This Document is the Property of His Britannic Majesty's Government.
[B]
# AFFAIRS OF CHINA.
## CONFIDENTIAL.
[24128]
No. 1.
282
Rt 13 AUG 08
[July 13.]
## SECTION 2.
Sir J. Jordan to Sir Edward Grey.-(Received July 13.)
(No. 230. Confidential.) Sir,
Peking, May 26, 1908. SINCE the receipt of your telegram No. 73 of the 2nd instant, I have been in constant communication with my Portuguese colleague on the subject of Chinese proceedings in the vicinity of Macao, but, as my telegrams will have shown you, the facts were, until quite recently, very imperfectly known both here and at Canton.
In two notes, however, dated the 18th and 22nd instant, copies of which I have the honour to inclose, the Chinese have placed their contentions on record, and, broadly speaking, these documents evince an intention on the part of the provincial authorities at Canton and the Central Government here to reopen a question which has formed the subject of a long-standing dispute between China and Portugal, and have baffled all attempts which have hitherto been made to settle it.
By the Protocol of Lisbon of the 26th March, 1887, China confirmed the perpetual occupation and government of Macao and its dependencies; and in the second Article of the Treaty, concluded at Peking on the 1st December, 1887, it was stipulated that Commissioners should be appointed by both Governments to determine the boundaries of Macao; but, pending the delimitation, everything in respect to them was to remain as it then existed without addition, diminution, or alteration by either of the parties.
The telegram from the Viceroy at Canton, which the Wai-wu Pu quote in their note of the 18th instant, states frankly that his Excellency, as a measure of police reorganization, is taking steps to re-establish the military stations which existed in 1887; and it is claimed that the islands near the customs station at Lappa are places where China is justified in stationing troops in accordance with the practice which obtained in 1887.
The note from the Wai-wu Pu of the 22nd instant recites a further telegram from the Viceroy, in which his Excellency charges the Portuguese with having made repeated alterations, which always assumed the form of additions, in the boundaries of Macao as they existed at the time of the Treaty of 1887. It is added, that at the beginning of the present month the Portuguese seized three oyster boats in the river at Yin K'eng, a place which has long been an anchorage for Chinese gun-boats; that they are at present engaged in erecting barracks at a place called Chiu Ao (Colowan); and that after the "Tatsu Maru" incident they removed some floating buoys which were in the middle of the river between Macao and Wan-tzu, and that they have laid down additional buoys in the sea beyond a place called Chi-t'ou Shan.
In communicating the substance of this message to the Portuguese Minister, the Wai-wu Pu request him to move his Government to put an immediate stop to the construction of the barracks, to remove the buoys that have been laid down, and to refrain from arresting boats engaged in oyster fishing.
On the receipt of this communication the Portuguese Minister consulted me as to what course of action he should adopt, and I could give him no more helpful advice than that he should telegraph its contents to his Government and await their instructions. As many of the names of places given in the Canton Viceroy's telegrams could not be identified on any of the maps in this Legation, and the archives of the Portuguese Legation appear to be singularly defective in all that pertains to the question, I suggested, as the only means of arriving at a solution, the examination of the locality and of the documentary evidence that presumably exist at Macao and Canton by a mixed Commission composed of Delegates appointed by the two Powers.
I assured Baron Senda at the same time that he could continue to rely upon our friendly co-operation so far as that could be effectively given without arousing popular agitation at Canton, where, as he knew, there was still a good deal of irritation over the "Tatsu Maru" incident.
[1865]
-21
B