Note 207 — Chapter IV · PORT ARTHUR AND TALIEN-WAN

Ibid., Nos. 30, 32, 43, 46. Some of the other terms were: (1) the maritime and native customs, salt tax, and likin, as security; (2) a railway from the Burmese frontier to the Yang-tsze valley; (3) a guarantee against the cession of territory in the Yang-tsze valley to any other Power; (4) the opening of some other ports; (5) the pledge that so long as the British trade with China was larger than the trade of any other nation, the inspector-general of customs should always be an Englishman; (6) a freer internal navigation; etc. These terms seem to have been framed so as to protect British interests in China strictly within the scope of the most-favored-nation principle. The demand for the opening of Talien-wan and Nanning strongly prejudiced England against Russia and France, while the Burma-Yang-tsze Railway was unpleasing to France, and the non-alienation of the river valley was sometimes regarded by Russia as a counterpart of her own claims beyond the Great Wall. The whole story of the loan negotiation, as well as that of the Northern Railway extension loan, is highly interesting and important in the recent history of China, but we are here concerned with the bearing of the first loan on the development of the Manchurian question.