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Enclosure 2.
Mr. Wu to Consul-General Sir J. Jamieson.
Department of Foreign Affairs, Dear Sir James Jamieson,
Canton, June 20, 1925. YOUR letter of the 17th was on the following day handed to me by Mr. Wallis. All fair-minded persons, foreigners as well as Chinese, must view with horror and indignation the outrage perpetrated at Shanghai, and I note that you yourself consider these recent happenings as deplorable.
agitators, and of apprehension that political considerations might affect the issue without regard to the actual situation existing in South China. The Chinese ast why foreigners come to China at all if they are not prepared to accept conditions as they are, and it may, at first sight, appear an anomaly that there should be coll cessions in treaty ports controlled solely by foreigners, but, nevertheless, recent events in China have showed how necessary such protection is for foreigners in view of the inability or unwillingness of the responsible officials to afford them reasonable security. In Canton their declared intention is "neither to encouraga nor discourage such societies [e.g., the Anti-Imperial Alliance, &c.], but to make! such use of them as may be possible when the occasion arises.
In Canton, as in Shanghai, the student is quite prepared to sacrifice himself in order to create indignation among the ordinary populace against the enemies of his country, and it is in present circumstances the effects of mob psychology which are most to be dreaded. It has above been remarked that there is no anti-foreign feeling among ordinary Chinese, but it may be aroused to heights of unexpected violence to-day as in the past, by the recital of incidents where the foreigner is cleverly made out to be the aggressor.
Although the Kuomintang are in a decided minority in Canton, they are in control of the official machine, and have succeeded in imposing on the people the party flag in place of the old national colours in token of the fact that the Kuomintang represents the modern Chinese national spirit. Their aim is an advanced Socialistic commonwealth, to attain which unity must be attained Anti-foreign feeling is the one thing which unites all Chinese to-day, and it is easy for those responsible for the troubles and internal wars of the past ten years to divert the discontent on to the heads of the intruding "foreign devil."
June 30, 1925.
[F 4118/194/10]
ANNEX IV.
Mr. Palairet to Mr. Austen Chamberlain.—(Received August 24.) (No. 484.)
HIS Majesty's Chargé d'Affaires, Peking, presents his compliments to His Majesty's Principal Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, and transmits herewith a of Canton despatch No. 44, dated the 22nd June, with enclosures, and an cuclosure from Canton despatch No. 45 of the 23rd June respecting the situation in Canton.
Peking, July 11, 1925.
(No. 44.) Sir,
Enclosure 1.
Consul-General Sir J. Jamieson to Mr. Palairet.
Canton, June 22, 1925. IN continuation of my despatch No. 43 of the 20th instant, I have now the honour to transmit a copy of the reply received from Mr. C. C. Wu, which is manifestly written for publication. In fact, he told me when I saw him yesterday that he was handing the correspondence to the press.
Steamer traffic between Hong Kong and Canton is now completely suspended. Mails and supplies will be carried by naval tugs.
I have, &c.
P.S.-A copy of
my
J. W. JAMIESON.
letter to Mr. C. C. Wu, of tu-day's date, is also enclosed.
J. W. J.
With reference to the meeting in which it was proposed to call a strike against foreigners of certain nationalities and your enquiries as to the reason why the local ationals of these countries can be held responsible, and the grounds on which they are be penalised, it is unnecessary to inform you, in the first place, that the meeting in question being a spontaneous indignation meeting organised by the people, the Government is not in a position to act as its spokesman in reply to you. On the other and, the Government cannot view with apathy demonstrations of popular feeling, ational in extent, in protest against a dastardly act, and I may, on its behalf, state the motives underlying the movement.
While it may, at first sight, seem unjust that local foreigners should suffer for a wong committed by fellow nationals in another part of the country, the ethics of the case will be apparent when it is envisaged in its true aspects. It is a shallow interpretation of recent events if the national indignation is deemed to be directed solely and merely against the act of killing and wounding innocent Chinese demonstrators in the streets of Shanghai at the orders of a foreign policeman. Were that so, a local settlement could easily be found and no national demonstrations would be called for. But the Chinese nation is up in arms against the raison d'être of a state of things which enables a foreign policeman to order the killing and wounding of Chinese citizens. In a word, the protest is not confined to the act itself, criminal and outrageous though it is, but is directed against the system which enables such an act to take place. The indignation is due not merely to the loss of innocent and promising young lives, but to the significance of such loss.
power
The significance is that there exists in China a system which vests the of life and death over her citizens in the bands of a common foreign policeman. A system which permits foreign nations and their nationals to exercise sovereign authority over her citizens within her own territory. A system which places her in a worse position than that of a colony to a foreign Power, worse because in a colony there is, where a good judicial system has been established, justice to be had, while in the case of China, as in the present instance, there can be appeal to none, and because in a colony there is only one sovereign Power who governs with some consideration for the interests of the colony, whereas in the case of China there are nearly a score of overlorde, some great and powerful, others weak and poor, who exploit her for their own benefit without any responsibility for her welfare.
With this explanation, the position ought now to be obvious. If a strike is declared against foreigners in Canton or anywhere in China, it is the public and popular registration of a protest against such a system. It is an error to say that the event took place in Shanghai and does not therefore concern Canton, because the system responsible for the Shanghai event exists in Canton as much as in Shanghai and hence the matter is local to Canton as it is to Shanghai. It is equally an error to plead the non-responsibility of individual foreigners to the event or their personal friendship to China, because the quarrel is with them not as individuals, but as units of the system or in the system. Individual foreigners have in the past rendered and are still rendering friendly services to China, and to the Chinese for which we as individuals and as a nation give them all credit and are grateful. But as long as they enjoy certain rights, privileges and immunities which the system gives them, they are to that extent identified with the system, and, however much our personal sympathies may go out to them, they are necessarily included in the general protest. It is perhaps a confusion of thought to say that this is returning evil for good; we are grateful for the good they have done and we repay them with our thanks, but as units of an evil system they have to take the consequences which that system entails. It may be that they have had no hand in the formation of the system; it may even be that they personally disapprove of and condemn it. But as long as they do not free themselves and us from it, the children, as is said, must suffer for the sins of their fathers. It is
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