8
! This Document is the Property of His Britannic Majesty's Government, and should be
returned to the Foreign Office if not required for official use.
146
(F 1777/2/10)
CLONA.
Code telegram to Sir M. Lempcon,
(Peking)
5.10.p.m.
Foreign Office, 4th March, 1927.
No. 176. (R).
Your telegrams Nos. 323 (of February 23rd;
Treaty alteration) and 365 (of March 2nd).
1
Shanghai Mixed Court. You are authorised
to reply as suggested in your telegram No. 365.
2. Anglo-Chinese. Please see my telegram
No. 36, paragraph 9, and last sentence of my tele-
Eram No. 92. We must, I suppose, take it that there
is no possibility of obtaining any alteration of
Chinese nationality law, and there can be no
question of altering our own. We must therefore
recognise that persons concerned will contime to
be of double nationality, and should aim at a
working arrangement under which Chinese would abstain
from claiming as Chinese citizens certain classes
of British subjects of Chinese race when in China
and would admit our right to treat them as British.
Dutch arrangement provides a useful procedent,
though we could not accept a wording which implies
that any British subjects would lose their British
nationality, which they would retain anyhow even
if we gave up the right to protect them. Dutch
arrangement appears to entitle all persone of
double