CO129-302 - Public Offices - 1900 — Page 502

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This Document is the Property of Her Britannic Majesty's Government

AFFAIRS OF CHINA.

CONFIDENTIAL.

No. 1.

Az 13 APR 00 [April 2

SBCTION 1.

Sir C. MacDonald to the Marquess of Salisbury.--(Received April 2.)

(No. 29.) My Lord,

Peking, February 6, 1900. I HAVE the honour to inclose herewith, for your Lordship's information, copy of a despatch from Her Majesty's Consul, Canton, inclosing a Memorandum of an interview between his Excellency the Governor of Hong Kong and Li Hung-chang, the newly- appointed Viceroy of the two Kwang provinces at Hong Kong on the 15th January.

I have, &c.

(Signed) CLAUDE M. MacDONALD.

Inclosure 1 in No. 1.

Consul Scott to Sir C. MacDonald.

(No. 4.) Sir,

Canton, January 17, 1900.

I HAVE the honour to inclose, for your information, a Memorandum of the leading features of the interview which took place between their Excellencies the Governor of Hong Kong and Li Hung-chang on the 15th instant.

Mr. Pitzipios reports that the Grand Secretary was most cordial in his manner, and seemed ready to agree to do all that was asked of him. His reference to Kowloon was more or less perfunctory, and he showed very little insistence on the subject.

I have, &c. (Signed) B. C. G. SCOTT.

Inclosure 2 in No. 1.

Memorandum of Interview between his Excellency the Governor of Hong Kong and his Excellency Li Hung-chang at Government House on the 15th January, 1900.

AFTER the usual compliments, his Excellency the Governor adverted to the question of piracy on the West River, and Viceroy Li expressed his intention of taking steps to put a stop to these outrages. He cordially fell in with the proposal for co-operation between Her Majesty's ships and the Chinese authorities, stating that the gun-boats at the disposal of the Chinese Government were few in number, and the public funds insufficient for the maintenance of a large armed force. In answer to a suggestion from his Excellency that, in case of active operations on the part of Her Majesty's ships, it might be advisable to send a Chinese Representative on board the British gun-boats, Viceroy Li proposed the sending of Chinese Deputies conversant with English to act as interpreters, and render any other assistance that might be necessary. His Excellency the Governor informed him that all the British Government wanted was law and order on the river, so that trade could be carried on with safety, and assured him that whatever the British authorities could do to render assistance would be done. If British soldiers or sailors should be killed or injured in actions with pirates, it was the fortune of war; and they would have to take their chance. Viceroy Li expressed a hope that, in the case of criminals concerned in piracies escaping to Hong Kong, his Excellency the Governor would hand them over to the Chinese authorities, his Excellency the Governor replied that he would be quite ready to do so on one condition, namely, that the Chinese should undertake that torture should not be applied, and that the British authorities should have the right to send officers to satisfy themselves of this. Torture had been abolished in the new territory with favourable results.

Viceroy Li readily assented to this, and added that torture was, properly speaking, forbidden by Chinese law, and that he himself was always inclined to leniency.

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