File No. 788/57–59.
The Secretary of State to Minister Rockhill .
Washington , April 29, 1907 .
Sir: I have received your dispatch No. 545, of the 22d of February last, and approve your views as expressed in the communication to the Chinese Government, inclosed therein. It is noted that you request the Wai-Wu Pu (p. 2, note of February 21, to Prince Ch’ing) “to direct the customs authorities to issue exemption certificates to all foreign goods imported into Manchuria which have paid import duty and relieve such goods from the imposition of this tax (consumption tax) at the towns and ports of Manchuria opened to international trade.”
The compliance of the Chinese Government with this request would seem to be but a simple carrying out of an existing treaty provision. Its value would, however, be in formal and more general acquiescence in the effect contemplated by the contention of the consuls at Mukden in this respect.
Your efforts to secure this admission, together with recognition that “residential and trading rights are insured to Americans within the whole of the cities and suburbs of Mukden and Antung” (your note to Prince Ch’ing, February 5, 1907, p. 3), were approved by the department.
The department is fully alive to the importance of gaining the definite adherence of the Chinese Government to the rule that the opening of ports or other cities to foreign trade means their opening in their entirety to such trade, and not merely the granting of commercial rights, privileges, and exemptions within a portion of the area of such ports or cities.
The present attitude of this Government upon the question is sufficiently clear in the light of its reply to your telegram of the 18th ultimo.
If it be clearly understood that Americans shall be permitted to enjoy whatever advantages may be actually enjoyed by other nations, whether as a matter of right or of fact, the proposals described in that telegram would seem quite compatible with our commercial interests.
The department has now also approved your statement in the above-mentioned note, that this Government “would be willing to see the residential privileges of its citizens restricted to suitable settlements, provided that the treaty right to free trade in the cities and suburbs of Mukden and Antung were clearly recognized, and that Americans could therein establish go-downs and conduct business through their Chinese agents free from all inland taxation whatsoever.”
[Page 235]With regard to the statement in the dispatch under acknowledgment, to the effect that a settlement of the customs question is not expected until the delimitation of the foreign settlements at Antung and Mukden has been definitely determined, I would remark that the latter would seem rather to be a question of detail, and that it would be regrettable if the resolution of the more urgent question of principle should be deferred by the complications which may retard somewhat the definite delimitation of the foreign settlements.
It is to be hoped that on such lines the complicated questions of residential areas and taxation in Manchuria will be ultimately settled, there being slight grounds to apprehend that nominally restricted areas of residence will prove in practice more onerous to American interests in Manchuria than in other commercial centers of China, while unrestricted foreign residence might, in fact, be relatively less advantageous to Americans than to certain of our commercial competitors.
I am, etc.,