CHINESE AFFAIRS

Otago Witness, Issue 2558, 25 March 1903, Page 15

CHINESE AFFAIRS

. .«. THE GOLD QUESTION. FOREIGN RAILWAYS IX MANCHURIA. LONDON, March 18. The Times says that all commercial nations, ami certainly Great Britain, must refuse to lighten China'b indemnity burden by increasing the new customs tariff by one-third. Belgium, Holland, and France have been granted concessions for railway extensions in Manchuria. j Russia gurantees to China a loan of £8,000,000, to be issued in May. | March 19. ■ France and Russia joined the other , I Powei's iv January in a Note to China ' declaring that any refusal to pay the indemnity in gold would bo a grave violation of the peace protocol, and entail upon Chiua serious responsibility. , The latest attitude of France and Russia as regards the customs question has caused a deadlock at Peking. This | attitude is attributed to the smallne^s of French and Russian trade with China ' as compared with Great Britain's trade, i Cable .id \ iocs j-r-storday stated that Baron yon Riclnhofen, German SecroUry of State for Foreign Affairs, Lad announced in the Reichstag that China recognised her oblifira-

tion to pay the indemnity in gold, at tho same time declaring her inability to do so unless the Customs dues were also paid to the Imperial Maritime Customs of China in gold. The revenues of the Imperial Maritime Customs of China are specially devoted by a. clause of the Peaoe Protocol to the liquidation of the indemnity. France and Russia were eta-ted in another of our cablegrams yesterday to be supporting China in her contention for the payment of -the Customs dues in gold. The difficulty has all arisen out of the depreciation of silver. I