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This Document is the Property of His Britannic Majesty's Government.]
AFFAIRS OF CHINA.
CONFIDENTIAL.
[33528]
No. 1.
C.O.
39169 [September 28.]
[RECT
SECTION 3. 27 OCT 08
(No. 386.) Sir,
Sir J. Jordan to Sir Edward Grey.-(Received September 28.)
Peking, September 1, 1908.
I HAVE the honour to acknowledge the receipt of your despatch No. 356 of the 27th July last, in which you invite an expression of my opinion on the question of the proposed extension of the International Settlement at Shanghae.
My previous Reports (Nos. 279 and 346) will have already placed you in possession of the views which I have formed on this subject, and have indicated the procedure which appeared to me best calculated to attain the desired object.
On learning from Sir P. Warren that the Consular Body proposed to address a note to the Viceroy on the subject, I telegraphed to him suggesting that a deputation should in the first place wait upon his Excellency, and explain to him the reasons which rendered an extension of the Settlement desirable. A formal note, I added, would only meet with a refusal, and make it more difficult to deal with the question here.
Before this message reached Shanghae the Senior Consul had already addressed the Viceroy in the terms of the inclosed note. The Viceroy's reply, copy of which is likewise inclosed, is a flat refusal to entertain the question, and is, from the Chinese point of view, a well-reasoned statement of the case, which will strengthen the hands of the Central Government in resisting the demand.
The Viceroy points out that the present Settlement, which was enlarged to more than twice its original size in 1899, contains an area of 5,350 acres, and he maintains that it is amply sufficient for the needs of the foreign population of Shanghae. A further extension would, he anticipates, entail some hardship upon Chinese who wish to live outside Settlement limits and would find no convenient place of residence.
The Paoshan police may not yet have reached the standard of foreign forces of the kind, but they may be expected to improve in time. It is finally suggested that both sides should lay aside their mutual jealousies and maintain order within their respective boundaries.
The remark that foreign merchants who wish to settle in the Paoshan district can secure land within the area of the commercial mart at Woosung indicates the Chinese attitude in questions of this kind. There is a strong tendency everywhere to resist any extension of privileges which impinge in any way upon the sovereign rights of the Empire, and a corresponding desire to bring foreign residence in localities outside of the existing Settlements and Concessions within the control of the Chinese municipal systems which are being organized, so far with indifferent success, in many parts of the country.
The Viceroy seems to think that the sanitary conditions of the district which it is proposed to include in the Settlement need cause no anxiety to the foreign residents of Shanghae; but my own observations of the locality, made in March last, gave me a very different impression, and convinced me that the Chinese municipal experiment there had so far proved a complete failure. Squatters were living huddled together in mat sheds, and the whole conditions of the place showed little, if any, improvement upon those of an ordinary Chinese town.
The Chinese Government can therefore, I think, be reasonably asked either to improve their administration in such a way as to meet foreign requirements in the matter of sanitation, police protection, &c., or, failing that, to allow the district to be incorporated in the International Settlement.
I have, &c. (Signed)
J. N. JORDAN.
Inclosure 1 in No. 1.
Mr. Siffert to Tuan Fang.
Your Excellency,
Shanghae, July 3, 1908.
DURING the last few years the growth in various directions of the Shanghae Settlement has been continually brought to the notice of the Consular Body. Since
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