Minister Rockhill to the Secretary of State.
(Mr. Rockhill states that Consul-General Sammons reports that it is impossible to agree on the question of international settlements at Mukden and Antung until the Japanese Government has arranged with that of China concerning the status of the present Japanese occupants of the proposed sites. The minister is pressing the foreign office for immediate establishment of maritime customs houses at Antung, near Dalny, and in the north near the Russian lines, so that all foreign trade with Manchuria may have identical customs treatment. The foreign office now promises immediate opening of customs at Antung, and says it has a formal promise that the Japanese minister in Peking will take up the question concerning Dalny within a few days. It will do what it can to protect general trade from the Russian side. Mr. Rockhill says that he will not press the question of the settlement for the present on account of the unquestionable difficulty of the position of China. The trade of the United States will have less grounds of complaint against the Japanese with the customs discrimination against Niuchwang removed.)