, even on the part of "ell-known firms, is frequent and anohecked by the Japanese authorities, who also refuse to pay the regular Customs dues on timber exported by the Japanese Timber Baresu. Chinese competition is thus rendered well nigh hopeless since the low price at which the Bureau appropriates its timber places the Chinese mer. chants at an initial disadvantage which, if ia- creased, would be fatal.
All of the above questions are in a very broad view debatable, although injustice and hardship are undoubtedly produced by the status quo pending their settlement. It remains to speak of another matter which cannot be defended.
In Manchuria, ander the strong government of Hsu Shih Chang and Tang Shao Yi, the opiam and gambling evils, naver so prevalent in the Three Eastern Provinces as elsewhere in China, have practically been stamped out. In Autung, with its shifting coolie population from Shantung and the south, it has, however, been particularly difficult to eradicate these
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