793.94/2589: Telegram
The Consul at Geneva (Gilbert) to the Secretary of State
[Received November 10—12:15 p.m.]
298. Consulate’s 290, November 9, noon. In a letter dated November 5 Yoshizawa denies Chinese allegations concerning seizure of salt revenues at Newchwang and encloses the following text of a telegram from Tokyo.
“As regards the salt revenue of Newchwang the total annual revenue is about $30,000,000. There remains annually a net balance of over $20,000,000, after deducting the expenditure and sums assigned for the service of the foreign loans secured by the tax. This balance had previously been placed at the disposal of General Chang Hsueh-liang who used it for his military expenditure, et cetera.
On October 22nd last the Chinese Committee for the Maintenance of Order at Mukden (see communication from the Japanese delegation dated October 14, document C.715.M.320.1931.VII, page 3) asked the Newchwang salt revenue office to hand over the balance of the tax receipts. The latter office agreed to send the said balance which is at present in its possession together with the net balance of the tax to be collected. Thus the allegation that the Japanese military authorities have forcibly seized the revenue from the salt tax is entirely unfounded. The Japanese military authorities have entirely refrained from interfering in purely Chinese affairs, assuming that there was no reason to object to the Mukden-Chinese Committee for the Maintenance of Order, which discharges these duties in the place of General Chang Hsueh-liang receiving the balance in question from the Newchwang salt revenue office which is also a Chinese organ.
It should be noted that although it handed over the balance in question to the above-mentioned Committee the Newchwang salt [Page 407] revenue office continued and continues to send regularly to the Nanking Government the necessary amount for the service of foreign loans. Furthermore as is well known the salt revenue administration in contrast to that of the maritime customs has become an exclusively Chinese service since the National Government at the end of 1928 reformed this administration without paying any heed to the protests of the interested powers.”