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inconvenience, rather than to risk the practical certainty that, their patience exhausted, and diplomatic procedure unsuccessful, the Chinese will by sudden and violent action solve the problem for themselves in a manner which may be highly disconcerting, both to public and private interests.
As regards the necessity of the step, the same considerations apply. Should the settlement of the extra-territorial question be delayed beyond the end of the present year, there is a considerable danger that the Chinese may take steps to vindicate their position, and to show the foreigner that they are determined to be masters in their own house. They have already discovered that it is possible to compel foreign nationals to conform to Chinese laws and regulations in a manner that would formerly have been held to be quite incompatible with the enjoyment of extra-territorial privileges. Thus, foreign plaintiffs have to observe formalities, such as registration, and pay fees before they can bring suits against Chinese defendants. Similarly Chinese taxation is often successfully enforced upon foreigners supposed to be immune from such exactions. Recently there have been instances where foreigners, although clothed with extra-territorial rights. have been arrested on one ground or another and brought before a Chinese tribunal. Consular and diplomatic representations have, it is true, usually prevailed in the long run to secure the return of the individuals concerned to their national jurisdiction. The Thorburn case, however, shows that the mere treaty right of extra-territoriality may no longer be looked on with certainty to secure the rendition of a prisoner, or even to save a criminal from execution at the hands of the Chinese.
Such incidents will undoubtedly multiply and grow in gravity. Opportunity will be taken to create incidents with the sole object of impressing upon the foreigner and his officials their impotence to enforce the recognition of the special status to which he aspires.
Malicious accusations will be brought by evilly-disposed persons, and innocent and law-abiding foreigners will be involved in civil and criminal cases which they will be unable to defend, and from which their consular authorities will be unable to extricate them, for the reason that there will be no forces at their disposal for such a purpose. It is highly improbable that His Majesty's Govern- ment will resort to force, in any circumstances, to maintain the special privileges of British subjects in China.
From the point of view of wisdom and necessity, therefore, there seems to be no alternative but to meet the demands of the Chinese as regards abolition of extra-territoriality with as little delay as possible.
There remains only the third point the opportuneness of taking the step at the present juncture.
Up to the end of May last, this question could not have arisen. An apparently stable Government was in power at Nanking. Relations with the leaders, both of the North and South, were satisfactory, and there was every reason to suppose that the country was at last going to settle down to the long- overdue business of reconstruction. Suddenly the whole situation changed. The Communist menace in the Kiangsi region became acute, and involved Nanking in large scale military operations. A rebellion broke out in the North, considerably weakening the military forces available for the crushing of the Communist rising, and, most important of all, the powerful Cantonese group, dissatisfied with their declining share of political influence at Nanking, broke away, and established a Separatist Government in Canton, leaving Nanking a mere shadow Government controlling little more than the region of the Lower Yangtze basin. In September the increasing ill-feeling between China and Japan culminated in military action in Manchuria, resulting in further chaos, and at the present moment no one can dare to prophesy what is likely to be the immediate, let alone the final, outcome.
The immediate result of the Manchurian imbroglio has been to stimulate the more extreme section of the Kuomintang, which has a strong Communist taint, to violent action against the Nanking Government, the first serious sign of which has been seen in the recent murderous attack by students on the Minister for Foreign Affairs at Nanking.
There is, therefore, at least a possibility that a violently chauvinistic Govern- ment may come into power, in which case there would be no question of what we are, or are not, prepared to agree to surrender, but how much we are able to save from the wreck, and by what means we are to save it.
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Assuming, however, that there is still time to put the treaty through with the present Government of China, and that ratification by both sides can be secured, the further question will arise, to what, if any, extent can the present or any future Government of China be relied upon to implement its clauses and to fulfil its conditions.
This appears to be a risk which must be taken in any case, no matter what party or faction come into power, or partial power, in China to-day.
It would therefore seem to be wise to endeavour to secure ratification of the treaty we have got, even though the moment may seem inopportune to many of those most concerned. It may be taken as axiomatic that no moment will ever appear opportune to those who consider only their immediate interests and the possibly adverse effect upon them of any change. Delay in this case seems to be dangerous, as it gives the opportunity to extremists on either side to reopen to its widest extent a breach that seemed in a fair way to be healed to the mutual satisfaction of all reasonably-minded men at the time the treaty was first initialled.
Without the safeguards provided under the treaty, the position of foreigners might become intolerable in a very short time. With them, there is the prospect of the growth of a mutually helpful and co-operative spirit between right-minded Chinese and foreigners, which should conduce to the prosperity and happiness of all concerned.
A word as to the time limit for Tientsin and Shanghai These limits are represented as the utmost which the Nanking Government are prepared to concede. In most foreign eyes they are totally inadequate. In the eyes of the Chinese extremists they ought never to have been granted at all. In Judge Feetham's opinion, it will take decades before the Chinese could be considered competent to administer a complicated municipal government like Shanghai.
There are obvious objections to any time limit for the surrender of British extra-territorial privileges in Shanghai. Possibly the only way of avoiding a time limit would be to have no treaty at all, but to allow the Chinese to put into operation by unilateral mandate the terms of the agreement tentatively reached. This is an alternative that we may yet have to face. Treaties, at best, are com- promises, if not hard bargains. In China they have acquired a bad name and are looked upon with suspicion, and are easily susceptible of attack on national grounds. Would it not be equally satisfactory to ourselves if, by prior under- standing with the Chinese, the Nationalist Government were to carry out their decision to abolish extra-territoriality of their own motion by mandate in January next, and in a further mandate under the same date to announce the creation, as of their own volition, of special municipal areas in Shanghai and Tientsin, the conditions of which would be, clause by clause, those laid down and agreed to in the tentative treaty, save only the time clause. This would be gratifying to Chinese amour propre, as she would be acting independently, so far as the public were concerned, as a Sovereign State proclaiming an administrative act, and not as the result of foreign pressure under which she had been forced to concede terms less favourable than popular clamour demanded. Such a course would have the additional advantage of permitting her to legislate in the future for any changes and modifications which experience might show to be desirable.
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