File No. 861.77/548

The Ambassador in Japan (Morris) to the Secretary of State

[Telegram]

Three telegrams received to-day by Stevens from Emerson summarized as follows:

The Russian officials of the Trans-Baikal Railway report that their organization is completely demoralized. Employees have not been paid for two or three months and on that account engineers, trainmen, operatives, and mechanics have left the service in large numbers. Forty per cent of locomotives are either in need of repairs or are useless because there is not sufficient oil or waste for packing. The result is a complete blockade of freight and passenger traffic apart from the few trains used for military purposes. A similar blockade exists on the Chinese Eastern due to the same causes. Japanese officials have appealed to Horvat to resume management and General Otani2 has issued instructions to Japanese commanders of various divisions that hereafter they must not interfere with or give instructions to Russian railway officials.

Mr. Stevens interprets these facts as indicating the betraying of both the Chinese Eastern and Trans-Baikal Railways. He had been consistently predicting that this result was inevitable unless some arrangement could be reached promptly for the management of the roads in the interest of the Russian people. He explains the belated [Page 284] order of General Otani as (1) an admission of Japanese interference during the past four months and (2) the first step in railway program to take over the direct operation of the Chinese Eastern and Trans-Baikal as far as Chita. Kinoshita stated to Stevens over two months ago that they had railway crews available and prior to this a training school for Japanese railway men was opened at Mukden to teach Russian language and methods. Stevens looks forward confidently to the next move in the program which will take the form of an announcement that Horvat has failed (as fail he must unaided) to operate the Chinese Eastern and that military necessity required the placing of Japanese crews on all trains. He believes that this will mark the completion of a well-thought-out plan to absorb Russia’s interests in Chinese Eastern and at the same time give to Japan the control of all economic activities in northern Manchuria and eastern Siberia. Hence justified in thus submitting Mr. Stevens’s views for the consideration of the Department as he has unusual opportunities of observation and has predicted each railway move thus far made with extraordinary accuracy.

Morris
  1. Gen. Kikuzo Otani of the Japanese Army, senior officer of the Allied forces in Siberia.