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CHINA

PAPER E

No. 1

The Marquess of Salisbury to Lo Feng Luh, Chinese Minister in London (7226) No. 374 Sir,

Foreign Office, 30th May, 1899. I have the honour to acknowledge the receipt of the telegram from the Tsung-li Yamen which you left at the Foreign Office on 22nd instant, complaining of the expulsion of the Chinese troops and officials from the City of Kowloon and the occupation of Sham Chun by a British force.

The following brief statement of what has occurred will explain the action which has been taken by the Governor of Hong Kong in this matter with the entire approval of Her Majesty's Government :-

On 3rd April last an attack was made on an officer of the Hong Kong Government at Taipohu, where mat-sheds had been erected for the accommodation of police and officials of the British Government who would be sent to keep order in the territory assigned to Great Britain under the Convention of 9th June, 1898, In consequence of this outrage, the Governor of Hong Kong proceeded to Canton, and invited the Viceroy to give protection to the mat-sheds and to preserve the peace of the territory until taken over. Measures were taken by the Viceroy accordingly and soldiers sent into the territory, but the protection given was clearly inadequate, as on 14th April the mat-sheds were burnt.

The Governor of Hong Kong having telegraphed to Her Majesty's Secretary of State for the Colonies that he apprehended disturbances, I instructed Her Majesty's Chargé d'Affaires at Peking by telegraph to impress upon the Yamen the necessity of taking adequate precautions against further

troubles.

On 16th April the territory was taken over by the Hong Kong Government. On the same day the Governor of Hong Kong telegraphed that the officer in command of the troops at Taipohu had found posted on the hill opposite a large Chinese force, which had fired on the British troops.

Further attacks were made on the 17th and 18th.

On 18th April the Governor reported that the Viceroy of Canton had declined to reply to a request which he had sent to him through Her Majesty's Consul at that port that the Chinese officials and troops should be removed from the territory leased to Great Britain. The Governor further stated that a force of 600 Chinese troops had been sent into Kowloon City, where they were not required, the need for protection being on the northern frontier.

I thereupon instructed Mr. Bax-Ironside by telegraph to urge the Tsung-li Yamen to send stringent orders to the Viceroy for the removal of the troops, and to impress on them that the results of neglect to observe the stipulations of the Convention would be serious. He reported on 20th April that he had carried out these instructions.

In consequence of further reports from the Governor of Hong Kong, I found it necessary to instruct Mr. Bax-Ironside on 26th April to inform the Yamen that Her Majesty's Government had been most painfully impressed by the recent occurrences at Kowloon and the resistance which had been made to the execution of the provisions of the Convention, that Her Majesty's Government were convinced that the repeated attacks made on the British force by Chinese troops in uniform could not have occurred without effective concurrence on the part of the Chinese local authorities, and that this view was confirmed by the refusal of the Viceroy of Canton to remove his troops from the territory leased to Great Britain and by the capture of Chinese military flags.

Further, that Her Majesty's Government had seen instructions which had been sent from Canton to the Officer Commanding the forts on the coast to the effect that if more than three British men-of-war entered the harbour they were to be fired on.

Mr. Bax-Ironside was to inform the Yamen that Her Majesty's Government would be compelled to ask for satisfaction for these grave injuries, and that they reserved their demands pending further consideration of the form which they should take.

Mr. Bax-Ironside made a communication to the Yamen in the above sense at an interview on 29th April. In reply to his observations, the Chinese Minister indignantly denied that the Chinese authorities were responsible for attacks by local mobs on British troops. Such mobs in the south of China constantly used false flags and military clothing.