the Dai Han Government, this agreement and all his rights hereunder may be forfeited by the Dai Han Government, in which case he shall forthwith remove all machinery and stores and other property from the places occupied by him, but the buildings and other structures erected by him shall be forfeited to the Dai Han Government, and it may take full possession of said places, buildings, and structures and have and own the same without cost. ARTICLE 13. Count Keyserling may, with the consent and permission of the Dai Han foreign office, given in writing, transfer his rights to another reliable person or a reliable company. In case of his death before such transfer, his rights shall go over for the remainder of the term to his legitimate heirs and successors. But in case of any transfer by bim to others, or by his death to his heirs and successors, such transferees and heirs and successors shall be subject to all the obligations and prohibitions, limitations and penalties of this agreement. Notice of any transfer shall be at once communicated to the Dai Han foreign office, and in case of death of Count Keyserling the names and interest of Count Keyserling's heirs and successors shall also be communicated to the said foreign office. ARTICLE 14. In case any dispute or contention or question shall arise under the agreement, the same shall be settled by arbitration, one arbitrator to be selected by the Dai Han foreign office, the other by Count Keyserling, and if these arbitrators can not agree they shall select an umpire without delay, whose decision shall be final, and the Dai Han Government on the one side and Count Keyserling on the other agree to abide by and perform the award and decision of said arbitrators or umpire. ARTICLE 15. It being necessary for the protection of the revenue that the customs department should depute an officer to reside permanently or occasionally at each of the stations granted by this concession, Count Keyserling undertakes to furnish suitable quarters at each station for the customs officer so deputed, and until such quarters can be built and prepared, Count Keyserling will place a suitable cabin on board any of his ships lying at a station at the disposal of said customs officer and will furnish him with a boat's crew whenever he has occasion to go afloat, Count Keyserling undertakes, further, to pay to the customs at Yuensan a sum of $100 a month to meet in part the cost of providing the customs officer required; provided, that when Count Keyserling is not working at any station no officer will be deputed to reside at such station and no contribution for him will be paid; and provided further, that Count Keyserling must always give ten days' previous notice to the custom-house at Yuensan of his intention to work at any station, so that the officer may be sent with or before Count Keyserling; but if the officer does not arrive at the place before the expiration of the said ten days, Count Keyserling may commence work in his absence at the expiration of said ten days. Should Count Keyserling work whales at two or more stations at the same time, an officer must be deputed to each station and the fee of $100 per month paid for each officer. ARTICLE 16. During the term of this concession Count Keyserling may import duty free, in the vessels mentioned in article 18, below, machinery, materials-including salt and coals-and instruments necessary for carrying on the whaling business mentioned herein. A detailed list of the quantities and values of all such articles, machinery, instruments, stores, materials, and other appliances for use in working whales landed at a station shall be kept by the customs officer on duty. This list will be checked from time to time with the articles, and if anything is found missing and unaccounted for, duty at the tariff rate as originally due will be collected on it. ARTICLE 17. Provisions and stores for the workmen, which shall be sold to the workmen at the actual cost price, plus the expenses for procuring and keeping them, will be purchased by Count Keyserling in Dai Han, except when the prices are very high, in case of famine or a bad harvest, when he may import them from abroad; provided, that no provisions or stores shall be imported except for the actual use of the workmen and employees, and shall not be sold to anyone else. Such provisions and stores brought into a station, if kept and consumed on board the vessels, shall not be liable to duty; but any provisions or stores landed for consumption on shore shall pay duty, and a list of all such shall be made out at the time of landing and handed to the customs officer on duty, who will check it, and, having certified it correct, will forward it to the Yuensan commissioner, to whom Count Keyserling or his agent will without delay pay the duty shown to be due. ARTICLE 18. During the term of this concession Count Keyserling may import and export either in his own vessels or on chartered ones sailing under the flag of Dai Han or of a government in treaty relations with the Dai Han, whales and products of the whale fishing, either raw or worked up, but nothing in this concession shall be construed as giving a license to take whales within Korean waters. ARTICLE 19. 1. All vessels which Count Keyserling employs in his whaling business in Korean waters must at the beginning of each season be reported at the Yuensan customhouse and tonnage dues paid upon them. If it be convenient for any of the vessels employed to proceed to Yuensan herself before payment of tonnage dues, her papers may be examined by the customs officer at the station and his report of the register tonnage accepted as correct. Subsequent payments of tonnage dues before the close of the season may similarly be made in the vessel's absence. 