9
[This Document is the Property of His Britannic Majesty's Government
308
(2.)
Constitutional Government Committee to Governor of Hunan.
(Telegraphic.) (Translation.)
YOUR telegram of 18th December.
Any agreements contracted between viceroys or governors of provinces and foreigners must be approved by the board concerned, and such agreements cannot be described as of issuing rules and regulations of merely provincial interest. Again, as regards the detailed rules affecting agreements of this nature, the board will depute the viceroy or governor to draw them up. These detailed rules are quite different from rules and regulations affecting purely provincial matters. It is for the board concerned to decide which of such agreements should be conducted by the board itself and which by the province. l'ending the issue of regulations governing this question, it may be laid down that the provincial assembly may pass resolutions only on subjects where the rights of the province are at issue, and in accordance with the rules governing these assemblies. Questions which need reference to a board for their decision cannot, it is evident, be submitted for discussion to the provincial assembly.
AFFAIRS OF CHINA.
CONFIDENTIAL.
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No. 1.
5654
RECO [February 24 FEB IC
SECTION 1.
Acting Consul Smith to Sir Edward Grey.-(Received February 9, 1910.) (No. 9.) Sir,
Wuchow, December 31, 1909. I HAVE the honour to transmit to you herewith a copy of a report which I have sent to His Majesty's Minister at Peking on the Provincial Assembly at Kueilin.
I have, &c.
C. D. SMITH.
Enclosure in No. 1.
Report on the Provincial Assembly at Kueilin.
THE Provincial Assembly at Kueilin consists of fifty-eight elected members, as well as the governor, provincial treasurer, provincial judge, education commissioner, police intendant, and the local prefect and district magistrate, who are members ex officio. The elected members are all persons of some academic distinction, and two of them have attained the Hanlin degree.
The elections did not arouse much public interest, and were barely mentioned in the local press. The Assembly met for the first time on the 14th October in a building specially erected for the purpose in the Imperial city at Kueilin.
Their relations with the governor have not been without friction, in consequence,
as I am informed, of an attempt on the governor's part to restrict their deliberations in certain respects, but I have not been able to obtain details.
The local press has reported nothing of the debates, but the decisions and comments of the governor on the reports addressed to him by the Assembly are now appearing.
The recommendations which have been wholly or partially sanctioned by the governor are as follows: The establishment of additional schools, the contributions to be allotted to the support of schools, alterations in school regulations, the establish- ment of schools of agriculture and silk culture, an increase in the land tax to meet educational expenditure (sanctioned in respect of places where the land tax is now insufficient for the purpose), the suppression of the sale of opium in the second year of Hsuan Tung (which, in view of the financial difficulty of sudden suppression, is sanctioned only to the extent that localities desirous of abandoning the sale of opium before the appointed date may do so).
The Assembly further propose reforms in the abuses of the li-kin system in the province, and the transfer of the provincial capital to Nanning, but the governor declared the former question to be outside the functions of the Assembly, and rejected the latter proposal as offering more disadvantages than advantages.
Two excursions have been made by the Assembly into the region of foreign politics--a protest against the appointment by foreign l'owers of advisers to the Chinese Government, and an invitation to other provincial assemblies to join in a protest against the Manchurian Convention between China and Japan.
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