Minister Rockhill to the Secretary of State.
Peking, September 8, 1906.
Sir: Friday last (31st August), I called at the Wai Wu Pu and informed his excellency T’ang Shao-i that the department was of opinion that so long as customs houses were not established at Antung, Dalny, and on the Russian frontier of Manchuria where the railway enters and leaves Chinese territory, neither export nor import duties should be levied on foreign goods at Newchwang.
The argument that Dalny and Antung were opened to our trade on the same conditions as to the Japanese was worthless, for the houses which handled our trade were at Newchwang and our trade would continue to center there.
The suggestion now made by me that customs should not be levied at Newchwang was, I said, made chiefly in the interest of China. If this measure was adopted, both Japan and Russia would urge the prompt establishment of Chinese customs; any trade which had been driven away from Newchwang by the fact that Antung, Dalny, or Vladivostok were free ports, would come back to its old channel—Newchwang—if this latter was not discriminated against.
His excellency said that the Newchwang customs were pledged to the powers for the Boxer indemnity, and that it would be impossible without the consent of all of them to suspend collections there. The advantages of Dalny were not only that it was a free port but the Japanese were charging freight rates between it and Mukden only one-half of that charged between Newchwang and Mukden. The suspension of the collection of duties at Newchwang would not help it.
The question establishing customs at Dalny was settled in principle; it only remained to secure an agreement with the Russians and Japanese and fix a date, but that each one wanted the other to act first.
I told him that the uncertainty in which the commercial world was placed as to the probable date when these arrangements would be carried out was particularly disturbing to trade. I thought he was now in a position where he could come to some understanding with Russia and Japan and fix a date for the opening of customs in Manchuria. If this were done, I felt sure that the anxiety of the commercial world would quickly subside.
His excellency said that it would certainly be accomplished by the 15th of next April—perhaps much sooner; but the date he mentioned—that on which, under the Portsmouth treaty, the evacuation of Manchuria is to be completed—seemed the safest on which to count.
Referring to Antung, he said his Government could not establish customs there; there was literally no ground on which to do so, as the Japanese had taken possession of every foot of suitable land.
I have, etc.,