133
Peking, No. 370, June 15, 1924.
[T 6817/3260/ 378.]
Peking, No. 370, June 15, 1924.
[T 6817/3260/
378.]
Sir R. Macleay,
16, 1925.
36
His Majesty's consul informed the Chinese authorities, in reply to enquiries made in connection with the Tourist Hotel, that Yeap Seng Koon was not a British subject, and he was thereupon arrested and fined. His Majesty's Minister instructed His Majesty's consul to renew Yeap Seng Koon's registration as a British subject. The Chinese authorities, however, refused altogether to admit our claim to protect Yeap as a British subject and even proceeded against him and caused him to be punished by a fine for fraudulently claiming to be a British subject, "thus producing the usual embarrassing impasse, with which we are now only too familiar, resulting from our claiming to protect as British subjects in China persons of Chinese origin, who are held, when in China, to be Chinese subjects by the Chinese authorities."
29. The Brothers Nah, Swatow, 1924.
These men were born in Singapore, their father being a naturalised British subject of Chinese race. Having come to grief in their business and being sued by their creditors in the Supreme Court at Singapore, they absconded to China and took refuge in their ancestral home in the interior near Swatow. They were, however, pursued by their Chinese creditors from the Straits, at whose instigation they were arrested by the Chinese authorities, who insisted on regarding them as Chinese and refused to listen to His Majesty's consul's demands for their release. His Majesty's consul reported on the 24th May, 1924 :-
"I have recently heard that these three men, bound with chains, have been removed under an armed escort from Swatow to Mei Hsien. I have sent in my protest to the Commissioner for Foreign Affairs, but have been accorded no reply."
30. Chen Han Ming, Shanghai, 1925.
Chen Han Ming was born in Australia of parents who had both been No. 102, February born in Canton. In 1925 he applied at the British consulate-general, Shanghai, for registration as a British subject. As he was well known as a journalist and politician who had always passed as a Chinese subject, enquiries were instituted. He at first denied having ever registered as a British subject before, but subsequently admitted that he had been registered at Shanghai in 1915, that, fearing he might be conscripted for service in the war, he had written to His Majesty's consul-general in 1917 renouncing his British allegiance, but that he now wished to become British again because he lived in Chapei (the Chinese suburb adjoining the Inter- national Settlement at Shanghai), and feared that without British protection he might be exposed to extortion in the course of the Civil Wars then raging.
Swatow, No. 14, June 29, 1927.
31. Low Peng Kiah, Swatow, 1927.
Low Peng Kiah's grandfather and father were both British subjects, the former having been naturalised and the latter born in Singapore. [F 6765/6765/10.] He himself was registered as a British subject at Swatow, and the local authorities had on three occasions counter-sealed passports in which he had been described as such. In August 1926 the Bund Reclamation Bureau at Swatow called in question Low Peng Kiah's title to certain foreshore, for which he held valid deeds of perpetual lease, in which he was described as a British merchant. The bureau filled in the foreshore, advertised the sale of the land thus reclaimed, including the whole of Low Peng Kiah's property, and, in spite of the protests of His Majesty's consul, actually sold one section of Low's land. In October 1926 the municipal authorities of the native city of Swatow drove a road through another piece of Low's property in the city, in such manner as materially to reduce its value. In both cases the authorities claimed that he was a Chinese citizen. In June 1927 employees of the Opium Suppression Bureau (well known to be the office of a monopolistic organisation for trading in opium) invaded Low's house without warrant on the pretext of searching for opium. A small quantity of opium was found, and Low was accordingly dragged off first to a police station and later to the Opium Suppression Bureau, where he