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unconditional grant of the Washington surtaxes, we
recommended that His Majesty's Government should
strongly press the alternative policy of making the
joint protest already lodged at Canton against the
illegal taxes really effective by a show of force, while at the same time declaring that we were pre-
pared to negotiate recognition of any regional
governments in China which would suppress anti-Britisk
manifestations in the territory they controlled and would respect existing treaties pending their revision by negotiation in due form. I telegraphed to you in
this sense on the 20th December.
50. You replied on the 23rd December that my
arguments with respect to the Washington surtaxes
had force, but that they had been fully considered and
appeared to His Majesty's Government to afford no
adequate grounds for receding from their considered
policy which had already been communicated to the
Powers and would shortly become public: that there was no intention of abandoning essential treaty-rights or of negotiating for treaty revision until there
was an established government either of the whole or of part of China, which we could properly recognize and deal with all that was proposed was that we should not stand on the strict letter of such treaty- rights as were non-essential and out of date: that a
show of force against the Canton taxes was out of the question: that as regards recognition of regional authorities, while it would obviously be advantageous if we could come to some arrangement with the Cantonese
which
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