CO129-365 - Governor Sir Lugard - 1910 [1-3] — Page 586

578

t

detained, and it has been necessary to obtain from the

Chinese Magistrate a guarantee for their safe conduct to

and from the scene of trial. If this guarantee had been

refused a new dilemma would have arisen, for either this

Government must send them with the certainty that they

probably

would be seized and executed without application for

A

extradition and without the preliminary investigation or

else it must refuse and thereby presumably withhold the

evidence necessary for the conviction of Liang Tou. If as

matters now stand the guarantee which this Government has

succeeded in obtaining were violated and the witnesses

were detained, the Chinese Government would presumably be

within their legal rights even though a breach of faith had

been committed.

Again, if the decision of the

Foreign Office in this case is to be regarded as final what

becomes of the status generally of Chinese British Subjects

:

7.6.

in China, and particularly of persons born in this Colony

of Chinese parents subjects of the Emperor of China whose

status formed the subject of correspondence ending with

Mr. Lyttelton's Confidential Despatch of the 6th. of May,

*

1232

1904 ?

4.

In these circumstances I think

Your