CO129-343 - Public Offices & Foreign Office - 1907 — Page 284

[This Document is the Property of His Britannic Majesty's Government.]

280

AFFAIRS OF CHINA.

CONFIDENTIAL.

[3096]

No. 1.

[January 28.]

SECTION

C. O.

6412

Red 20 FEB 07.

Sir J. Jordan to Sir Edward Grey.—(Received January 28, 1907.) Pre

(No. 510. Confidential.) Sir,

Peking, December 7, 1906.

M. BAPST, the French Minister, called upon me yesterday, and handed me a copy of the Foreign Office Memorandum of the 22nd May last, in which His Majesty's Government, in connection with the Nanch'ang riot, called the attention of the French Government to the practice which prevails among French missionaries in China of themselves approaching the Chinese authorities for the purpose of discussing and arranging cases which have arisen between the French missions or their native converts and other natives.

M. Bapst appeared to be somewhat surprised that the Nanchang affair should have elicited this expression of views on the part of His Majesty's Government, as its settle- ment had clearly shown that there was no desire on the part of France to claim any undue rights for missionaries or their native converts. In support of this he produced a French translation of the Proclamation which was issued under agreement between himself and the Wai-wu Pu in connection with the settlement of the Nauch'ang case, and which formed Inclosure No. 5 in Mr. Carnegic's despatch No. 292 of the 4th July last.

This document, he remarked, set forth in explicit terms the status of the native Christians as subjects of China, and deprecated their applying to the missionaries for intervention in disputes between them and other natives.

I pointed out to M. Bapst that the Foreign Office Memorandum dealt, not with the circumstances attending the settlement, but with those connected with the origin of the Nanchang trouble, which was indirectly due to the intervention of a French missionary, and that the document laid special stress upon the fundamental difference which exists between the policy of the two Governments in this question of intervention. Ás illustrating the attitude of His Majesty's Government, I referred M. Bapst to the Legation Circular to His Britannic Majesty's Consuls on the subject, which had recently been published in the press.

M. Bapst said that the difference arose largely from the Agreement of the 25th March, 1899, conferring rank upon French missionaries, and his manner gave me the impression that he did not approve very highly of that arrangement.

I took the opportunity of expressing to my French colleague my sense of the courtesy and friendly consideration which he had shown in his treatment of a recent fracas which had occurred between Catholic and Protestant converts near Ningpo. An account of this incident is given in the accompanying despatch from His Majesty's Consul at that port, and M. Bapst has more than once told me that he had declined to accede to the suggestion of the French Consul-General at Shanghae that a French vessel of war should be sent to the locality, and had discouraged, as far as possible, any official interference in the matter.

I have, &c.

J. N. JORDAN.

i

(Signed)

Inclosure in No. 1.

(No. 10.) Sir,

Consul Little to Sir J. Jordan.

Under a

Ningpo, November 20, 1906. AT the beginning of last month Mr. Rudland, of the China Inland Mission at Taichow, reported that trouble had arisen between Catholic and Protestant converts at Haimen concerning the right to water-chestnuts grown in a public pond. Proclamation alleged to have been issued some eight years ago by the District Magistrate, a Protestant convert claimed the exclusive property in these chestnuts, which claim was contested by a Catholic convert, who appears to have sent his servants

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