5
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A Memorandum (copy inclosed) in which I proposed a more limited form of inquiry was submitted by me to the Wai-wu Pu on the 1st January last, but its terms were rejected both by them and the Viceroy.
All through the numerous discussions which I have had with the Wai-wu Pu, I have always insisted that the arrest and imprisonment of Mme. Li and the Mixed Court fracas had no hearing whatever upon the merits of our claim. That claim rested upon the fact that the agitation had been fomented by the late Taotai, and that the rioters had come in large numbers from without the Settlement, and this we were prepared to prove. Even granted that Mme. Li's arrest was a mistake, and that her confinement in the municipal gaol was irregular, this, I repeatedly urged, afforded no justification for a riot that took place ten days later, and after the woman had been released and every satisfaction given to the demands of the Chinese Government.
This view, however, did not commend itself to the Wai-wu Pu, and they not only refused throughout the discussion to dissociate the opening incidents from the events which followed, but invariably insisted in referring to the affair as the "Mixed Court
case.
31
It is possible, however, that a modification in the sense desired by the Secretary of State coming from you as a judicial expression of opinion might carry more weight and be accepted by the Viceroy, who will naturally be guided by his Legal Adviser with whom the Chinese proposal doubtless originated. I need not say that I shall make every effort to induce the Chinese Government to accept this or any other modification you may desire to make.
Without an inquiry of some kind, I see no hope of obtaining any settlement of the case, as the Chinese Government, if it has to pay compensation, wishes to justify its action in the eyes of its own people by showing that it only yielded as the result of a full investigation of the circumstances.
I shall be grateful to you, therefore, if you will give the proposal your careful consideration and favour me with your opinion as to how far you regard it as a suitable basis for a inquiry of the kind.
I am sending this despatch under flying seal to Sir Pelham Warren and asking him to place himself in communication with you in the matter.
I have, &c. (Signed)
J. N. JORDAN.
•
The "right" in a quarrel is constituted by the debit balance of blame. That the Chinese inhabitants at present in the International Settlement have this right on their side no impartial man can deny.
In a past generation the lapsi of that generation of Chinese and the expansionary instincts and interests of the foreigners led to the establishment of a foreign community on the banks of the Huangpu. Certain territory was ceded under Treaty by the Chinese Government of the day for the purpose of affording foreigners a pied-à-terre for carrying on their business as merchants and traders with the Chinese, and the area of that territory was restricted by certain defined limits. Commerce being the sole reason for foreigners desiring to live in that area, it became necessary for them to associate with the native inhabitants of the country, and conse- quently, and in process of time, a great influx of Chinese to the International Settlement took place. Thus a mutual interdependence was established between the two factors, based on the convenience and prosperity of each.
In furtherance of this principle of interdependence, and in recognition of the business benefits accruing to its nationals and in some measures conducing to its corporate status of itself, the Chinese Government has twice granted an extension of the original limits of the Settlement, but presumably through lack of knowledge of the convenances which should have governed such Concessions and unfamiliarity with the details of affairs of a description in which the ultra-commercial foreigner of Shanghae is well versed, it at the same time neglected to secure a proper quid pro quo for these extensions. Consequently the purely mercantile class, which constitutes the vast majority of the foreign element in China, and the essence of whose existence is their capacity for driving a bargain, regarded these Concessions as matters of right and not of polity, and resisted any later attempts to amend that bargain, with the result that the animosity and differences which originally led to the foundation of the Settlement have been perpetuated in acrimony and accentuated mainly by pin-pricks of various descriptions based on the alleged inferiority of the Chinese. Thus we have the spectacle of two parties continually at loggerheads, and following on that immutable law before quoted, neither of them is free from blame. But, in the mind of the impartial man, there can be no question as to which is least or ruost blameworthy.
Inclosure 4 in No. 1.
Extract from the "South China Daily Journal" of April 19, 1907.
THE report that the Peking Government has given instructions with reference to the payment of an indemnity to certain foreigners in connection with the disorders in the International Settlement of Shanghae during the month of December 1905, is not only calculated to arouse a considerable amount of interest in the mind of the impartial onlooker, but to create a feeling of intense curiosity as to how far this apparently perennial policy of demanding indemnities from the Chinese Government will be prosecuted.
Regarding the whole matter from a point of view totally disassociated from the purely material interests of either of the parties involved, there are certain salient factors in the controversy which has arisen over this outburst of local rowdyism, which not only have a political but also a moral significance, and which merit the unbiased analysis, criticism, and comment of those who disassociate themselves from Might any connection with that essentially evil idea conveyed by the ancient maxim “ is right, and possession is nine points of the law." From this attitude and without entering too deeply into the minor bickerings inseparable from all quarrels, whether they be between States or individuals, the causes of those disorders which have been historically termed the Shanghae riots may be said to have arisen primarily through the invidious treatment of the Chinese inhabitants by the foreign residents of the International Settlement; and secondarily through mutual misunderstanding of each other's status, character, and idiosyncrasies. There is a fundamental axiom governing all human relations which prescribes that it takes two to make a quarrel, and in every quarrel recorded in history both sides have been more or less to blame.
* Memorandum to Wai-wo Pu, January 1, 1907.
Inclosure 5 in No 1.
Extract from the "South China Daily Journal" of April 20, 1907.
THROUGH forces, the constitution of which it is unnecessary to elaborate herein, the administrative and executive control of this international community became vested entirely in the hands of the foreigner, or rather in a section of the foreign constituents, whose predominant pecuniary interests were such as to qualify them for that control under the accepted European standards. They constituted and set up a form of government familiar to themselves, but entirely strange to their Chinese co-operators, in which any provision for the collaboration of the latter was purposely omitted and stringently provided against. An elaborate mechanism for the preservation of the peace, good order, and well-being of the Settlement was installed, which, however, had as its foundation the theory that the Chinese was totally inferior and subservient to the foreigner. Thus, although the whole community was taxed to provide the funds necessary for these objects, the representations which invariably accompanies taxation in every civilized community was denied to the Chinese. Into the details of the policy which led to this it is totally unnecessary to enter. History takes notice of facts, and facts alone, and no hearsay or irrelevant evidence of the tu quoque order is admitted in a Court either of justice or of equity.
The main instruments in the executive control of any community are the Courts and the police. In course of time it became necessary to constitute a Tribunal which should have for its sole business the execution of justice in all cases in which Chinese and foreigners were concerned. This, under the name of the Mixed Court, has been called upon from time to time to give decisions affecting the life, liberty, and happiness of many thousands of Chinese, and, generally speaking, it has performed its arduous duties satisfactorily from the point of view of preserving order amongst so many thousands, the majority of whom have had but simple conceptions of what methodical
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