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[This Document is the Property of His Britannic Majesty's Government.]
AFFAIRS OF CHINA.
CONFIDENTIAL.
[35039]
No. 1.
[October 16.]
SECTION 1.
139
Sir,
Foreign Office to War Office.
Foreign Office, October 18, 1908. I AM directed by the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs to transmit to you herewith copy of a despatch from His Majesty's Ambassador at Paris, recording a conversation with the French Minister for Foreign Affairs on the subject of the withdrawal of the international troops at Tien-tsin.
It will be observed that M. Pichon desires to know the present strength of the British force at that port, and the Secretary of State would be obliged if he could be supplied with the information necessary to reply to this inquiry.
As regards the question of the withdrawal of British troops from Tien-tsin, Sir Edward Grey proposes, subject to the concurrence of the Secretary of State for War, to inform M. Pichon that His Majesty's Government do not consider that the time has yet arrived when the general outlook in China makes it desirable to take steps for their immediate withdrawal; and that in any case a decision on the question has been postponed until the arrival in England, in the spring, of his Excellency Tong Shao-yi, a Chinese Commissioner who is at present visiting Japan and the United States, and who proposes to return to China via Europe, visiting England, France, Germany, and Russia, One of the objects of Tong-Shao-yi's mission is, it is understood, to ask for the withdrawal of the foreign garrisons in North China.
I am, &c. (Signed) F. A. CAMPBELL.
1
* Sir F. Bertie, No. 393, October 9, 1908,
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