Tue approaching departure of Lord Li Ching-fang, to take up his duties as Chinese Minister at the Court of St James', holds out a welcome possibility that some settlement of the long drawn out dispute between the London and China yndicate and the Anhui gentry may be within measurable distant that. Lord Li goes to London with powers to treat with Sir John Lister Kaye: and rumoured, the new Minister's sympathies are somewhat in tothe Anhui side this sprite, the fact even be regarded as hopeful in itself, since the Anhui yentry will be the more likely to abide by his conclusions. At the present time the resistance which is being offered locally to the operations of the Syndicate at the Tongkuanshan mine appears to extend to the superior rulings of Peking. Within the last three weeks the Waiwupu, in compliance with a request of Sir John Jordan, issued orders to the Governor of Anhui, Feng Hsu, that the Syndicate's engineer was not to he prevented from transporting machinery from Tatung to Tung-lin hsien for the working of the mine. Whether H.E. Feng Hsu actually replied to this order, or not, is not stated: but there is no doubt as to the attitude he intends to maintain that all operations must. be suspended antu Lord Li and Sir John Lister Kaye have arrived at a final decision. In the meantime it has been openly hinted that the natives of the Tunglin district will oppose the landing of the engineer if he should persist in carrying out his work. How far the natives will be acting on their own initiative is open to considerable doubt. Obstruction is the more regrettable that the the district during the p: ter has been very severe; and "opportunities of labour would have been certainly welcome to the populace.
The causes of this unhappy pute, which began with resistance on the part of the authorities and has lately developed into active abstraction, date back lover two years, According to th agreement signed between Sir Joh Lister Kaye and the Chief Bureau of Commerce in Anhui, work was to have been begun at the Tung-kuan shan mine within—twoly months of the date of sanction by the that is to y on June 5, according to the Jieate, but, according to. the Anhui gentry, on May 25. If the twelve months were exceeded without work being begun, as the Chinese contest that it was not begun, the concession would be forfeited and the contribution money, able. eon which the agreement was actually signed is plain enough beyond doubt, and the e's contention, that work complied with, within the spe gun, and other coniiti
time, has been allowed Waiwupu to be correct. to the Anhui party it may allowed that there can be some question as to the degree in which work was begun, but not as to fact. For the last two years and four months the yndicate's engineer s Mr. Maguire has been resident a the mine waiting for consent from the native authorities to begin work, since the Syndicate was anxious to have the dispute settled in an amicable way rather than offend native susceptibilities. To this end negotiations have been carried on perpetually both in Shanghai and Peking; and the indicate went so far as to offer to native authorities in Anking, for subscription, forty per cent of the shares in the Company which, backed by some of the leading financiers in London, is take over the Concession. But this offer
therefore, finally instructed its! was curtly refused. The Syndicate, engineer to open operations; and work at the mine, with about thirty coolies, has been proceeding for the last month, in spite of active resistance on the part of the native authorities; who endeavoured forcibly to. prevent Mr, Maguire from removing his machinery from the shed upon the Tatung foreshore, where it was constantly liable to he flooded, to the high ground of the Tungkuanshan; issued orders that no local boatmen were ta work for h and endeavoured to get the Acting Deputy Commissioner of Customs in charge of the Salt Likin Collectorate at Tatung to trouble by reporting him to Governor at Anking for assist-1 Mr. Maguire to procure boats and men.
Resistance to the Syndicate's operations has not impossibly been sharpened by the fact that the Anhui finances are in a bad state, as shown by a recent report of Governor Feng Hsu in which he pleaded that Anhui might be excused from paying its contribution to the Huangpu Conservancy as well as to the expenses of the Travel sioners of 1905- Syndicate's age ment the Anhui Treasury twenty-five per cent of the fits of the Tungkuanshan mine, such resistance is on to kill the goose that lays the gold since the Treasury would scarcely be able to ood terms with any native which might take ap the mine.
But local opposition—is, however, too deeply rooted for such consideration to have due effect, though not too deeply, we may still hope, for some settlement to be practicable even now. The dispute is largely the ancient one of the gold and silver shield. It is not denied that the Anhui officials had, mally, some grounds for a case, though their course of action, during the past two years and more, has virtually put them out of court, On the other hand it must be remembered that the dicate, apart from the justification given to its contentions by the Waiwupu which has been already alluded to.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.