3-086-019 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The Chinese Question: view of the harbour at Port Arthur, 1898. 'Inside Port Arthur Harbour. Forts; Docks; Torpedo-boats. From a Sketch by Mr. B. Meadows-Taylor, H.M.S. "Centurion". The agreement for the lease of Port Arthur and Talien-Wan by the Chinese Government to Russia, and the right of constructing railways to both ports, was signed on March 27, and the Russian flag now flies at both places...China has yielded to Russia, by a communication last Friday from the Tsung-li-Yamen, or Imperial Chancery and Foreign Office, to M. Pavloff, the Russian Chargé d'Affaires at Peking, all that was immediately demanded. On Sunday, an agreement was signed for the lease of both Port Arthur and Talien-Wan, the chief naval harbours of the Liao-Tung peninsula, to the north of the entrance into the Gulf, to be held by Russia for twenty-five years; and Port Arthur, with its forts, which were disarmed and dismantled but not destroyed in the Japanese war, has now been formally assigned to Russia for a naval station and for the terminus on the Yellow Sea of the great Siberian railway...Port Arthur was hastily quitted by the mandarins and Chinese soldiers at the end of last week.' From "Illustrated London News", 1898.