2. In lieu of all duties, import or export, on whales or their products the sum of 20 yen shall be paid by Count Keyserling as a tax on each whale, irrespective of size, brought by him into Korean waters to be worked up. On the last day of each month Count Keyserling, or his representative at the station, shall hand a statement of the number of whales brought into that station during the month to the customs officer there on duty, who, having verified the statement and certified it correct, will forward it to the commissioner of customs at Yuensan, to whom Count Keyserling or his agent will without delay pay the amount of tax due, calculated on this verified statement. ARTICLE 20. The text of this agreement is drawn up in duplicate in Russian, Chinese, and English language, duplicates to be duly executed and signed, and one to be kept in the Dai Han foreign office and the other by Count Keyserling. In case of misunderstanding the English text shall be considered the ruling one. March 29, third year of Kwang Mu. YE EUNG IK, The Chief of the Diplomatic Bureau of Dai Han Foreign Office. No. 201.] OPENING OF THE PORT OF PENG YANG. Mr. Sands to the Secretary of State. LEGATION OF THE UNITED STATES, SIR: I have the honor to report to you that the Korean Government has again refused to keep the promise made last March, that the port of Peng Yang should be opened on the 1st of May. It is difficult to understand their motives. In Mr. Allen's No. 185,1 dated March 23, he informs the Department of this definite promise of the Government, which, I think, you will 1 Not printed. find contained in inclosure No. 4 of the above-mentioned dispatch. Surveyors were sent to mark out the foreign settlement and local officials appointed. The 1st of May passed, however, without a formal opening, and the surveyors and officials were recalled. I spoke to the minister for foreign affairs, and was informed that the Government had decided not to open Peng Yang, giving as a reason that there was "much property in that city belonging to the imperial household." It seemed to me hardly a valid reason, and I declined to accept his refusal, and informed the foreign office that I considered the city open from the 1st of May, and had instructed Americans that they might live there as in any other port where no foreign settlement exists. Since then, in reply to all communications on the subject, I have referred them to my first note, declining to argue the question. After much deliberation at the weekly diplomatic meetings, and after addressing many joint notes to the Korean Government, the other foreign representatives in Seoul decided to do as I did last May. In a dispatch they received a few days since a compromise was offered a site for a foreign settlement to be outside the city and entirely away from the water, a place wholly undesirable and not in any way suited to the purposes of trade, which is the prime object in opening the city. I shall await your final decision in this matter, and in the meantime shall still decline to discuss the matter with the foreign office. No. 136.] Mr. Adee to Mr. Sands. DEPARTMENT OF STATE, Washington, September 12, 1899. SIR: I have to acknowledge the receipt of your dispatch No. 201, of the 10th ultimo, reporting that in spite of the promise given last March that the port of Peng Yang would be opened on the 1st of May of this year, the Korean Government has again refused to open the port, but offers as a compromise a site for a foreign settlement to be outside the city and entirely away from the water, a place which you say is wholly undesirable and not in any way suited to the purposes of trade, which is the prime object in opening the port. In reply I have to say that the compromise offered is entirely unacceptable to this Government. You will continue to urge fulfillment of the promise given in March to open the port of Peng Yang. The excuse advanced for not doing so, that there is "much property in that city belonging to the imperial household," appears to be inconclusive. The fact should have been known in March last, and such interests, if established, could readily have been respected in marking out the boundaries of the promised foreign settlement. Even at this late day it should not be difficult to take cognizance of the alleged fact, and modify the original boundary accordingly without destroying its essential character as a station for foreign trade and residence accessible from the sea. I am, etc., Mr. Allen to Mr. Hay. ALVEY A. ADEE, Acting Secretary. No. 213.] LEGATION OF THE UNITED STATES, Seoul, Korea, November 17, 1899. SIR: Referring to Mr. Adee's dispatch No. 136, September 12, relative to the opening of the port of Peng Yang to foreign trade, I have the honor to inform you that the Korean Government has failed to carry out its written agreement to fulfill that undertaking, and, having exhausted all reasonable measures in attempting to bring this matter to a satisfactory conclusion, the foreign representatives, at a recent meeting, decided to wait upon the foreign minister in a body and once more attempt to come to some amicabie and satisfactory agreement, failing in which we were to declare our intention of regarding the whole city of Peng Yang as open to foreign trade and residence, and to inform his excellency that we would protect our people in their right to enjoy these privileges in pursuance of the imperial decree