ranch line which should be prejudicial to the interests of that
railway'; and, secondly, on the Convention of 1902, between China and
Russia, that no railway should be built from Hsin-min-Tung without
Russian consent. As by the Treaty of Portsmouth, Japan succeeded to the
Russian rights, the projected line could not be built without her
consent. Her diplomatic communications were exceedingly offensive in
tone, and concluded with a notification that, if she was wrong, it was
obviously only Russia who could rightfully take her to task!

"The Chinese Government based its action in granting the contract on the
clause of the 1898 contract for the construction of the Chung-hon-so to
Hsin-min-Tung line, under which China specifically reserved the right to
build the Fa-ku-Men line with the aid of the same contractors. Further,
although by the Russo-British Note of 1898 British subjects were
specificially excluded from participation in railway construction north
of the Great Wall, by the Additional Note attached to the Russo-British
Note the engagements between the Chinese Government and the British and
Chinese Corporation were specifically reserved from the purview of the
agreement.

"Even if Japan, as the heir of Russia's assets and liabilities in
Manchuria, had been justified in her protest by the Convention of 1902
and by the Russo-British Note of 1899, she had not fulfilled her part of
the bargain, namely, the Russian undertaking in the Note to abstain from
seeking concession, rights and privileges in the valley of the Yangtze.
Her reliance on the secret treaty carried weight with Great Britain, but
with no one else, as may be gauged from the records of the State
Department at Washington. A later claim advanced by Japan that her
action was justified by Article VI of the Treaty of Portsmouth, which
assigned to Japan all Russian rights in the Chinese Eastern Railway
(South Manchurian Railway) 'with all rights and properties appertaining
thereto,' was effectively answered by China's citation of Articles III
and IV of the same Treaty. Under the first of these articles it is
declared that 'Russia has no territorial advantages or preferential or
exclusive concessions in Manchuria in impairment of Chinese sovereignty
or inconsistent with the principle of equal opportunity'; whilst the
second is a reciprocal engagement by Russia and Japan 'not to obstruct
any general measures common to all countries which China may take for
the de