130 



CHINA. 



to send their rn-w cruisers to Port Arthur, but were 

 tohl that mily Chinese ships whose foreign officers 

 were exclusiv'ely Russian would be admitted. 



Tin- regulations fr the steam navigation of Chi- 

 nese inland waters when first promulgated by im- 

 |N-ri:il decree were disappointing. They restricted 

 tin- privilege t< tin- waters of provinces containing 

 treaty ports anl forbade towing. After further 

 negoti aliens these limitations were swept away and 

 the* right -f using steamers was permitted to for- 

 , all the rivers, lakes, and canals, and even 

 in the coast waters. 



Th- coin|H-titioii for railroad enterprises in the 

 middle .f the year caused greater friction than the 

 loan negotiation-; or the occupation of Port Arthur 

 and led the British to prepare their fleet once more 

 for war. The Russians, all-powerful at Pekin, not 

 only blocked their scheme of invading the Russian 

 sphere by extending the line built under British 

 auspices 'from Tientsin to Shan-IIai-Kwan to the 

 Manchurian I*>rt of Niuehwang, but obtained con- 

 trol of the concessions for the projected trunk lines 

 penetrating to the center of the Yangtse region that 

 was sup|>osed to be reserved for British enterprise 

 and aiming to join hands with the French, who 

 pishing their railroad enterprises up from the 

 south. The Knglish mercantile community called 

 upon their Government to provide capital for 

 Chinese railroads, as the Russian Government was 

 doing. lest their commercial supremacy vanish like 

 the British |ilitieal predominance. Mr. Chamber- 

 lain, applying to Russian diplomatic methods the 

 proverb that to sup with the devil one wants a long 

 spoon, suggested an alliance with Germany, saying 

 that without a powerful military ally England 

 could never seriously injure Russia. 



Ti-n years have elapsed since Li-Hung-Chang and 

 Chang-Chi-Tung undertook in rivalry to provide 

 China with railroad communications. Li-Hung- 

 Chang was for extending the line he had lately 

 l>ei;iin from Tientsin toward Pekin in one direction 

 and Manchuria in the other. Chang-Chi-Tung 

 disapproved of railroads near the coast, which 

 might be used l>y an enemy, and of employing for- 

 eign capital, engineers, or materials, for fear of 

 political encroachments. He was authorized to 

 build his trunk line from Pekin to Hankau in his 

 own way, but used up the capital he raised and the 

 lyOOOuOOO taels a year given l>y the Government in 

 opening the necessary coal and iron mines without 

 iM-ing alile to build a mile of the great Lu-Han 

 Railroad, x) called from the initial s\ liable* of the 

 two terminal town-. Sheiig, as I)irecior-(ieneral of 

 Railroads. took up the project, but accomplished no 

 more. I,i-llung-('hang s projected line from Tient- 

 sin to Pekin was completed by llu. the Governor of 

 Pekin. after Slu-ng had failed to obtain the capital 

 from the various syndicates American, Belgian, 

 HIII I Knglish with which he treated. A projected 

 line from Shanghai to Suchau and Nankin collapsed 

 with the Hooley loan. Chang-Chi-Tung built the 

 Md line from Shanghai to Wusung. The exten- 

 f i he Pekin-Ti.-nt-.in line to Shan-Hai-Kwan 

 Ji mi lish 'i undi r the din cftfon at the English 

 engineer Kinder. I'nder Russian auspices a line 

 running southward from Pekin has reached Pao- 

 Ting-Ku and is being extended to Ch ing-Ting. 

 TOB are the only existing railroads in China. A 

 Belgian syndicate in 1H9I1 olitained a concession for 

 the construction of the famous Lu-Han line, of 

 which this wan the beginning. The Russo-Chinese 

 Bank in the early part of 1808 offered financial 

 assistance to carry out this work, and obtained con- 

 cessions to build branches from Ching-Ting, through 

 the great mining region of Shansi, to Tai-Yuen-Fu 

 and onward to Si-Ngan-Fii. in Shensi, whence 

 Russians obtain their caravan teas. 



In the Shantung peninsula Germany asserted the 

 principle not of a monopoly of railroad construc- 

 tion, but of a preferential right to make tenders for 

 any contemplated line. When a British syndicate 

 undertook the construction of a great trunk line 

 from Tientsin to Chinkiang the German Govern- 

 ment objected because the route lay through the 

 western part of Shantung, and a German syndicate 

 was formed to make an offer to build the line, 

 which runs parallel to the Grand Canal. A British 

 syndicate obtained the right to connect Shanghai 

 with Xingpo on the one side and Chinkiang and 

 Nankin on the other by railroads traversing the 

 rich silk and cotton districts of the lower Yangtse. 

 This was the only British railroad concession that 

 was not blocked by the interference of other powers 

 exerted in ways that the English considered to be 

 in violation of the Tientsin treaty, with the excep- 

 tion of the right to extend the Burmese Railroad 

 when it reaches the frontier into the province of 

 Yunnan. In the south of China the French ac- 

 quired certain rights of railroad construction into 

 Yunnan under the convention of June 20, 1895, and 

 in 1896 China granted the privilege of continuing 

 the Tonquin line from Haifong from the frontier 

 at Sangchau to Nanning-Fu, on the West river. 

 They plan to carry it through into the upper 

 Yangtse valley at some future time. In 1898 they 

 obtained a concession for another line to Nanning- 

 Fu from the treaty port of Pakhoi, on the Gulf of 

 Tonquin. 



The principal industrial concession obtained in 

 the British interest, the largest ever granted in 

 China, was sanctioned in favor of an Anglo-Italian 

 syndicate, which was authorized to work the coal 

 and iron mines, petroleum, and other minerals in 

 Shansi. On June 21 the same syndicate obtained 

 a monopoly for sixty years of the coal and iron 

 mines of Honan south of the Yellow river, with 

 permission to connect them by railroad with the 

 nearest trunk line. A Chinese company, financed 

 by the Russo-Chinese Bank, arranged to run a line 

 into the most valuable mining district of Shansi, 

 about Tai-Yuen, and to get mining privileges of its 

 own, which threatened to render useless the Anglo- 

 Italian concession. The Russian gauge has been 

 adopted on the roads mortgaged to the Russo- 

 Chinese Bank, and the bank determines questions 

 of route, etc., and also engages the foreign work- 

 men to be employed until Chinese are available. 

 The Russian representative secured from the Tsung- 

 li-Yamen an agreement that any dispute between 

 the Pekin-Hankau Railroad Company and the local 

 authorities shall be arbitrated by the minister of 

 the Government whose people have the greatest 

 financial interest in the railroad. 



To carry the existing railroad from Shan-IIai- 

 Kwan to Niuehwang with a view of extending it 

 onward in the direction of Mukden the Hong-Kong 

 and Shanghai Bank, a British institution, offered 

 to provide the money on the security of the line al- 

 ready completed. M. Pavloff protested energet- 

 ically against the intrusion of foreign enterprise in 

 the Russian sphere. The Chinese Government at 

 first resisted trie claim to restrict their use of for- 

 eign capital, which was admitted in a convention 

 signed in St. Petersburg on May 7, 1898, but the 

 Russian charge (Faffdirex insisted on the terms of 

 the Cassini convention. When he resorted to men- 

 aces Sir Claude MacDonald, who had already been 

 instructed to press for the insertion in every con- 

 cession granted by the Chinese Government of 

 proper provisions for the equal treatment of all 

 nationals and trade, was further instructed on July 

 22 to inform the Yamen that the British Govern- 

 ment would support the Chinese Government 

 against any power which committed an act of ag- 



