[This Document is the Property of His Britannic Majesty's Government.]
CHINA.
CONFIDENTIAL.
[F 537/537/10]
No. 1.
[February 6.]
SECTION 3.
Sir B. Alston to the Marquess Curzon of Kedleston. (Received February 6.)
(No. 740.) My Lord,
Peking, December 20, 1921. IN my telegram No. 242 of the 21st June I had the honour to report to your Lordship that Ichang, a treaty port on the Yang-tsze River, situated on the borders of Hupeh and Szechuen, had been looted by mutinous Chinese soldiery on the 4th June, and that serious damage had been done to foreign property, though fortunately no foreign life had been lost.
Little over six months had therefore elapsed since the similar outbreak at Ichang in November of last year, reported in my despatch No. 46 of the 28th January, 1921, and the looting of a treaty port by Government troops twice within such a short period is an event without parallel since the opening of this country to foreign trade.
The absence of any responsible Government from which redress for the past or guarantee for the future could be obtained rendered satisfactory action difficult, and it was not until May last, when the late Military Governor of Hupeh visited Peking, that warning home to the guilty party. During my an opportunity occurred to bring a absence at Shanghai Mr Clive, accompanied by the Chargés d'Affaires of Japan and the United States, called on General Wang Chau-yuan to protest against the delay in compensating the foreign merchants for their hevy losses and against the callous disregard of consequences which he had shown by his leniency towards the mutineers, and especially by reappointing to Ichaug the general who had failed to control the
latter.
General Wang, after attempting to shift responsibility to the Central Govern- ment-which he admitted to be impotent in Hupeh-finally agreed to remove the discredited coinmander within one month, and to proceed at once to a joint assessment of the foreign losses.
The Military Governor had barely returned to Hankow (Wuchang) when the second outbreak occurred at Ichang, followed a few days later by a mutiny at Wuchang itself.
These renewed outbreaks proved the undoing of General Wang, whose removal was demanded by the province, and the efforts of the Central Government-dictated by the northern military party-to support him have now resulted in the resumption of civil war in the Yang-tsze (see my despatch No. 507 of the 1st September), and the claims in respect of foreign losses at Ichang and Wuchang will now have to be added to the long list of unsatisfied demands which has been steadily accumulating ever since the last batch of civil war claims were met out of the Reorganisation Loan
of 1913.
More pressing, however, than the question of pecuniary compensation for past losses is that of safeguards against future danger to foreign life and property, for unpaid troops swarm in the neighbourhood of treaty ports throughout the country, and now that the looting of defenceless merchants has become a recognised means of eeting military expenditure, the difficulty of maintaining that degree of immunity for foreign property which prevailed during the earlier civil war period in China has correspondingly increased.
The details of the outbreaks at Ichang and Wuchang are given in reports from His Majesty's consuls, copies of which I had the honour to transmit to your Lordship in my despatches Nos 361 and 363 of the 28th and 29th June respectively. At Ichang, where there is no foreign settlement, the foreign residents were exposed to grave personal risk, while foreign property of considerable value was once agaiù looted.
As soon as the trouble started on the 4th June a party of thirteen men and two officers was landed from H.M.S. "Guat" for the purpose of guarding the custom- house, which was the general rendezvous agreed upon in the event of trouble, and of escorting foreigners to the ships, should this course become necessary. The trouble
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