CO129-361 - Public Offices - 1909 — Page 192

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duties in connection therewith, and to submit to the police regulations of the concession under penalty of a stipulated fine, the amount of which shall be equal to the highest fine provided for in the respective police regulation.

2. To submit to the German law and jurisdiction in all legal matters connected with his land and his position, as a member of the Municipal community.

3. To guarantee that the obligation under 1 and 2 are also taken over and carried out by his lessees, tenants, or any other person or persons, to whom he may transfer his rights, as well as by sub-lessees, sub-tenants, &c.

4. To obtain the formal consent of the Imperial German Consul at Tien-tsin (Hankow), before any sale or transfer of his property to any person not being a German subject is effected.

5. Not to dispose of his lot nor to grant any interest therein or allow it to be granted to other persons, before such intending buyer or lessee has handed to the Imperial German Consul at Tien-tsin (Hankow), a declaration in writing to the effect that he personally submits to the above regulations, which declaration, if he is a subject of a treaty power, must be approved of by his Consul.

Draft Agreement between the Imperial German Government and the British Government regarding the exercise of Jurisdiction over their Subjects in their respective Settlements in China.

(Translation.)

Article 1. The Imperial German Government declare their Agreement that German nationals who acquire in a British Settlement in China a plot of ground or a right of letting or leasing or any other right of use in connection with a plot of ground shall be subjected to British law and British jurisdiction in all legal matters relating to the plot of ground and their position as regards the Municipality of the Settlement. In matters of the nature in question judicial decisions can only be given in civil process and can only be enforced upon the plot of ground.

Art. 2. The British Government declare their Agreement that British subjects who acquire in a German Settlement in China a plot of ground or a right of letting or leasing or any other right of use in connection with a plot of ground shall be subjected to German law and German jurisdiction in all legal matters relating to the plot of ground and their position as regards the Municipality of the Settlement. In matters of the nature in question judicial decisions can only be given in civil process and can only be enforced upon the plot of ground.

Art. 3. The above Agreement shall enter into force forthwith and remain so till the 31st December, 1919. In the absence of notice it shall be regarded as tacitly renewed from five years to five years.

The notice must be given at least a year before the expiry of the periods of time provided for in the preceding paragraph.

0

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

AFFAIRS OF CHINA,

CONFIDENTIAL.

[11874]

(No. 33.)

No. 1.

[March 29.]

SECTION 2,

Sir C. MacDonald to Sir Edward Grey.-(Received March 29.)

Sir,

I HAVE the honour to transmit herewith copy of a despatch which I have

Tokió, February 19, 1909. received from His Majesty's Vice-Consul at Dairen supplementing the information contained in Mr. Willis' despatch No. 5 of the 6th February to Sir John Jordan on the Harbin Settlement question.

You will observe that the newly appointed American Consul-General in Harbin has informed Mr. Gordon that, whereas the Chinese in Harbin, on the ground that the clause in the leases requiring lessees to pay all taxes that might be imposed was not in the Chinese Agreement, were prepared to refuse to pay, the Japanese Consul- General had issued instructions to his nationals in Harbin that the taxes were to be paid as demanded.

If Mr. Greene's statement is correct, it is of considerable interest as pointing to the probable existence of a definite agreement between the Russian and Japanese Governments for reciprocal treatment in the question of Manchurian Settlements. In any case nothing has hitherto come to my notice so likely to support such a theory.

I have, &c.

(Signed) CLAUDE M. MacDONALD.

Inclosure in No. 1.

Vice-Consul Gordon to Sir C. MacDonald.

(No. 4. Confidential.) Sir,

Dairen, February 8, 1909. WITH regard to Mr. Willis' despatch No. 3 of the 5th instant, which goes forward under this cover, I have the honour to report that the United States' Consul at this port, Mr. R. S. Greene, who returned from a short visit to Harbin last night, came to see me this morning and gave me practically the same information as that referred to by Mr. Willis. Mr. Greene further told me that the clause in the leases requiring lessees to pay all taxes that might be imposed was not in the Chinese Agreements, and that, on that ground alone, the Chinese in Harbin were prepared to refuse to pay. The Japanese Consul-General at Harbin, however, in his anxiety to back up the Russian authorities in their actions, had issued instructions to his nationals that the taxes were to be paid as demanded.

Mr. Greene was of opinion that the Russian authorities themselves were some- what uncertain of their own standing or power, and quoted the following as an instance :-

A Russian apothecary, at a station on the line of the Chinese Eastern Railway, bad refused to pay the taxes, and was duly visited by the Russian police. Instead of immediately arresting him, as they would have done before the war, all they did was to make a "Protocol," and apparently nothing more was done.

I may mention here that Mr. Greene has been appointed to Harbin, in succession to Mr. Fisher, and will take up his duties at the end of this month.

I have, &c.

(Signed) E. L. S. GORDON.

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