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[This Document is the Property of His Britannic Majesty's Government, and should be 316
returned to the Foreign Office if not required for official use.]
(F.2767/34/10).
TO CHINA.
Cypher telegram to Sir M. Lampson. (Nanking).
Foreign Office.
No. 132. Tour.
May 29th. 1931.
5.45.p.m.
·000-
Your telegram No. 204 Tour (of May 19th: Extra-
territoriality Negotiations, Ratification).
I am advised that the Treaty creates no obligatione until it is ratified. As there is no legal obligation to ratify, the conditions on which and the circumstances in which we shall be prepared to exchange ratifications are matters within our own discretion. In order, however, to avoid charges of moral bad faith it is desirable that we should place on record, at the time that the Treaty is signed, those conditions which we feel essential for the coming into force of the Treaty and without which we should be unwilling to exchange our ratifications. The best method of placing this on record will be a note rather than a clause in the Treaty itself. A note would also have the advantages that, being unilateral, the Chinese government would not have to sign it and, if for political reasons later, we desired to relax any of these conditions, it would be easier to do so.
>
The ratification article in my telegram No. 107 Tour should, therefore, be amended by deletion of all words following "Nanking" in paragraph 2, and you should, at the time of signature of the Treaty, address a note to the Minister for Foreign Affairs in the terms con- tained in my immediately succeeding telegram. This would not be published, so that we could recede from it if
necessary.
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