It may be argued that China still holds the right to redeem the railway. It is stated in the Koo-Karakhan principle that "the governments of the two contracting Parties shall settle at the conference,.. the amount and conditions' governing the redemption as well as the procedure for the transfer of the Chinese Eastern railway." 'The agreement with the Bank provided that the railway should revert to China free of all charge 80 years after traffic had commenced, which was about 1904; and that China could redeem it after 36 years, or in about 16 years' time. It is to be expected that the Soviet will allow China to redeem the rail way any time she can raise th money but one considers the Value of the line as it is to-day, there tle Tikelihood of the Chinese Government raising the huge amount required "even in 16 years, let alone to-day. Count Witte stated in his memoirs that it was estimated that when the time for redemption came, the property would cost China over 700 million gold roubles; and even to-day the Government would have to raise nearly $40,000,000 for such purpose. Under these circum. stances, the concession that China now shares with a foreign government of one of the railways in its own territory is not likely to change its status for many years, even if Chang Tso-lin gives the Soviet a right of way in Harbin, Marshal Chang's Romanoffs, The Soviet will undoubtedly insist on the pound of flesh of redemption, That is perhaps the reason why they steered clear of a paper rouble offer which Chang Tso-lin is reported to have made!" When Moscow started negotiations with Mukden after the Wang-Karakhan deadlock, they found the Manchurian warlord in quite an amenable frame of mind. He is naturally keener than the Peking authorities that the affair of brit the Chinese Eastern railway shall be adjusted; and he has sufficient power to insist that he shall be a party to the adjustment. Therefore, the writer understands, when overtures were made to Chang, the Marshal. agreed with the proposal that the agreement that was negotiated between Dr. Wang and Mr. Karakhan be re-negotiated with him; but he went further and suggested that the two parties might anticipate the conference by. also negotiating the purchase of the rail-
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.