Our information does not take us any farther than the above but it is quite certain, of course, that the matter will not be allowed to drop at this stage. In fact it may with the utmost confidence be anticipated that the 1923 attempt to realize on a very valuable property will meet with a fate similar to that of the 1921 at-that any would purchasers of tempt. It is highly improbable the undeveloped lots, are unacquainted with the attitude with has consistently been maintained by the Municipal Council and of the agreements which are in existence giving the Russo-Asiatic Bank certain very well defined rights in the matter. In the circumstances, it is obvious that should any title-deeds change hands without reference to these rights held by the Bank they will, to put it on a very modest basis, be legally challengable.
As has very properly been pointed out in the correspondence to which we have had access, this question is not a Russian question at all. It is an issue where all foreign rights and privileges in China, present and future, are at stake. When the foreign landowners in the Concession bought their land from the Russian Government they did so because their newly-acquired' property was situated in territory enjoying extra territorial rights and where they became, automatically, residents," landowners, ratepayers and members of a municipality run on European, modern and democratic lines, with a properly constituted self-government of elective members from among the ratepayers, and control of public works, sanitation, police,. etc.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.