CO129-351 - Public Offices - 1908 — Page 596

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

589

C. O. T8960

AFFAIRS OF CHINA,

CONFIDENTIAL.

Rre?

[May 11.]

RM 26 MAY 08

SECTION 2.

[16108]

(No. 94.) Sir,

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No. 1.

Sir C. MacDonald to Sir Edward Grey.-(Received May 11.)

Tokió, April 15, 1908. I HAVE the honour to transmit a somewhat striking leading article from the Japan Times" of the 10th April, entitled "Policy of Exclusion in Manchuria." The Japan Times," it should be said, is a Japanese paper, though published in English, and is the organ of the Japanese Foreign Office. The article in question deals with the attitude adopted by the American Consul in Harbin, as reported in recent tele- grams, in which he refuses to acknowledge the Russian right of exclusive jurisdiction in Harbin. Why this question has suddenly come to the front is not quite clear. The American Consul appears to have raised the same question as long ago as October 1906, on the occasion of his first arrival in Harbin. I quote from Captain Salmond's Report, which was forwarded to me in your despatch No. 197 of the 17th September last :--

"Was he " (the American Consul) "going to open the Consulate inside the Russian Settlement or outside

The Consul replied that he would open the Con- sulate inside their Settlement, as they were pleased to call it, but he added that he recognized no Settlement.

"He reported his action to Peking, and was informed that the American Legation bad received assurance from the Chinese Government that the Russians had no right whatever to the Settlement they were claiming."

The American Embassy here, who receive copies of all Mr. Fischer's despatches, state that when the question was recently raised, Mr. Fischer was at first alone in his protest, the Japanese Consul siding with the Russian contention. Eventually the German Consul appears to have stood by his American colleague.

The attitude of the Japanese Consul is perfectly intelligible, as what happens to-day in Harbin may happen to-morrow in Mukden and other towns lying in the Japanese sphere, but the line followed in the inclosed article in supporting the attitude of the American Consul is not so easy to follow as coming from a Japanese. The article first quotes clause 2, Article III, of the Portsmouth Treaty to the effect that Japan and Russia engage to restore entirely and completely to the exclusive administration of China all portions of Manchuria," and then Article IV, in which the two Powers engage "not to obstruct any general measures common to all countries which China may take for the development of the commerce and industry of Manchuria," the very Article which Messrs. Pauling adduced as their strongest argument for the right to build the Hsin-min-tun-Fakumen extension.

I understand that the subject has not been alluded to between the American Embassy and the Japanese Government, but if the Japanese Government should decide to uphold the American contention in support of China's sovereign rights it might at the present moment be a very politic move, when there are so many outstanding questions between China and Japan, and especially in view of the boycott in South China which, though at present not serious, might easily become so.

I have, &c. (Signed)

CLAUDE M, MACDONALD.

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