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His Excellency said that he had lost no time in attending to the question, but that he could not prejudice his relations with the Chinese public at the very outset of his administration by taking any hasty action in a matter as to which he was not yet fully informed, and which had excited so much feeling. He had therefore instructed the Shanghae Taotai to investigate the whole circumstances of the affair and report. He must await this report before taking further action. He added that other Powers represented at Shanghae were also concerned in the question.
I expressed my disappointment at having so unsatisfactory a reply to make to you. I reminded his Excellency that the origin and nature of the riots had been long ago fully investigated, and last Juue an arrangement had been come to between the Wai-wu Pu and Mr. Carnegie that deputies should be sent from here to Shanghae to discuss a settlement on the basis of compensation for bond fide sufferers. Surely there was no necessity for a fresh ex parte investigation by the Shanghae Taotai, which would cause further delay. Could his Excellency not proceed at once to carry out the instructions of the Central Government by dispatching the Commission? My instruc tions were to press him to lose no time in doing so.
The Viceroy replied that the deputies would be sent to discuss the matter with Sir Pelham Warren or Mr. Hosie after he received the Taotai's report. The Wai-wu Pu had agreed to pay compensation if it were found that compensation ought to be paid, and it was precisely this question of whether compensation ought to be paid that he had first to inquire into. He laid some stress on what he said were the exact words of the admission made by the Wai-wu Pu-"Taug p'ei tsê p'ei "—and asked me if I understood the phrase. I replied that I understood it to mean that those who ought to be compensated would be compensated, but be demurred to this interpretation, and quoted a story from a well-known play to illustrate the words. In this the rightful Empress. Mother, reduced to obscurity and poverty for many years by injustice, comes as a beggar before the Judge deputed to redress grievances, and, when asked why she does not kneel, replies, "Tang kuei isê kuei” (“If I ought to kneel I will kneel”). Similarly, the Wai-wu Pu had not yet admitted, except conditionally, the principle of an indemnity.
I urged his Excellency at least to indicate at what time the report from the Shanghae Tautai and the dispatch of the Commission might be expected, and I remarked that Mr. Hosie, with whom his Excellency had travelled from Peking to Tien-tsin, was, I understood, still waiting at Shanghae. I could, however, elicit nothing from him except general assurances that he was fully alive to the necessity of effecting a settlement without undue delay. He was specially anxious that no further trouble should arise while the former case was still unsettled. He begged me to assure you that he was in no way trying to shirk his duty or to procrastinate, and that he was confident that an amicable arrangement would eventually be arrived at.
I had the bonour to telegraph to you briefly last night the substance of his Excellency's reply.
I am sending a copy of this despatch to His Majesty's Consul-General at Shanghae.
(Private.)
Dear Sir John,
Inclosure 2 in No. 1.
I have, &c. (Signed)
W. P. KER.
Consul Ker to Sir J. Jordan.
Nanking, November 29, 1906. I HAVE nothing to add officially to what I telegraphed this morning regarding the Viceroy's reply to the representations I was instructed to make as to the necessity of not keeping Hosie waiting in Shanghae, and as to the true version of the agreement with Wai-wa Pu; but I must give you some account of his Excellency's attitude on the question as expressed in remarks which he distinctly said were made in the way of friendly conversation only.
First I should mention that, in saying Mr. Hosic need not wait in Shanghae if he had business elsewhere, the Viceroy explained that you had given him the option of having the negotiations conducted either with the Consul-General or the Commercial Attaché, and that he was quite indifferent as to which of them should be appointed for that purpose. He added that he had still to look out for a suitable Representative to negotiate on the Chinese side.
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The Viceroy's statement that he had urged the Taotai to hasten his report sounded to me rather as the stereotyped Chinese reply to pressure than as indicating a real intention to send his deputies without delay; and when he dropped the official attitude and proceeded to unburden himself of his personal views, I realized how very far he is from admitting the principle of compensation. I need not recapitulate all his remarks on the difficulties in his way, for he seems to have gone over the same ground with you-the impossibility of controlling agitators under the present changed conditions of China, the danger of a fresh outbreak, the obloquy he would neur if, after Chou Fo had staved off the claim for nearly a year, his own first act on taking over office were to demand compensation for his friends the foreigners, and so on. (He said he was already suspected of undue pro-foreign sympathies, and he would assuredly be cursed as an "erb mac-tzu.") He said he would not mind that if he were convinced of the justice of the claim for compensation, but he was not; and he trotted out the old familiar arguments about the unfairness of holding the Chinese authorities responsible for keeping order in the Settlement when they were not allowed jurisdiction there. I told him I could not discuss that question at this stage, as it had long since been thrashed out at Peking; but I could not forbear from reminding him that the claim was made, not on the ground that the Chinese authorities had failed to keep order in the Settlement, but because they had fomented the agitation that led to the incursion of rowdies from outside. This he denied, saying the Chinese had proof that the rowdies did not come from the outside. As for Yuan Tantai, admitting that he was to blame, still he had been prevented from taking up his appointment as Governor of Peking, and had had to retire from official life, so he was already punished.
As I stated in my telegram, the Viceroy, in reply to my endeavour to remove his misapprehension as to the terms of the Wai-wu Pa's engagement, insisted that, according to what the Ministers had told him, they had agreed that compensation would be paid if it should be found that it ought to be paid. This was, he said, what he had agreed to with you, and you had fully appreciated his difficulties, and had stated your willingness to have a full and impartial investigation. The amount to be paid was, he said, a comparatively small matter; it was in order to investigate the principle of compensation that the Wai-wu Pu had agreed that deputies should be sent from Nanking instead of directly instructing the Shanghae Taotai to effect a settlement on the basis of payment of compensation.
I assured him that, whatever the Wai-wu Pu might have said to him, there could be no possible misunderstanding as to what they had said to Mr. Carnegie and to you, for I had raised the point in my telegram, and you had expressly replied that the agreement was that bond fide sufferers should be compensated. It was in vain that I carefully explained the meaning of this; the Viceroy maintained that, even taking the words Ying p'ei che tse p'ei as correct, they did not amount to an admission that compensation ought to be paid.
Speaking unofficially, I asked him whether, supposing the Wai-wn Pu instructed him explicitly that the principle of compensation was conceded, this would make it easier for him to take action. He laughed, and said he could make no reply one way or the other to this suggestion.
As at my former interview, his Excellency expressed in general terms his desire to effect a settlement of this long-standing case, but he gave me to understand he had no confidence that this would be effected by the deputies be was to send. He did not see how the question could be settled except by arbitration. I interrupted him at the first mention of this word, and told him my instructions were not to listen to any such suggestion. He said he was fully aware of this, and did not ask me to transmit it to you, but he observed that if Sir E. Satow was so confident of the justice of his claim, he did not understand why he had objected to submit it to an impartial decision. I made no reply, and I only mention the point here in order to indicate to you the direction the Viceroy's ideas are evidently taking. His manner to me was extremely friendly throughout, and also bis reference to you. He said he quite understood that I had no option but to continue to importune for the dispatch of the Commission.
The only solid crumb of encouragement I carried away from the interview was the fact that from beginning to end the word "Mixed Court" was not mentioned.
I send this letter under flying seal to Sir P. Warren.
Yours, &c.
(Signed)
W. P. KER.
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