"The Chinese Government entirely fails to avail itself of its opportunities at this juncture. The local authorities are unable, and the Peking Government is unwilling, to take any initiative. The Wai-wu-pu adheres to its policy of shifting opportunism, as shown by its proposal to the Russian Minister to cancel, in deference to the protests of the Powers, the agreement with regard to the Kharbin municipal regulations concluded on May 10, a proposal unaccompanied by any practical alternative whereby political requirements might be reconciled with the undeniable vested interests of the railway. In this connexion it is interesting to note that, whereas England, America, France, Germany, Italy, and Austria-Hungary refused an unqualified assent to the Kharbin agreement, yet no exception has been taken to the regulations of the Japanese railway settlements, although, without any reference to China, they confer the widest powers on the Japanese authorities, including the right of arbitrary taxation and forcible expulsion." The Russian side of the question was presented in a semi-official statement, made public in October, 1909, as follows: "The representatives of certain Powers which have trade interests in China have, both in Peking and St. Petersburg, expressed doubts as to the rights of authority exercised by the Kharbin municipality. These representatives have endeavoured, in notes presented to the Chinese and Russian Governments on the matter, and in verbal communications, to prove that certain paragraphs of the treaty which was signed at Peking on May 10, 1909, violated the extra-territorial rights granted to their nationals by treaty with China, and further that some of the measures taken by the Kharbin authorities were opposed to the regulations of the international concession which, in their opinion, has been recently established at Kharbin.