Chapter V

EARLY CHINESE EFFORTS TO RECOVER KAIPING (1902-1906)

Early Chinese Reaction to the Loss of the Mines It was not until July 28, 1901, almost a year after the signature of the first agreement with Hoover and about five months after the new company had taken over control of the mines, that Chang Yen-mao, who had not obtained imperial consent for the action he had taken, finally sent in a memorial. He described the difficulties faced by the old company during the Boxer crisis and-very briefly and vaguely-the measures taken by Detring and himself to cope with them. He then discussed with enthusiasm the remarkable results. The Chinese and foreign officers had equal rights. The old debts had been settled. Foreign mining engineers were rehabilitating the mines. Coal was being mined as before and being sent to Tientsin and Tangku for sale. There had been no changes in the established regulations and taxes. Best of all, the flags of the "various countries" (presumably the countries which had occupied Kaiping property during the Boxer troubles) had been taken down and replaced with the "banner of Chinese-foreign joint management."1 Soon after he had thus assured the throne that everything was all right-just two weeks after de Wouters had written that the February 1901 memorandum was without value and that he and Hoover were doing what they wanted2 -Chang and Liang Ch'eng, one of the two Chinese general managers, sailed for Germany with Prince Ch'un. During their five-month absence, 3 it was doubtless easier for the foreigners to ignore the memorandum and consolidate their position. Chang must have known that trouble was brewing in July 1901, when he wrote his memorial, but he subsequently claimed that it was on his return from Germany that he discovered that the company was not being run according to the February 1901 memorandum.4 In any event, the government at Peking was kept in the dark until the end of 1902. There were no memorials from Chang on the subject of the mines between July 1901 and the first moon (January 29-February 26) of 1903.5 This points to the conclusion that Chang was afraid to inform the government that what he had described in July 1901 as a jointly managed Chinese-foreign 85 company had become in fact a foreign-controlled concern. When Chang finally memorialized again early in 1903, he did so to answer charges that he had sold the mines to foreigners in order to enrich himself. 6 It is surprising that Chang was able to keep the secret so long, but he was probably aided by the fact that general appearances at T'ang-shan and Lin-hsi had not changed greatly. There had been foreigners around T'ang-shan since 1878. An exchange of communications in November 1902 between the governor of Shantung and the Wai-wu Pu proves the government's ignorance of the real state of affairs at the mines. The governor asked whether the Kaiping company, which had become a joint Chinese-English concern, should be permitted to open a warehouse at Te-chou, which was not a treaty port.7 The Wai-wu Pu replied that subject to certain conditions it would be permissible, since Kaiping was a jointly managed Chinese-foreign company.8 While the government was still in the dark, Detring and others were trying to work things out with the British company through negotiations, exhortation, and, finally, threats. Ort his return to China, Chang found that Detring had written a number of letters to England about the noncompliance with the memorandum of February 1901, and that these had been disregarded. 9 At a meeting of the company's department heads, apparently some time between September and November 1901, Detring asked that the conditions of the transfer (in other words, the memorandum) be adhered to, but Dugan, the foreign general manager, refused to give his consent. 10 Detring also tried unsuccessfully to get satisfaction from representatives of the London board who arrived in Tientsin on November 1, 1901 and shortly thereafter. 11 In July 1902 Detring wrote Mr. White-Cooper, the Shanghai attorney who drafted the February 1901 agreements and who still served as an attorney for the British company, complaining about the noncompliance with the February memorandum. White-Cooper agreed to write to London and point out the "serious consequences to the welfare of the company of their refusal to comply with your requirements." 12 In the same month Detring warned that he would "take action."13 Soon after Wynne became general manager (in August 1902), the Chinese board announced that it would fight the 625,000 free shares, 14 but the threat seems not to have been carried out. Until the fall of 1902, Chinese opposition to the highhandedness of the foreigners had taken the form of verbal protests addressed to officers of the new