opening the place to trade. We waited upon the foreign minister on the 4th instant, but got absolutely no satisfaction whatever, even upon our announcement of the alternative to which we would be driven. We therefore each addressed a note to the foreign minister in the same sense, citing the whole circumstances of the case and announcing our intention, in the absence of any suitable provision for a foreign settlement, of regarding the city of Peng Yang in the position as is Seoul, and of protecting our people in their right to reside and carry on trade at that place. I have the honor to hand you inclosed a copy of my note of the 16th instant to that effect. I have, etc., [Inclosure.] HORACE N. ALLEN, Mr. Allen to the Foreign Minister. LEGATION OF THE UNITED STATES, YOUR EXCELLENCY: I have the honor to refer your excellency to the correspondence which has taken place between yourself and the foreign representatives at Seoul respecting the question of the opening of the city of Peng Yang, and to intimate to you the decision which myse.f and my colleagues have been reluctantly compelled to take in view of the failure of your excellency's Government to give effect to the promise contained in your predecessor's dispatch of the 29th of May, 1898. Nearly eighteen months have elapsed since the Korean Government, in the above-mentioned dispatch, announced its intention of opening a trade mart in the city of Peng Yang. Nothing was done to fulfill this undertaking until the 15th of April last, when your excellency notified the foreign representatives of the selection of Sa Hou Chong as the site of the proposed trade mart. This place, which is some li (15 miles) distant from Peng Yang, was naturally rejected, and your excellency was reminded that this mart was to be established within the city. Notwithstanding this, you wrote two months later, on the 23d of June, proposing to substitute a place called Yang Chi Ko, also lying some distance from the city, and consequently liable to all the objections of the previous selection. It was not until the 20th of July last, considerably more than a year after the date of the original undertaking, that your excellency finally admitted the propriety of locating the mart within the city, but the admission was robbed of its value and virtually neutralized by your selecting a quarter of the city which was much too restricted in area, unprovided with water frontage, and otherwise entirely unsuited for the purposes of trade. Anxious to meet the views of the Korean Government and to bring the question to a settlement, the foreign representatives, in their note of the 31st of July, submitted a counter proposal in the nature of a compromise, which, in its turn, was rejected by your excellency. As a final effort, the foreign representatives, on the 8th of September last, suggested to your excellency that a member of the customs service should be dispatched to Peng Yang to select a suitable site. Having received no acknowledgment of this communication, the foreign representatives waited upon your excellency at the foreign office on the 4th instant, and the Japanese minister, as doyen of the body, made various proposals with the view of arriving at an amicable solution of the question, all of which your excellency declined to entertain. My colleagues and myself have exhausted all our efforts in endeavoring to induce the Korean Government to carry out their undertaking, and while still prepared to consider any reasonable proposals which you may offer, we can not acquiesce any longer in the denial by the Korean Government of the rights already granted to foreigners in Peng Yang. The case seems to me to be analogous to that of Seoul, of which the British treaty, Article IV, section 1, says: The city of Hanyang (Seoul) and the town of Yangwachin, or such other place in that neighborhood as may be deemed desirable, shall, from the day on which this treaty comes into operation, be opened to British commerce." Yangwachin or other place was never selected, and while no foreign settlement was ever laid out in Seoul, foreigners have, by virtue of the above provision, been allowed to reside and do business anywhere within the city limits and within the 10-li radius thereof. In absence of any satisfactory arrangement for a settlement at Peng Yang, I am therefore, in pursuance of the decree of your Government opening that place to trade, compelled to regard Peng Yang in the same status as is Seoul, and allow American citizens to reside and do business anywhere within the city and treaty limits, and I shall protect them in such rights. I am warranted in this action by definite instructions from my Government. Replying to a dispatch relative to the distant site Sa Hou Chong, my Government states that the compromise is entirely unacceptable to this Government." and I was instructed to "urge the fulfillment of the promise given in March last to open the port of Peng Yang. The excuse advanced for not doing so, that there is 'much property in that city belonging to the household' appears to be inconclusive. The fact should have been known in March last and such interests, if estab lished, could easily have been respected by marking out the boundaries of the proposed settlement." A course which your excellency has so far declined to take. I have, etc., HORACE N. ALLEN. TREATY BETWEEN KOREA AND CHINA. Mr. Allen to Mr. Hay. No. 215.] LEGATION OF THE UNITED STATES, SIR: I have the honor to hand you inclosed, a copy of a translation of the new treaty between Korea and China, which has been signed and now only awaits being exchanged. |