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myself at Nanking. The Americans continued to mark time, while waiting to gather the fruits of our negotiations, a position which was apparently acquiesced in by the Minister for Foreign Affairs, who had shown no particular anxiety to enter into detailed discussions with Mr. Johnson; no doubt because he was still working to get the American negotiations transferred back to Washington in the hope that a common Anglo-American front would thus be more difficult to maintain. In fact, as subsequently transpired, the Chinese Minister in Washington, on the 8th April, had handed to the State Department a draft treaty embodying the greater part of the texts of the articles agreed upon between myself and the Minister for Foreign Affairs on the 27th March. The French Minister, pressed by the Chinese on the one side, and impeded by the unyielding attitude of his own Government on the other, was engaged in obscure manœuvres, involving French interests on the Yunnan frontier as well as extra-territoriality, with the result that he was making to progress whatsoever. As for the Japanese, they had so far made no real attempt to negotiate at all, apparently preferring, as in the case of the tariff negotiations of 1928-29, to await the outcome of the discussions between China and the other Powers.
Visit to Peking over Easter.
26. I remained in Peking for ten days, awaiting your comments and instructions on the texts of the articles provisionally agreed upon and on certain of the outstanding points. Your replies to my telegrams came quickly, and, as soon as I felt myself in a position to resume the negotiations, I sent Mr. Teichman on two days ahead to Nanking in order that the ground might as far as possible be cleared by further preliminary discussions between him and Mr. Hsü-Mo on the subject of the technical points raised in your instructions. Mr. Teichman reached Nanking on the 14th April, and was engaged during the next four days in negotiations with Mr. Hsü-Mo on these technical points.
Meeting with Tientsin Committee on April 16.
27. I myself left Peking on the 16th April, and on the same day, breaking my journey at Tientsin, I held a meeting with the Joint Committee of the British Chamber of Commerce and China Association at that port in order to explain to them the course of, and the position reached in, the negotiations. The committee seemed on the whole well satisfied with the terms we had so far obtained, but were naturally principally concerned to know whether the port of Tientsin would be one of the "excluded areas -as I had the honour to report at the time.
Negotiations resumed at Nanking on April 18.
28. On the 18th April I arrived back in Nanking and resumed the negotiations with the Minister for Foreign Affairs the same day. Taking advantage of the ground already cleared by our respective experts, we were able to settle most of the points raised by you on the agreed texts of the 27th March and to make further progress by reaching tentative agreement, ad referendum to our Governments, on new articles covering immunities for British shipping in Chinese waters, and safeguards in connexion with arrest, imprisonment and trial, the latter on the understanding that our discussions of these matters were dependent on our surrendering criminal jurisdiction in return for satisfaction on all other points, including the reserved areas.
Discussions with Minister for Foreign Affairs about Reserved Areas, April 18. 29, After the sitting on the 18th April, I had a private conversation with Dr. Wang, with the object of sounding him further in regard to the excluded areas, but was unable to make any progress. He repeated his offer of the International Settlement at Shanghai alone for a strictly limited period, and reiterated the impossibility of his Government agreeing to anything more, employing the usual covert threats concerning the dangers of public exasperation if no settlement were reached by the 5th May. On my side, I gave no indication of being able to budge on the full four excluded areas, and countered his threats and appeals with the usual arguments, making use of the statement of the attitude of His Majesty's Government embodied in your memorandum handed to Mr. Sze on the 2nd April, a copy of which I communicated to him on the following day,
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Further Discussion with Dr. Wang Ch'ung-hui.
30. I now allowed a pause of a few days in the negotiations while awaiting your instructions on the work done on the 18th April, and on certain outstanding points on which was still awaiting your comments or redrafts. I took advantage of this pause to call on Dr. Wang Ch'ung-hui, with a view to discussing informally the progress made in our negotiations and sounding him further on the subject of the excluded areas. On this occasion, however, I found him no more forth- coming than the Minister for Foreign Affairs, and the conclusion of a lengthy conversation left us precisely where we had started, I for my part insisting on, and he equally refusing to consider, the exclusion of the four areas.
Negotiations resumed between Experts, April 22.
31. On the 22nd April Mr. Teichman met Mr. Hsu-mo again to work out some points of detail in the ground already covered, and start the usual preliminary discussions on certain new articles, on which your instructions had come through, concerning rights of residence and the publication of translations of the Chinese codes. As a result of these discussions the actual treaty itself began to take shape in the form of the fifteen articles already either agreed to or under discussion, together with attached declarations and exchange of notes. This was satisfactory, as up to this time from the outset of the negotiations only texts of individual clauses had been discussed, without reference to the actual form they would take when incorporated in the treaty, whether as treaty articles, annexes, or attached documents; and in the original Chinese draft of December 1930, something like half of the subject matter had been relegated
to annexes.
Progress made and Agreed Texts of April 27.
32. On the 27th April, having received your instructions on a number of the points referred home, including the important article, on shipping, I resumed negotiations with the Minister for Foreign Affairs and made rapid progress in reaching final agreement, in confirmation of the work done during the previous few days by Mr. Teichman and Mr. Hsü-mo, on the following articles of the draft :--
Article 1: Transfer of Jurisdiction.
Article 2: Special Chambers.
Article 3 Legal Counsellors.
Article 4: Lawyers and Interpretation.
Article 6: Taxation.
Article 7: Arbitration.
Article 8: Rights in Immovable Property
Article 9: Immunity of Premises.
Article 10: Military Requisitions and Forced Loans. Article 11 Shipping.
Article 12
Companies.
Article 13: Pending Cases.
Non-discriminatory Treatment.
British-protected Persons.
Your instructions had not yet been received in regard to the draft we had submitted of article 5, containing safeguards in connexion with arrests, imprison- ment and trial, but on their arrival a few days later we were able to add this article also to the agreed texts.
Outstanding Points: Rights of Residence.
33. There remained still to be dealt with:-
Rights of residence;
Publication and translation of codes; Personal status cases;
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