Jasper County Democrat, Volume 1, Number 48, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 11 March 1899 — REFUSES ITALY’S DEMAND. [ARTICLE]

REFUSES ITALY’S DEMAND.

Chinese Government Declines to Lease t an Mun Bay for a C< alinjj Station. The Italian demand on China has been refused, and the result may be a combine between Italy and England against the Flowery Kingdom whit h may result in the dismemberment of China. Dispatches from Pekin say: “The tsung li yamen (Chinese foreign office) has returned to the Italian charge d’affaires. Marquis Saivago Raggi, his dispatch containing the demand of the Italian Government for a lease of San Mun Bay on the same conditions as those under which Germany holds Kino-Chou Bay, accompanying it with a letter declaring that the Chinese Government is unable to grant the request. “The demand of the Italian Government for a ninety-nine-year lease of San Muii Bay, province of Che Kiftnz, as a coaling station and naval base, included •Iso a demand for the concession of three islands off the coast of Che Kiang, with the right to construct a railroad from San Mun Bay to Po-Yang Lake and to preferential railroad and- uiiniug privileges within a sphere of influence covering the southern two-thirds of Che Kiang province. “According to the dispatch the action of the Italian Government had caused great excitement there, not only among the Chinese but also among the foreign diplomats, the Chinese being convinced that Great Britain was chiefly responsible for the demand and that it had been made to emphasize Great Britain’s displeasure ■t the turn which the northern railroad question had taken.”