CO129-491 - Public Offices - 1925 — Page 160

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

CHINA.

CONFIDENTIAL.

[F 5802/835/10]

No. 1.

[December 1. 1925.]

SECTION 1.

Sir,

Sir Austen Chamberlain to Judge Sir Skinner Turner.

Foreign Office, December 1, 1925.

I HAVE to inform you that you have been appointed British member of the International Commission which is to assemble at Shanghai on the 1th December next to enquire into the question of extra-territoriality in China in accordance with the terms of the resolution adopted at the Washington Conference on the 10th December, 1921, which will be found in the annex to this despatch,

2. There is a marked consensus of opinion among all who have studied the subject that, although China has made progress in the task of codifying her laws, training a judiciary and setting up a system of courts to administer the new laws, conditions are still not such as to justify abandonment of the vital principle that a British subject in China must be tried in the courts and by the law of his own country. It is very unlikely that the commission, after studying the question on the spot, will come to any different conclusion. His Majesty's Government, while holding to this vital principle, nevertheless anticipate that a time will come when the existing objections to the abolition of extra-territoriality will be greatly lessened, if not altogether removed. It is their earnest hope that the commission will find it practicable to recommend proposals which, if adopted by China, would materially assist her to attain this goal by gradual stages.

3. For this purpose the commission will no doubt investigate the constitution and the working of the Chinese courts of justice and the Chinese judicial system, enumerate and 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 China 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 Govern ment do not desire that their labours should be limited to this field; nor would the terms of the resolution (see annex) justify such a limitation. It seems probable that the commission will think that the system of extra-territoriality, as practised in China to-day, presents certain features of which the modification need not necessarily be made entirely dependent upon the satisfactory evolution of the Chinese judicial system. In that event, 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 respects or, if the features in question can be correctly described 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 extra-territoriality for its own sake, are anxious that the encroachments upon China's sovereign rights inevitably involved in any extra-territorial system should as soon as possible be reduced, as and when circumstances perniit, to the minimum consistent with security for the life, property and legitimate enterprises of foreign subjects in China.

5. You should therefore endeavour to secure that recommendations are submitted by the commission under the three following heads :-

--

(1.) Recommendations as to the steps to be taken for the improvement of the Chinese judicial system, and as to the conditions which, when they have been fulfilled on the part of China, would justify the complete transference to Chinese courts of the jurisdiction over foreigners at present exercised by foreign courts.

It is unfortunately to be anticipated that, among these conditions, are some which can only be gradually fulfilled for instance, the assumption by a central Chinese Government of responsibility for the administration of justice all over the country. The commission will therefore, it is hoped, also be able to make-

(2.) Recommendations as to the particular portions of the jurisdiction at present exercised by foreign courts which, without weakening the protection 3178-1 [13875]

156