CO129-372 - Public Offices - 1910 — Page 71

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

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AFFAIRS OF CHINA.

CONFIDENTIAL.

[15022]

¡No. 1.

15575

RECE [May 2.

REGE 23 MAY 10,

SECTION 1.

Mr. Max Müller to Sir Edward Grey.-(Received May 2.)

(No. 108. Confidential.) Sir,

Peking, April 14, 1910. I HAVE the honour to acknowledge the receipt of your despatch No. 86 of the 10th ultimo, enclosing a copy of a memorandum on the political situation drawn up by Mr. E. S. Little.

This memorandum was written in the middle of January, and Mr. Little at that time kindly forwarded a copy of it to Sir John Jordan. I had just returned from the Yang-tsze Valley, and in a private leter to Sir F. Campbell, dated the 13th February, I mentioned certain alarmist rumours in regard to the threatened partition of China which had come to my ears, and about the same time, in my despatch No. 53 of the 18th February, which had not reached you when you wrote your despatch No. 86 of the 10th March, I drew special attention to the paragraphs in Mr. Seeds' general summary dealing with this question. Mr. Seeds' remarks were based on the intelligence reports received from His Majesty's consular officers in the early part of the winter, at the very time that Mr. Little was collecting alarmist rumours along the Yang-tsze Valley.

It is well known how difficult, if not impossible, it is for the foreign legations in Peking to obtain for themselves reliable information as to the state of feeling in the provinces, but our many consuls posted along the Yang-tsze are alive to the necessity of keeping His Majesty's Minister fully informed as to the possibility of any movement which might threaten the lives and property of foreign residents. From the reports received it was evident that the anti-foreign feeling in the Yang-tsze Valley was a factor to be reckoned with, and that it was being fostered by the wilful misrepresentations as to foreign policy disseminated by the native press and other means, by the subversive speeches of the returned student class and the supineness of the Central Government. Nevertheless, the whole tone of Mr. Little's memorandum appeared to me to be too alarmist and to convey too exaggerated a picture of existing conditions to warrant my forwarding it to you.

Since the commencement of February the alarmist rumours which were prevalent in the Yang-tsze Valley when I was travelling appear to have died away, to judge from the latest intelligence reports received.

I have, nevertheless, in obedience to your instructions, forwarded a copy of Mr. Little's memorandum to His Majesty's consular officers at the most important centres in China, and have requested them to furnish me information on the general situation in their respective districts, especially in regard to any anti-foreign agitation such as Mr. Little has depicted. The consular officers whom I have selected are His Majesty's consuls-general at Shanghae, Canton, Hankow, and Chengtu, and His Majesty's consul at Nanking. It will, however, be some time before their reports reach me, and I therefore venture to submit the following remarks of my own on this important question. In doing so I feel that I am treading on very dangerous ground, where even the oldest residents in this country may easily go astray, and where I am further handicapped by my limited experience of things Chinese and by my inability to converse with the people of the country or to read the newspapers. It is therefore with great diffidence that I venture to write on this subject. Mr. Little, on the contrary, speaks the language, mixes with the people, travels widely, and has good opportunities for judging, but I was gratified to find that Sir John Jordan, with whom I discussed Mr. Little's memorandum before his departure for England, shared my opinion that it conveyed an altogether exaggerated impression of the state of things in China, bad as that state undoubtedly is, and that when Mr. Little speaks of "violent and bloody outbreaks against foreigners" as being imminent, he is unduly pessimistic.

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