"The Foreign Powers have no right to intervene in the matter, because there is an annual surplus of millions of dollars from the Customs revenues collected at the ports outside the territory of my Government, even after providing for the service of foreign debts secured on the Customs.
"There is not and never has been any Treaty conferring on the Foreign Powers. collectively or individually, the right to doterfere with the Chinese Maritime Customs (which is first and last_a Chinese Government service) so long as default is not made in payment of foreign obligations charged thereon. Indeed, it is admitted by the Foreign Powers that the disposal and application of the Customs surplus is wholly a Chinese imternal question. sts "Even under the existing system of semi-control of the Customs revenues by the Foreign Powers—which it cannot too strongly be emphasized is not authorized by any Treaty, but is simply an extra-Treaty procedure imposed by the Foreign Powers—no reasonable objection can be taken to the course which my Government thas resolved. to follow im order to prevent the Chihli Party from further financing
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.