Minister Rockhill to the Secretary of State.
Peking, July 31, 1906.
Sir: On receipt of the department’s cabled instruction of the 24th instant in which you told me to endeavor to secure cordial ccoperation of the Japanese legation in the negotiations now pending for the opening of Antung Hsien and Mukden, I called on Mr. Hyashi, the newly arrived Japanese minister, and discussed the matter fully with him. He is thoroughly posted on all questions concerning China, as he has been for the last seven years Japanese minister to Korea.
I found Mr. Hyashi’s views in perfect accord with my own and he evidenced the strongest desire to see carried out all the steps necessary to insure in Mukden, Antung, and throughout Manchuria perfect freedom of international trade under equal favorable conditions for all nationalities. He admitted freely that the present situation of affairs at Antung—created by the Japanese military authorities having acquired possession by purchase of all the land suitable for a settlement in that locality—was embarrassing, but it must be remedied by his Government. His suggestion that at Mukden the land now held by the Japanese in the vicinity of the railway station should be incorporated in the international settlement is, I think, an excellent one, and I am confirmed in this opinion by friends who have just returned from visiting Mukden.
I may also add that I learn that at the present time the chief import into Dalny and Antung is American flour, which is on the free list in the Chinese tariff. It is being taken to those ports by Chinese junks from Chefoo.
I have, etc.,