CO129-491 - Public Offices - 1925 — Page 124

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analyse their defects, and make suggestions as to their improvement and recommendations as to the conditions of which the fulfilment will be necessary on the part of Chine before foreigners can be subjected to the jurisdiction of Chinese courts.

4. But, while this will be the Commission's main duty, His Majesty's Government do not desire that their labours should be limited to this field; nor would the teras of the resolution (800 Anpox) justify such a limitation. It seems probable that the Commission will think that the system of exterritoriality, as practised in China to-day, presents certain features of which the modification need not necessarily be made entirely dependent upon the satis- factory evolution of the Chinese judicial system.

If 90,

it would be a disappointment to His Majesty's Government if the Commission should fail to make recommendations either for the modification of the existing system in those res- pects, or, if the features in question can be correctly des- cribed as abuses, for their early elimination. It would be a disappointment because His Majesty's Government, so far from being attached to the existing system of exterritorial- ity for its own sake, are anxious that the encroachments upon China's sovereign rights inevitably involved in any extraterritorial system should as soon as possible te re- duced, as and when circumstances permit, to the minimum con- sistent with guaranteeing security for the life, property and legitimate business and other enterprises of foreign

subjects residing and trading in China.

5. You should therefore endeavour to secure that re-

commendations are submitted by the Commission under the three

following heads:

(1)...