IMPROVEMENT AT HONG KONG.
FEARS OF GOVERNMENT WEAKNESS.
(FROM OUR CORRESPONDENT.)
HONG-KONG, JULY 1. The situation here is steadily im- proving. There have been no fresh strikes. The tramway service is being extended. More foreign volunteers are lending their aid. The Naval men are handing over the ferries to men of the Mercantile Marine whose ships are laid up.
Canton has been cutting off supplies of vegetables for Hong-kong, but the food, situation is generally satisfactory. Agita tion and intimidation are still in evidence and a pork seller has been murdered and another injured, but there have been no other cases of violence.
Foreign opinion is becoming anxious lest the Government should weaken and allow the strike to end indecisively, a state of things which would probably leave the way open to similar boycotts in the futuro. Another point which weighs with unofficial opinion is that the Government has not carried out the intention with which it was credited to deport strikers and prevent them from profiting by orderly conditions which the Government has maintained. The Government appears to think that the Tentire local trouble is due to intimidation from Canton from which the workers should be protected, wheres unofficial opinion contends that the Hong-kong workers are deeply implicated and that intimidation is not so great a factor w the Government believes.
Canton and other ports are quiet. The big demonstration which was held yester day at Canton carefully avoided Shareen, Canton officials are reported to be actively organizing a boycott of British and Japanese goods.
TERRORISM AT SHANGHAI.
BOLSHEVIST AGENT'S
ACTIVITIES.
(FROM OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT.)
SHANGHAI, JULY 1.
Osamin, the Bolshevist Consul here, in an interview in the China Press (an American daily newspaper), in- dignantly denounces the document found on the Bolshevist agent Dosser as a palpable forgery deliberately invented by the police and inserted in Dosser's belongings. Osernin declares that there is no such thing in China as an Agita- tion Department and says that Dosser is merely the agent of a naphtha ayndi. oste. If so it is curious that be so easily found money for 20,000 tools [over £3,000] bail.
Dosser comes up again for trial on Friday, when important revelations
Further are expected. examination by the police of Dosser's papers leave no doubt of his quality asa Bolshevist agent and the extent of Bolshevist plottings in Chins,
While Shanghai is outwardly quiet the strike is as tenacious as Over. The ship- ping situation is becoming very seriotin. There are now 45 British vessels laid up, not including launches and tenders. Froach vessels are discharging at Chinese wharves, but the coolies are afraid to touch British and Japanese cargo.
The first sign of possible retalia- tion was a notice to-day by the Electri- city Department to the bulk of the con- sumers saying that, owing to the strike, it may become necessary to cut off the Tupply. This means that if the British and Japanese mills are not allowed to work neither shall the Chinese, which at present are fully employed. There is a growing feeling among the more respon- ble foreigners that unless the Powers set drastically there will be no end to the strike. Such action, it is urged, should take the form of a blockade of Canton and Shanghai,
IMES, THURSDAY, JULY
FOREIGN RIGHTS IN CHINA.
AMERICAN ATTITUDE
EXTRA-TERRITORIAL QUESTION.
(FROM OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT.)
WASHINGTON, JULY 1. There has been a further converastion between Mr. Kellogg, the Secretary of State, and Mr. Sza, the Chinese Minister, and, though no hint has yet been given i of the suggestions." Mr. Sze is under- stood to have made, the general policy of the United States does not, for the present, i seem to have advanced beyond a desire that Resolution V. of the Washington Conference, providing for the study of the question of extra-territoriality, shall be given effect as quickly as possible, and the intention to urge this upon the other Powers. I am given to understand that the recent conversations in London have shown that the British Government is iu general accord with this attitude.
As I have already pointed out, action under Resolution V. would have been taken within the time specified if the Chinese authorities themselves had not requested a postponement for a year and the Powers acceded to this request, though in the case of France there was a refusal to accept a definite date. As matters now stand, however, the United States Govern- ment sees no reason for further delay, There is, of course, no assumption in the American official mind that we are yet within reaching distance of abrogation of extraterritoriality, but in responsible quarters it is unhesitatingly admitted that the course of policy should and will be towards ultimate abandonment of these special privileges. Resolution V. calls for a gathering of the representatives of the Powers, who, after examination of the question, shall report to their respective Governments, and the sort of report which would be likely to find favour in American oyes can already be predicted with reasonable certainty. It would call for the codification of the law to be administered within the Chinese bouh- daries as the first step and then for an agreement that this code and not the varying systems of foreign Powers should be administered, whether by foreign officials having jurisdiction over their own nationala or by Mixed Tribunals or by Chinese Judges. The gradual transfer of judicial authority to China might thus be contrived through a period of transition And with the minimum of danger to the unquestionable rights of foreign residents. This is not to say that the United States Government is already committed to a plan of this definite kind, but it is unques- tionably some such cautions development that is hoped for. The process of study and change would admittedly be a slow one, and hence likely to arouse the violent opposition of the more hotheaded Chinese agitators. This notwithstanding, it is the moet that can at present he hoped for and, whatever Senator Borah or sentimental- ists in America may say, seems to be all that would find genuine support in this country.
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