File No. 862a.01/2

The Consul at Tsingtao ( Peck) to the Secretary of State

No. 155

Sir: Referring to my despatch No. 143, of July 14, 1917,1 I have the honor to report that the civil administration for the Leased Territory of Kiaochow forecasted therein was substituted for the military administration on October 1, 1917, in conformity with Imperial ordinance No. 175, sanctioned by the Emperor of Japan on September 29, 1917.

The civil administration is established as a department of the headquarters of the Japanese force of occupation and supreme control in the occupied territory is vested, as formerly, in the general in command. Department chiefs and staffs are appointed to attend to every section of civil administrative routine. The Consulate has been unable as yet to prepare translations of the Imperial ordinance and subsequent regulations, but they will be submitted to the Department in due course. I have the honor to enclose herewith a brief biographical account of the principal administration officials.1

[Page 215]

The significance of this change appears to be correctly and concisely summed up in the following sentences taken from the translation of a leader in the Seito Shimpo, the local Japanese organ, of September 24, 1917:

Looked at from a general point of view one fact is most obvious, viz., that the policy of our Government with respect to Tsingtao and Shantung Province has changed its nature of a temporary military occupation and has advanced one step toward a permanent peace basis.

One feature of the new administration seems to be the indication it affords that the Japanese Government considers that there is no more possibility of further war operations in this part of the country, and that they are consequently treating the war-time situation in reality as a peace situation, from a logical standpoint, and that they are therefore adopting a new policy of stimulation by replacing the military administration with a civil organization, thus making it possible to inaugurate future enterprises and plans that can be carried on permanently with continuity of purpose and undisturbed powers, both during and after the war.

I shall have the honor to treat further of the new organization in its relation to what must be recognized as the combined political and economic Japanese expansion in Shantung Province when the translations referred to above have been completed.

Copies of this despatch have been sent to the American Embassy at Tokyo, the American Legation at Peking, and the American Consulate at Chefoo.

I have [etc.]

Willys R. Peck
  1. Not printed.
  2. Not printed.