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Cypher telegram to Sir A. Clark Keri (Shenghai)
Foreign Office. 1st June 1939. 9.30 p.m.
No. 419.
IMPORTANT.
In my telegrams Nos. 94 [of the 8th May], unnumbered of
q the 22nd May and 409 [of the 30th May].
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I have laid down the general lines on which these terrorist cases should be dealt with. I have given instructions that all future cases should be dealt with after due published warning according to these principles and on evidence satisfactory to the Consul--General. In case of doubt he should follow the usual course of consulting the Embassy. I consider that this should satisfy reasonable Japanese requirements and should place the Consul-General in a strong position for negotiating the question of those terrorists now under arrest, who constitute the crux of the present situation.
2.
Of the latter cases the most important appear to be the four men arrested on information supplied by the Japanese on the charge of complicity in the murder of Cheng. I have never been supplied with any evidence which would justify me in handing these men over to the Japanese or local authorities in accordance with the general principles above-mentioned nor, as far as I know, has Mr. Jamieson. We may not be in a position to allege that their confessions were obtained by torture, but can it really be believed that they would have confessed to the Japanese authorities to two murders except under duress? In any case only two of them seem to have confessed (see Tientsin telegram No. 180).
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