542
Printed for the use of the Foreign Office. January 1904.
CONFIDENTIAL.
Further Correspondence respecting the Affairs
of China.
PART XLVI.
No. 1.
The China League to the Marquess of Lansdowne.-(Received October 3.)
My Lord,
Dacre House, Victoria Street, October 2, 1903. ON the 18th February last I had the honour to address your Lordship in the matter of the dispute between the Municipal Council of Shanghae and the Consular Body, laying before your Lordship particulars of certain breaches of the Provisional Regulations now in force by the French authorities.
Your Lordship in reply, under date 27th February, was good enough to inform me that a report would be called for from His Majesty's Chargé d'Affaires at Peking with regard to the cases I had cited.
My Committee instruct me to again draw your Lordship's attention to the question at issue with the French authorities at Shanghae in regard to local adminis- tration and Mixed Court jurisdiction.
My Committee wish particularly to put forward the fact, that since the Provisional Rules were approved by the Diplomatic Body in June 1902, nothing further has been done to remedy what is admittedly an unsatisfactory position, and one liable to produce serious friction at any moment.
Very strong representations have been made to the China League as to the danger of local disturbances which are likely to arise if the existing state of affairs in the Anglo-American Settlement is suffered to continue indefinitely.
At present any Chinese resident in this Settlement can be taken out upon a warrant from the French Mixed Court and tried and convicted by laws and justice which leave much to be desired, and it has become notorious that French interests are evoked upon pretexts which will not bear examination, and that French citizens lend their names to facilitate such prosecutions and punishment.
The Diplomatic Body has definitely admitted the principle that nativo defendants in the Settlements must be tried, in the first instance, at the Mixed Court of that Settlement in which they are domiciled; in this decision the French Minister has concurred; from which it follows naturally that the local French authorities are bound to adopt this procedure. There can be no good reason, therefore, for the continuance of the present position which is not only unsatisfactory but is undignified, and my Committee beg to express their earnest hope that your Lordship will take steps to remove a grievance which is as annoying as it is dangerous to the native citizens of the Anglo-American Settlement.
I have, &c. (Signed)
A. R. BURKILL,
Hon. Secretary.
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