M
that
in regard to individual Colonies, it would be
preferable to endeavour to restrict the
discussions with the Chinese to reciprocity with the United Kingdom. If they demurred, it would then be pointed out to them that we could
do nothing else without consulting each Dominion and possibly many of the Colonies; this would inevitable take many months with little prospect of reaching a generally satisfactory conclusion, and that therefore the
Chinese would be well advised to concentrate on the United Kingdom. It was hoped that this
line of argument would be successful.
For the present, therefore, we do not have to consider the question of reciprocity for Chinese in the Colonies.
of the
The British draft/ Treaty (text of 11th September No.1 on 82712) was then examined
-
Article by Article, and it was in fact found that on some Articles it was impossible to give the Chinese reciprocity even in the United Kingdom, and that on other Articles only a very qualified form of reciprocity could be given. The rest of the meeting was accordingly taken up by formulating revised texts of these
Articles on this basis. We shall in due course
receive the revised texts.
The question of reserved areas did not come up for discussion at all, and as the meeting went on for a long time after the Colonial Office ceased to be concerned, I had to leave and accordingly had no opportunity of mentioning verbally the Colonial Office attitude on this question of reserved areas.
All