This Document is the Property of His Britannic Majesty's Government.]
141
CHINA.
February 11, 1928.
SECTION 2.
CONFIDENTIAL.
[F 733/6/10]
No. 1.
Sir M. Lampson to Sir Austen Chamberlain.--(Received February 11, 1928.)
(No. 2266.) Sir,
Peking, December 29, 1927. WITH reference to my telegram No. 1773 of the 24th December, on the subject of the present attitude of the various Powers in implementing their Boxer Indennity policies, I have the honour to furnish the following report, containing such information as I have been able to gather on this question :---
2. A great deal of material in a very useful form on this subject is collected in Chapters 4 and 5 of the Customs publication, published this year, on "The Collection and Disposal of the Maritime and Native Customs Revenue since the Revolution of 1911," by Mr. Stanley Wright, Special Series No. 41, copy of which was forwarded to you in my despatch No. 232 of the 16th March last. Reference to the relevant pages of this work will be made in brackets in this despatch.
United States of America.
3. The 1908 remission of the United States indemnity continues to be paid, direct through the Wai-chiao Pu, to the Tsinghua College at Peking and its allied activities. Under this grant all the students at this institution were originally sent on to universities in the United States of America; now only selected students from the college itself, as well as from other Chinese universities, are so sent. The 1924 remission of the remaining balance of the United States indemnity funds is paid through the United States Minister to the Board of Trustees of the China Foundation for the Promotion of Education and Culture, consisting of ten Chinese and five Americans, and is being used for grants to various colleges in all parts of the country, for the foundation of special professorships at various State universities, for the establishment of a library in Peking, and for the creation of technical industrial scholarships to send Chinese students to factories in America, and similar purposes (see p. 117). This work is going on continuously, and has hitherto been comparatively little interfered with by present conditions.
Japan.
4. Under the Japanese Law of the Chinese Cultural Works Special Account machinery was set in motion for the employment of the balance of the indemnity funds due to Japan in joint cultural and educational objects. These include the building of research institutes in Peking and Shanghai, with a large library attached to that in Peking, and grants-in-aid for sending Chinese students to Japan and for subsidising Japanese-run institutions in China (p. 118). The funds for these purposes are under the control of a special bureau of cultural works functioning under the Asiatic Depart- ment of the Japanese Foreign Office, with a central consultative committee in China, consisting of prominent scholars of both countries, with a maximum of twenty-one members, of whom eleven are Chinese. The actual carrying out of the work of this committee has, however, been hampered by the fact that the Japanese members will not agree to take any action without first obtaining the approval of their Government, while the latter shows a disposition to endeavour to retain the control of the funds in Japanese hands, with the result that very little real progress has been made with the cultural objects above mentioned. The alleged use of some of the indemnity funds for the entertainment of a deputation of prominent Chinese merchants in Japan a year ago was much criticised in the public press.
France.
5. As far as is known the bulk, if not all, of the money available from the balance of the French share of the indemnity is being used for the Banque industrielle
[370 1-2]