3-085-926 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The Chinese Question: the Japanese Headquarters at Wei-Hai-Wei, 1898. 'The Chinese loan contract with the Hong-Kong and Shanghai Bank, negotiated by Sir C. Macdonald, the British Ambassador, in consideration for the opening of the Yangtse-Kiang and other rivers of the interior of China to European commerce, and the extension of the Burma railway, was signed at Peking on the last day of February. But Russian influence threatens to defeat this beneficial transaction. Russia demands, for her own part, a perpetual lease of Port Arthur and Talien-Wan, with a railway through Manchuria, while she is intending greatly to augment her military forces in Eastern Siberia. Meantime, Germany seems to demand unlimited rights of occupation in the province of Shangtung, and France may claim some coveted advantages in Southern China. Japan assumes a warlike naval attitude. Trade and finance are much disturbed'. From "Illustrated London News", 1898.