TSINGTAO, Waar is a Free Port? Itis always understood that it is to the foresight and enterprise of the German Emperor himself that Germany owes the possession of Kiaochou, and that it was the decision of Emperor William that Kiaochou, or rather Tsingtao, the Settlement, should be a free port. By a free port most of us, English, Germans, and others, understand an absolutely free port like Hongkong or Singapore; it was supposed that it was the success and prosperity of these ports—where a Custom-house officer is unknown, except that the Chinese are allowed by agreement to direct from Hongkong the prevention of opium-smuggling that appealed to the intelligence the Emperor; and that he saw that to make his new. colony at Tsingtaoa similar success, there should be no Customs there. When Mr.
; Oblmer went up to Tsingtao to establish a branch of the Imperial 1 Martime Customs, the idea of most of us was that it would be situated jon the frontier between the territory
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.