Page:The Annual Register 1899.djvu/301

 1899.] Germany.— China. [293

Pelews, and a third in the Marianne Archipelago, and to retain the same even in time of war.

4. This agreement is as soon as possible to be submitted for the constitutional approval prescriTbed by the laws of both countries, and to be ratified as soon as such approval has been given.

At the same time an understanding was come to with Spain with regard to the mutual granting of the conventional tariffs in a way calculated to meet the wishes and interests both of German and of Spanish trade.

This arrangement was received with great satisfaction in Germany, and the treaty giving effect to it was passed by the Reichstag without a division.

In China, Germany continued to develop the policy of in- tervention on behalf of German trade which had been started by the acquisition of Kiao-Chau in the previous year. In February Herr von Biilow informed the Reichstag that im- portant concessions of an economic character had been made to Germany in the province of Shantung, principally for the construction and working of railways and for the exploitation of the rich treasures of coal and other minerals which exist in the province, and that the management of the railway to be built from Kiao-Chau to Hoang-Ho, in connection with the Anglo-German Railway from Tien-tsin to the lower course of the Yang-tse-kiang, would be exclusively German. Towards the end of March a German missionary was imprisoned and a German naval detachment fired upon by the Chinese, and prompt steps were taken to obtain satisfaction for these out- rages. The province had been plunged into anarchy by two Chinese societies known as The Red Fist and The Great Knife Sect, who attacked and plundered both the native and the foreign Christian inhabitants. In consequence of the urgent representations of the German Minister and the despatch of a German expedition to the disturbed districts on the coast, the Chinese Government caused the local authorities to imprison several of the leaders of these societies and paid compensation for the insults inflicted on Germans in the province.

In July some sensation was produced by a visit paid by the German Emperor to a French ship-of-war, the Iphigtnie, at Bergen, in Norway ; but this incident did not seem to have any appreciable effect on the relations between France and Germany, in which latter place profound indignation had been caused by the attitude of the French people in the Dreyfus affair and the charges made against the German military attache, Coionel Schwarzkoppen. The visit of the Czar to Potsdam, too, did not contribute to establish a more friendly feeling between Germany and Russia, where a good deal of irritation was felt at the attitude of the German delegate at the Peace Congress. The German Government, however, showed itself wiser than the German nation in paying regard rather to the interests