The far east.

In the Far East this Government preserves unchanged its policy of supporting the principle of equality of opportunity and scrupulous respect for the integrity of the Chinese Empire, to which policy are pledged the interested Powers of both East and West.

By the Treaty of 1903 China has undertaken the abolition of likin with a moderate and proportionate raising of the customs tariff along with currency reform.  These reforms being of manifest advantage to foreign commerce as well as to the interests of China, this Government is endeavoring to facilitate these measures and the needful acquiescence of the treaty Powers.  When it appeared that Chinese likin revenues were to be hypothecated to foreign bankers in connection with a great railway project, it was obvious that the Governments whose nationals held this loan would have a certain direct interest in the question of the carrying out by China of the reforms in question.  Because this railroad loan represented a practical and real application of the open door policy through cooperation with China by interested Powers as well as because of its relations to the reforms referred to above, the Administration deemed American participation to be of great national interest.  Happily, when it was as a matter of broad policy urgent that this opportunity should not be lost, the indispensable instrumentality presented itself when a group of American bankers, of international reputation and great resources, agreed at once to share in the loan upon precisely such terms as this Government should approve.  The chief of those terms was that American railway material should be upon an exact equality with that of the other nationals joining in the loan in the placing of orders for this whole railroad system.  After months of negotiation the equal participation of Americans seems at last assured.  It is gratifying that Americans will thus take their share in this extension of these great highways of trade, and to believe that such activities will give a real impetus to our commerce and will prove a practical corollary to our historic policy in the Far East.

The Imperial Chinese Government in pursuance of its decision to devote funds from the portion of the indemnity remitted by the United States to the sending of students to this country has already completed arrangements for carrying out this purpose, and a considerable body of students have arrived to take up their work in our schools and universities.  No one can doubt the happy effect that the associations formed by these representative young men will have when they return to take up their work in the progressive development of their country.

The results of the Opium Conference held at Shanghai last spring at the invitation of the United States have been laid before the Government.  The report shows that China is making remarkable progress and admirable efforts toward the eradication of the opium evil and that the Governments concerned have not allowed their commercial interests to interfere with a helpful cooperation in this reform.  Collateral investigations of the opium question in this country lead me to recommend that the manufacture, sale and use of opium and its derivatives in the United States should be so far as possible more rigorously controlled by legislation.