STRAITS SETTLEMENTS.
CONFIDENTIAL.
RECEIVED
30 MAY 1928 OOL.OFFICE
Sir,
GOVERNO
QUI
MAL
STRAITS
CATLEMENTS
52710.
1
GOVERNMENT HOUSE,
St May
SINGAPORE.
April, 1928.
2012
I have the honour to acknowledge the receipt of
your Confidential Despatch of March 5th last forwarding a
copy of a Memorandum which has been prepared by the Foreign
Office on the subject of the protection of Anglo-Chinese in
China and requesting me to furnish you with my considered
views on the whole question and particularly upon the pro-
posals in paragraph 36 of the Memorandum.
2.
I have given this matter long and anxious thought,
and though, judged from the standpoint of the Governments of
British Malaya, the adoption of the course proposed in para-
graph 36 of the Foreign Office Memorandum cannot but be re-
garded as regrettable, I do not find myself in a position to
oppose it.
3. The basic facts appear to be that His Majesty's
Government is not able to declare the Chinese nationality law
to be in itself unreasonable or a violation of the accepted
principles of international law; and further that claims to
protect British subjects or British protected persons resid-
ing in or visiting China, while causing constant friction,
cannot in the circumstances of to-day be effectively enforced
by our Consuls. If this be so, it would appear that we have
neither right nor power upon our side in this matter, and
that the only course open to us is voluntarily to retire from
19.
Dup, to EO.
what has become an untenable position.
The Right Honourable
L. C. M. S. Amery, M.P.,
etc., etc.,
etc.,
COLONIAL
OFFICE.
4.
81