CO129-372 - Public Offices - 1910 — Page 347

[This Document is the Property of His Britannic Majesty's Government.]

344

AFFAIRS OF CHINA,

[June 20.]

0

CONFIDENTIAL.

SECTION 8,

C

21654

[22019]

No. 1.

RECO Regs 15 JUL 10

Mr. Max Müller to Sir Edward Grey.—(Received June 20.)

(No. 180.) Sir,

Peking, June 2, 1910. IN my despatch No. 166 of the 21st May I indicated that, in my opinion, based on a careful study of the various despatches received from His Majesty's consular officers, the persons most deeply implicated in the recent outbreak at Changsha, and therefore most deserving of punishment, were the treasurer, Chuang Keng-liang; the customs taotai, Chu Yen-hsi; and three members of the gentry, Kung Hsien-chiao, Yang Kung, and Yeh Te Hui. I have the honour to enclose a short précis of the evidence in my possession against these five individuals.

In my telegram No. 105 of the 31st ultimo, I reported that a decree had been issued cashiering and degrading certain guilty officials and members of the gentry, and I now beg to enclose translation of a note communicating three decrees issued on the 27th ultimo, as well as a translation of a further decree issued on the 31st ultimo, containing the decisions of the Board of Civil Office as to the penalties to be awarded in the cases specially submitted to them.*

The decrees are based on a memorial presented by Jui Cheng, Viceroy of Hankow, and Yang Wen-ting, the Acting Governor of Hunan, who were, as I have previously stated, specially deputed to hold an enquiry into the causes and circum- stances of the outbreak.

The punishments inflicted are as follows:-

Of the officials, the Governor of Hunan, Ta'en Ch'unming; the treasurer, Chuang Keng-liang; the police taotai, Lai Cheng-yü; the customs taotai, Chu Yen-hsi, Captain Kuei Ling, Lieutenant Chou Chang-tai, Major P'ei Lin, and the magistrate, Chou T'eng, are cashiered; the Changsha magistrate, Yu Ping-yuan, and the Shan Hua magistrate, Kuo Chung-kuang, are cashiered and left at their posts. The judge, Chou Ju-ch'en, and the Changsha prefect, Wang Fengying, are degraded three steps and kept at their posts as an act of grace; while Colonel Yang Min-yüan, who, to judge from all the accounts received, really behaved well, loses his button.

Of the gentry, Yang Kung and Yeh Te-hui are to be immediately cashiered and handed over to the strict surveillance of the local authorities, and Wang Hsien- chien and Kung Hsien-chiao are degraded five steps and transferred to other posts.

In my despatch No. 166 of the 21st ultimo I expressed the opinion that His Majesty's Government should insist on adequate punishment of the guilty officials and members of the gentry, though I have always felt that it would be far preferable that the Chinese Government should take the necessary action to this end on their own initiative without pressure from foreign Governments. This was the attitude I had taken up in the various informal conversations I have had with members of the Wai-wu Pu, and in reply I was informed that a strict and impartial investigation was being held, that the Prince Regent was taking the keenest personal interest in the matter, and that the guilty would be punished without respect to persons,

I had intended to furnish the Wai-wu Pu privately with such evidence as I possessed, but when I came to sift it down and to separate facts from hearsay and generalities, I felt that I was not in a position to give them any reliable information which could not equally well be procured by the Chinese officials on the spot, especially as I knew that His Majesty's consul-general at Hankow had been in communication on the subject with the Viceroy.

As to the adequacy of the punishments, it is difficult for me, after my short residence in China, to form an opinion, but in comparing them with punishments inflicted under similar circumstances on previous occasions, we have to remember, firstly, that no foreign lives were sacrificed, and, secondly, that the Central Government are lamentably weak, and probably dare not deal more severely with the Changsha gentry. I notice that, out of the five individuals whom I considered as most to blame, four receive the severest penalty, viz., cashiering, which, of course, * Not printed.

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