Tientsin British Committee of Information.
MEMORANDUM NO. 27.
The Abolition of Extraterritoriality.
HOW THE LAW IS ADMINISTERED IN CHINA.
The National Government of China, according to the repeated statements of its Ministers at Nanking, is determined to bring about the abolition of extraterritoriality by the end of 1929. Its propagan- dists. at home and abroad, argue that its modern Courts and modern prisons, and its new Legal Codes justify the demand for the immediate and unconditional abolition of Consular jurisdiction.
There are some Modern Courts and prisons, but even in Shanghai, where these Courts function in the full glare of publicity, the judiciary are under political control. The Civil Code has not yet been completed and the revised Criminal Code is a dead letter where the accused are members of the Kuomintang, or are able to enlist the support of that Party. The two leading articles from the Peking & Tientsin Times of July 5 and 6. 1929, which are reproduced below deal with an incident which may not be of great importance in itself, but which is typical of what is going on throughout the Country, and which gains additional signi- ficance from the fact that it occurred in Peking while the President of the National Government himself was in that City. A report on the incident by the Director of the Joint Military and Police Office is added.
UNBRIDLED LAWLESSNESS.
[Reprinted from the Peking & Tientsin Times, of July 5, 1929.]
It would surely be impossible to find a parallel in any other country in the world for what has recently occurred in Peking in connection with the attempt to continue the anti-Japanese boycott.
Some days ago a consignment of 675 reams of Japanese paper was sent to Peking, consigned to the Garrison Head- quarters, for the use of a certain Shansi newspaper office in the Capital. Before it left Tientsin the con- signees obligingly tendered what is euphoniously described as a "registration fee" to the local Boycott Committee. But when the cargo reached its destination it was seized by the pickets of the Peking Boycott Committee and carried off to their headquarters. Representatives of the military and the police called at the Committee's offices to request the release of the cargo, and were rebuffed. They were followed by the Mayor of Peking, who added his personal plea for the release of the paper, and was curtly informed that his request could not be granted. The spectacle of the Mayor of a great City proceeding in person to the headquarters of an illegal organization to plead for the release of cargo illegally seized, could not occur in
any other country.
On the day following the Mayor's visit twenty soldiers were sent to the Boycott Committee's Head- quarters to remove the cargo, which they did, delivering it to the offices of the Min Yen Pao. This action enraged the Boycott Committee, which, three days later, despatched twenty pickets to the offices of the newspaper and recovered possession of some of the bales of paper. Police appeared while the cargo was being removed, and took two of the pickets into custody. The arrest of these ruffians was followed by an "indignation meeting" in which various other "popular associations" were invited to participate. This meet- ing appointed a delegation to call upon General Chiang Kai-shek and enlist his support. General Chiang referred them to one of his subordinates, to whom they related their "grievance", and they also succeeded in waylaying General Shang Chen (Governor of the Province) who is reported to have been weak enough to promise to punish those responsible for the arrests, if it should prove that they had been shielding parties guilty of importing Japanese goods! The whole Boycott organization made an attempt to see General Chiang Kai-shek later in the day, but were referred by an A.D.C. to the Municipal Government or the District Kuomintang. They left the Hotel in a state of great indignation, breathing threats against Gereral Chiang. On the following day (Wednesday) the Boycott Association again assembled outside the Hotel de Pekin, and demanded an interview with General Chiang Kai-shek. They failed to gain admittance, so
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