64
Peking Government to the Superintendents of Customs
at each treaty-port prescribing that, though Customs
assessors might be used, the Customs machinery would
not be used for collecting the new surtaxes (Peking
telegram to Foreign Office No. 310 of the 19th
February).
69. Therefore, the net result of the tragically misconceived effort made by His Majesty's Government
to preserve the integrity of the Chinese Maritime Customs by insisting that the new illegal surtaxes
should be collected by the Customs has been to show
very clearly that the Customs' administration could
only be saved from disruption if its machinery were
not used for such collection. Moreover, the effect
of the declaration made by His Majesty's Government advocating the unconditional grant of the washington
surtaxes throughout China has been to dissociate
British policy in China, from that of other Treaty
and
A
Powers, notably Japan, to increase the enmity towards
us of the Nationalist Government in southern China,
without conciliating the War Lords of northern China. Lastly the decision of His Majesty's Goverment to acquiesce tacitly in the execution of the illegal surtaxes has brought upon us the suspicion that we brought off an anti-ritish boycott at the expense of our foreign commercial rivals and has earned for us nothing but contempt from the Chinese Nationalists, who regard the surrender as a further proof of our impotence and freely talk of us as "the Paper Tiger". There was, I still think, only one way in which we could have saved the situation, namely by a show of
force
174
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