}
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When No matter how I look at these arguments, I cannot understand them. evil characters create disturbances in China, foreign residents and missionaries in the country share in the trouble which is thereby occasioned; and if it is said that the Powers are all concerned in such troubles, there is no doubt that such is the case. Having knowledge of the matter and being thus concerned, they should, as Treaty provides, speedily hand over the offenders for trial, and so contribute towards maintaining the interests of general peace and lasting order. Why, then, refer the matter to the Ministers? If you argue that such persons can only be handed over after reference to them, then the Treaty provision referred to is superfluous. If such reference be, however, necessary, how came it that you, being fully aware of Treaty provisions and of international law, in your former reply to me simply said that if Chang and Huang were revolutionary criminals, certainly assistance could be afforded as regards them?
would point out, further, that the Ping Hsiang rebels burned, slew, and robbed wherever they went, exactly in the same way as the Kuanghsi rebels. Are these the acts of political offenders? If these are to be called political offences, then what in International disputes will increase, to future may not be called political offences? the detriment of Chinese and foreign interests, which most decidedly should not occur where parties are desirous of maintaining Treaty conditions.
Shanghae is a great centre of communication between sea and river, and members of criminal societies are gradually coming in to hide here-some of them energetic conspirators, some confederates and forwarding agents for supplies, &c., but practically to excite the popular mind. There has been all employ the word "revolution absolute proof of all this in seizures made of smuggled arms and dynamite by the Shanghae Customs. If the guilty in such cases are swiftly punished, the movement can be suppressed, and security all the better assured; but if delays occur, time is given for the movement to swell and for the evil to spread far and wide.
You and your colleagues are well acquainted with the condition of affairs in China. You say that the Governments of the Powers having Consuls here are very seriously interested in this matter, and I would observe as to this that the conditions making for the security or otherwise of Shanghae have for those Governments an interest still greater. I have the honour to request that you will maintain the position that these men should be handed over, and urge the same upon His Majesty's Minister by telegram, and also represent earnestly to the Consular Body where advantage lies and where disadvantage in this matter, to the end that the offenders in question may be handed over. You will in so doing show regard for international relations, and be acting in the general interest.
I trust that you will do as I request, and be good enough to send an answer to
(Card and compliments of Taotai Jui.)
this letter.
Sir,
Inclosure 12 in No. 1.
Consul-General Sir P. Warren to Taotai Jui.
Shanghae, January 19, 1907.
I HAVE the honour to acknowledge receipt of your letter of yesterday's date, on the subject of the case of Chang Pao Ching and Huang Yi, and to state in reply that I have communicated the gist of its contents to His Majesty's Minister by telegraph.
I have, &c. (Card of Sir Pelham Warren, His Majesty's Consul-General.)
Inclosure 13 in No. 1.
Memorandum by Mr. Barton respecting the Case of Political Prisoners.
ON the 8th January I was informed by the municipal police that two Chinese residents of the Settlement named Chang Pao Ching and Huang Yi had been. arrested on a Mixed Court warrant charged with being members of a secret society
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and connected with the [sic] Tien-tsin bomb outrage. The warrant had heen issued at the instance of the Viceroy, who wished the men sent to Nanking for trial, and the accused would be brought before me on the following morning.
I informed the Consul-General of what I had heard, and received his instructions to observe the usual rule of the Court and see that reasonable evidence was forth- coming before agreeing to their being handed over.
On the 9th January, before going into Court, Mr. Sun, the Assistant Magistrate, whose day it was, mentioned the case to me, laying stress on its importance and the desirability of sending the men to Nanking without delay. I replied that the evidence against the accused must first be considered. He added that, on hearing that the accused had engaged the American lawyers Jernigan and Fessenden, he had made representations to the latter through the American Assessor which induced them to withdraw from the case.
The case was called in due course, and Mr. Home, an English barrister, appeared to defend the accused, Two small military officials sent from Nanking, named Yuan Fu Tsai and Wu Jui Li, testified to the manner of the arrest, and stated that the accused had been implicated by one Li Fu Tsai, who had already heen executed at Nanking. A third witness, named Chang Pei Ting, testified to the identity of the accused.
I now asked Mr. Sun to put certain questions to the accused, with regard to their residence, occupations, &c. This Mr. Sun at first flatly refused to do, saying that the men were charged by the Viceroy, and it was improper and impossible for him to interrogate them. He wished instead to deliver a severe lecture to Mr. Home, at whose appearance he was much incensed, and asked him if he did not know that even in England political offenders were extradited without preliminary hearing. How, then, could he presume to defend Chinese subjects charged with rebellion against their own Government ? On my pointing out his error to him he calmed down, and asked the accused a few questions, from which it appeared that Chang kept a hostelry for students going to and from Japan, and Huang studied and wrote. Both were Hunan men, but had lived in Shanghae for the last six or seven years. They had never been to Japan. Asked whom they were known to, Huang replied, "General Mesny," and Chang, "The newspaper people."
I now asked Mr. Sun whether he had any despatch either from the Viceroy or Taotai giving particulars of the charge against these men. He replied that he had not. The matter being a very secret and urgent one, the Viceroy had sent one of his Secretaries named Hsia Ming Kao to procure the arrest. There was no despatch containing the evidence on which the charge was founded. Mr. Sun argued that the case was so important that the men should be sent to Nanking at once, but I informed him that I could not agree to this until the evidence against the men- especially Li's statement-had been put before the Court.
Mr. Sun said he would report to the Taotai, and the men were remanded in the custody of the police.
As a
Mr. Sun's report to the Taotai represented me as saying that a despatch from either Viceroy or Taotai was required, no mention being made of evidence. result, the Taotai wrote a formal despatch to the Consul-General on the 11th January, stating baldly that the accused were rebel ringleaders, and asking for their surrender.
On receipt of this despatch, the Consul-General instructed me to call on the Taotai and explain to him that what was wanted was a compliance with the ordinary procedure of the Court, and the production of evidence to show that the charges were founded on reasonable grounds. There was no desire to protect the men if they were really guilty.
If this evidence was not in the Taotai's possession, I was to ask him to telegraph to Nanking to obtain it.
I saw the Taotai at his yamên in Shanghae City on the afternoon of the 12th January, and delivered the Consul-General's message. He expressed his gratification on learning that the Consul-General did not wish Shanghae to be regarded as a refuge for revolutionaries. As regarded the evidence, he had not got it, and he was afraid that to telegraph again to Nanking would mean loss of face both for the Viceroy and himself. He quite recognized the rule of the Court with regard to a prima facie case being made out against residents of the Settlement whose surrender was asked for by another jurisdiction, and he was willing to write to the Viceroy and explain that evidence must always be forthcoming on future occasions. On this occasion, however,
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